On Friday night, Orioles third baseman Chris Davis struck out four times. It was the 8th time this season the Indians have forced a player into a Golden Sombrero and the 22nd time over the past two seasons. To put that into perspective, from 2006 through 2012 it happened just 21 times.
Davis’ Golden Sombrero was especially unique, however, because all four strikeouts came against Corey Kluber. Dating back to 1990, it’s just the fourth time an Indians pitcher has struck out the same batter four times in a game.
Davis also become the first Orioles player with a Golden Sombrero against the Tribe since Mike Devereaux in 1989. Devereaux’s K’s came against John Farrell and Steve Olin.
From August 9 through August 16, the Indians pitching staff held their opponents to two or fewer runs in six straight games, a feat they hadn’t accomplished since 1991. The 2014 Tribe accomplished the feat with just four different starting pitchers thanks to some days off and rainouts (having Kluber go twice certainly helped), but the 1991 Indians amazingly accomplished the feat with six different starters. In order, the starters were Doug Jones, Charles Nagy, Dave Otto, Greg Swindell, Shawn Hillegas and Eric King.
Kluber recently recorded his eight 10-K game of the season, the most by an Indians pitcher since Dennis Eckersley in 1976. If he reaches 10 strikeouts again, he’ll be the first to nine such games since Sam McDowell had 10 in 1970.
Five of Kluber’s 10-strikeout games have come in Progressive Field, a single-season record for the stadium. In fact, entering this season only Justin Masterson, Bartolo Colon and CC Sabathia had reached five 10-K games in their career at Progressive Field.
Zach Walters belted his first home run a Tribe uniform in walk-off fashion against the Diamondbacks. Surprisingly, this has been a fairly common occurrence in recent years. Dating back to 2000, Cord Phelps, Ben Francisco, Josh Bard and Bill Selby have also hit walk-offs as their first Tribe home run.
Lonnie Chisenhall‘s dreadful second half continues, as he’s batting just .165 since the All-Star Break. Over the past 30 seasons, only Lou Marson‘s .163 average in 2012 has been worse than Chisenhall’s current mark in the second half.
Once again, the Indians will have to go into the offseason having serious doubts about who should man third base. Frustrating. (Giovanni Urshela anyone?)
Got this from today’s Plain Dealer:
“On the other side of the diamond, Giovanny Urshela
has continued to impress since his early-season promotion from Akron.
The 6-0, 197-pound third baseman is hitting .280 with Columbus, and this
is with a recent 10-game downturn (9 of 37). Urshela, 22, has still
been very productive hitting 18 homers this season between Akron and
Columbus (5/13) with 83 RBI (19/64).
The 2008 undrafted free agent from Colombia has an impressive .980 fielding percentage with the Clippers.”
lonnie had better learn to catch the ball or get that stroke back. 1 out of 2 is bad, but not having either ability is terminal.