The Indians close out their series with the Mariners this afternoon as they face Seattle’s ace, Felix Hernandez.  The Indians have recalled T.J. House for this afternoon’s start; he replaces Justin Masterson, who will skip his scheduled start due to his bum knee.  House has never faced the Mariners in his career, while the Indians have respectable numbers against Hernandez throughout his career.   Hernandez has a 3.25 ERA against the Indians, while they’ve hit .259/.325/.397.  Against all of MLB, Hernandez has a 3.14 ERA and batters have hit .242/.298/.352.  So technically, the Indians have been “above-average” against him, although let’s be fair, against Hernandez I’ll consider a performance above the Mendoza line as respectable.  In 2013, the Indians hit .333/.385/.625 against Hernandez while he had a 9.00 ERA against the Tribe.  It was only based off of one game, but they have the second best numbers in baseball off of King Felix last season.  The Rangers had the best numbers, which is saying something with their increased total of plate appearances against him.

I noticed a lot of discussion recently about Lonnie Chisenhall’s attempt to get the requisite number of at-bats in order to qualify for the batting title.  In some cases, where were critiques about the fact that the Indians stuck Carlos Santana at third, rather than providing that playing time to Chisenhall.  With Santana’s improved numbers recently, I wanted to see if his move away from third base helped him.  It could be a coincidence in some ways; Santana was bound to start playing better and drift closer to his career norms.  This just happened to coincide with Chisenhall’s incredible season and the fact that the Indians wanted to try and find him as many at-bats as possible, which means less time for Santana at 3B.  Just look at Santana’s month by month breakdown:

April – .151/.313/.280 (.593 OPS) with 3 home runs

May – .169/.343/.325 (.668 OPS) with 3 home runs

June – .329/.443/.630 (1.073 OPS) with 6 home runs

Although there are some pretty dramatic shifts when you look at Santana’s position by position breakdown.  You do have to consider the fact that Nick Swisher’s June swoon means that Santana gets more games at 1B.  This could also just be a coincidence with the strong June numbers.

As C – .088/.326/.118 (.444 OPS) with 0 home runs (11 games, 46 plate appearances)

As 1B – .360/.500/.707 (1.207 OPS) with 7 home runs (22 games, 96 plate appearances)

As 3B – .129/.283/.226 (.509 OPS) with 2 home runs (26 games, 113 plate appearances)

As DH – .213/.302/.447 (.749 OPS) with three home runs (13 games, 53 plate appearances)

So as I mentioned above, this could be in correlation with the fact that Santana has gotten hot in June, and happened to move positions due to the performance of two of his teammates.  Or perhaps Santana has been playing better because he isn’t stuck at 3B anymore, and playing that position was distracting him and taking most of his attention.  I just thought it would be interesting to point out some of the contrasts.

 

Lineups:

Indians:

Michael Bourn, CF

Jason Kipnis, 2B

Michael Brantley, LF

Carlos Santana, DH

Lonnie Chisenhall, 3B

David Murphy, RF

Nick Swisher, 1B

George Kottaras, C

Mike Aviles, SS

 

Mariners:

Willie Bloomquist, SS

Michael Saunders, CF

Robinson Cano, 2B

Kyle Seager, 3B

Mike Zunino, C

Logan Morrison, 1B

Stefen Romero, RF

John Buck, DH

Cole Gillespie, LF

2 Comments

  • Gvl Steve says:

    Damn Swisher. I thought Francona said he was going to be the DH from now on with Santana at 1st. Is this another beer and chicken moment? Seven errors in 49 games at 1st base. Jesus.

  • SeattleStu says:

    way to hustle back to first on that liner, chiz….go grab some beer and chicken next to swish.