Ho hum, another losing effort.
On Friday night, the Indians lost 3-2 to a superior baseball team in the Seattle Mariners. Yes, I mean that: the Mariners are a better team than the Indians.
The Mariners, boasting a lineup of Robinson Cano and 8 guys you’ve probably never heard of, are now 43-37 on the season, while the Indians are headed in the opposite direction at 38-41.
How did the Indians lose? Well, it’s a simple recipe really: Trevor Bauer allowed 11 total baserunners in 6.1 innings (3 runs), and the Indians offense never really got going. It was a quality start from Bauer and a worthy effort — the kid is not an ace yet, but he is rarely putrid on the mound. He didn’t have lights out stuff, but there’s nothing to be ashamed of about a 6.1 IP, 3 ER effort.
No, this loss falls squarely on the shoulders of the Cleveland offense, who failed to mount any sort of a sustained attack against Mariners starter Chris Young and the surprisingly decent bullpen brigade of the great Northwest. Of the team’s 7 hits, 3 went to Michael Bourn and 2 went to Jason Kipnis (who seems to be starting one of his patented offensive tears, with 7 hits now on this 3 game road trip). It is exceedingly hard to string hits together when your entire offense comes from one or two guys.
Nick Swisher did take a walk and hit a nice single in the 9th inning, but his average is still below .200, so he still has a long way to go to respectability.
Vinnie Pestano has been very respectable since returning to the major league roster last week — he helped get the team out of a jam in the bottom of the 8th inning that could have seen the score spiral out of control.
David Murphy is now 1 for his last 39 (I believe) — and as his slump reaches Mark Reynoldsian levels the goodwill he established with a torrid April is quickly fading.
At some point the Indians need to put a good effort together for multiple games at a time. We have seen some crazy stuff in Cleveland over the past year and a half, but I fear this team is digging itself into a hole that it won’t be able to pull its way out of. The Indians absolutely have to finish this road trip strong against a shockingly decent Seattle team and a dangerous Dodgers team.
Tomorrow’s game is at 10:10pm EST, where Josh Tomlin will square off against some guy you haven’t heard of (Roenis Elias, who has a 7-4 record on this, his rookie season).
We signed David Murphy when we could have had Nelson Cruz. That’s sobering. With Cruz and Kazmir we’d probably be in 1st place right now.
The GM’s #1 priority in July should be to find a way to move some of these terrible contracts. Three quarters of the payroll (almost $60MM) is being spent on just six guys: Swisher ($15MM), Bourn ($13.5MM), Cabrera ($10MM), Murphy ($5.5MM), Masterson ($9.8MM) and Axford ($4.5MM). If any of them go on a hot streak in July, it’s time to sell to any contender that thinks they can use them. Swisher is untradeable but the others are not.
Murphy/Cruz is a tough comparison to make. Cruz is making $8M this year and Murphy is making $5.5M, so it looks like the Indians could have spent an extra $2.5M for a huge upgrade. But it’s not that simple when you consider the Indians would have lost their 1st round pick (something they value greatly as a small market team). On top of that, Cruz’s price came down dramatically because no one wanted to give up the draft pick.. the Rangers originally offered him $14.1M but he turned it down.
So when the Indians signed Murphy, Cruz likely wasn’t even on their radar screen as a possibility.
Yeah, you’re right. I forgot about the draft pick compensation issue with Cruz. I thought it was only Kendrys Morales and Stephen Drew that had the draft comp tied to them. And as I remember, the Indians grabbed Murphy right at the very beginning of the free agent signing period, before the market was really set. Hopefully this June swoon for Murphy is just a short-term slump and not a continuation of last year’s fall-off. I don’t mind that he doesn’t hit homeruns as long as he’s hitting over .270 and driving in runs in the clutch, but this month has been brutal.