Over the last two games, Indians starting pitching (Kluber and McAllister) put up this combined line:
15.2 IP, 8 H, 1 ER, 21 K, 3 BB
The Indians are 0-2 in those games.
Yesterday, John Axford gave up an inexcusable home run that cost the Indians the game. Today, he again coughed up a game-winning homer.
Yesterday, I was understandably upset with Axford’s performance. Today, I cannot find the energy to blame the right-hander.
The home run tonight was given up to Twins shortstop Eduardo Escobar, a guy who has 23 combined home runs in his entire 8-year career in the minors and majors. That’s over 3100 plate appearances. Also, the wind tonight was knocking down all sorts of fly balls, so you kind of understand if Axford wanted to make Escobar put the ball in play. If he hit a double, so be it, but you can’t expect a home run.
Anyway, that’s enough about Axford. He bears the loss in this game, but he was not the reason we lost.
The offense is atrocious. It is a mess upon a mess upon a mess. Let me count the ways:
-Nick Swisher has an OPS of under .600 through one month.
-Asdrubal Cabrera isn’t much better at .607.
-Carlos Santana is slugging under .300 (.299).
-Jason Kipnis is hurt.
-2013 supersub Ryan Raburn is barely OPSing .400 (.417, not a typo).
-Mike Aviles, who brings almost nothing of note to the table, continues to get at bats and starts over Jose Ramirez.
It’s a mess, and to be honest, it doesn’t figure to get better.
That’s all I have tonight — this game was not really watchable, and the Indians never really threatened. Axford will be the talk of the town tonight, but we should all be focusing on the disaster of a lineup that hits that field day after day after day.
Sigh…
No magic this year. From the looks of the stadium, most of the fans have already tuned out.
how can you tell? the stadium was empty last year too.
Cabrera and swisher are two gigantic holes in the lineup. I’ve just come to expect 0-8 with 3 or 4 strikeouts between them. sadly they’ll continue to be starters and probably continue to clog up valuable spots in the order. At least Santana can still draw walks. Time to shake this team awake with some more serious lineup changes. Move Santana to leadoff and get swisher batting 7 or 8 where he belongs.
Front office needs to quit playing it safe. This team is a snoozefest and looks lifeless. We need some players and excitement. Enough with the cuddly mascot clubhouse kings.
If Bauer and Aguilar can help, play the. Play Jose Ramirez and get Lindor on the fast track. Give us fans something to have an interest in.
Well, at least the pitching is coming around. The hitting can’t stay this abysmal… Can it?!
I’m just so bummed out over this team. High hopes were crushed when we let Kazmir go. Really would love to have kept him around. For the offense, worse than last year. Why. If this keeps up then we might want to start bringing up the younger players.
Adam, thanks for the pitching line. That really put it in perspective. Two great outings, and neither get the win. BTW, please don’t diss, but what do the hitting lines .XXX/.XXX/.XXX mean? righties/lefties/switch? Sorry for sounding like an idiot.
Typically, the batting slash is AVG/OBP/SLG
I like to just cut the crap and go right to OPS (On Base + Slugging). .700 is decent, .750 is average, and >.800 is pretty good… those are just rough estimates.
Francona needs to light a fire under this team. Maybe he should let them drink beer in the dugout (what got him run out of Boston). He is way to lax with these guys. Cleveland needs a ” NO BS” type of manager. There is absolutely no life in this team. They are all waiting to get traded.
Can Drew Stubbs play 1B? 🙂
Calling all stat-heads: personnel and management issues aside, has there ever been a season in which the overshifts were so prevalent? Looking around the league, offense seems down, and a number of teams are actually doing almost as unexpectedly badly as the Tribe is (though possibly for better reasons–like injuries). It seems like it might be possible that the use of statistics (via overshifting) is getting more sophisticated and widespread, and this might be one factor behind the poor offensive performance.
Not to let anyone off the hook, mind you.
Definately possible, there have been a massive increase in the number of defensive shifts used this year. I can’t verify this, but I imagine it would really hurt guys like Santana, who can get very pull happy. Defenses just put 3 guys on the right side and let him hit it right at them.
I can never figure out why they don’t slap a bunt down the 3rd base side. Practice it until you can do it consistently and then they can’t put the shift on you.