Throughout the baseball season, you’ll hear people say things like “could this be the biggest series of the year?  “Could this series make or break them?”  Usually, I tend to snort at those kind of comments.  It’s a long baseball season and anything can happen, including injuries, freak losing streaks, freak winning streaks, or perhaps even trading your “ace” and your opening day shortstop.  The clock is ticking though, and just about a month remains in the 2014 season.  This may just not be the Indians’ year, but if they’re going to make a push for the division or the wild card, it will depend on their performance over the next seven games.  It’s one of those opportunities where their fate is in their own hands.  If they hope to gain ground on the Tigers and Royals, they need to come up big over the next two series.  (Yes, I know I’m Captain Obvious in stating this, but it may be their last chance to really gain ground before it’s too late).

I’ve found the 2014 Indians extremely frustrating at times, primarily due to their overall sloppy performance in the field, and an offense that can put up 10 runs one game, and then get shut out for the next three.  This team leads all of baseball in errors, and there are points where I’ve thought to myself “I’ve seen middle school teams with better fundamentals.”  They can’t play “let’s spike the ball into the ground and watch Mike Moustakas run all of the bases” and hope to win any of these games.  The often inconsistent starting pitching needs to actually be somewhat consistent.  And the offense needs to get hits, and then actually get those runners to cross home plate.  (Which sounds pretty simple, but is much easier said than done).

Despite my criticisms, I’ve been somewhat impressed with the Indians in some ways.  This is a team that’s been held together by duct tape and chewing gum at times this season, and has continued to win games with a lineup that is often composed of at least four people that weren’t even on the opening day roster.  They traded their supposed ace (even though he certainly didn’t pitch like an ace this year) and their opening day shortstop, and they’ve managed to stay around or slightly above the .500 mark.  For much of the season, the number two through five spots in the rotation have been like a perverse game of musical chairs; whenever the music stops, someone gets sent to Columbus to try and “find themselves.”

I’m not really expecting the Indians to make the playoffs this season, or even necessarily come dangerously close to making the playoffs.  At the same time, who knows?  This has been a weird team and a weird season.  Detroit hasn’t looked very good, and has major issues in the bullpen and even in the rotation.  The Royals have been red hot lately, but they’ve had their low points this season as well.  Nobody looks “unstoppable” this year, so it’s not like you can necessarily rule out the Indians going on some weird run over the next week (or even the next month).  It’s been a very strange season, and I don’t expect this final month to be any different!

3 Comments

  • Luis says:

    Looks like its raining…good thing they already played 5 inn.

  • Garrett Kohinke says:

    Stephanie Liscio, I expect the Indians to make the playoffs this year because their pitching has been better lately and they haven’t made as much errors as they did in the beginning of the season. If the pitching can stay where it is and we can win 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 4 I think we have a shot. We are a second half team anyway. I agree with most of your article other than that. I thought it was a well written article.

    • Stephanie Liscio says:

      Every time I give the Indians credit, or say “they’re going to do it!” I swear that they start playing terrible. So I’m going to hang tight on the negativity for now, hoping that they’ll prove me wrong. 😉