“WELP: The Story of the 2015 Cleveland Indians.”
Aside from a week-long uptick of strong offense and takes on the validity of “addition by subtraction” trades, the Indians’ season has been largely defined by their superlative starting pitching and the complete lack of clutch hitting. Today was more of that same song and dance.
Carlos Carrasco (7 INN/6 H/2 R/7 SO/3 BB) was his usual self, but the Indians were rendered to looking mostly foolish against Tommy Milone (5 INN/3 H/1 R/3 SO/3 BB) and company, who played yo-yo with the Tribe bats all day with off-speed pitches. The big moment of the game was when Yan Gomes came to the plate with the bases loaded in the fifth inning. The Twins, knowing that Gomes had been struggling with curveballs down all weekend, stayed true to that form. So, instead of being stupid (more on that in a minute), Milone bounced the curve, realizing that Gomes just would not be able to help himself.
From that point on, the Indians seemed to just take the rest of the day off, until Zach McAllister felt like he’d spice up the festivities in the eighth inning by spraying all sorts of flammable liquids EVERY-FREAKIN’-WHERE.
This is a typical Zach McAllister appearance: FASTBALLFASTBALLFASTBALLFASTBALL–(“Hey, maybe I should try something off-spee..naaaaaaaaah…”)–FASTBALLFASTBALLFASTBALLFASTBALLFASTBALL–BOOM!!!!! (“Okay, now I’ll try a curveball.”) Suffice to say, it feels like his ERA should be a lot higher than the very respectable 3.15 it now sits at.
Yeah, with the way the Indians weren’t likely to take advantage no matter what the score was today, but much like Bryan Shaw’s crippler last night, McAllister’s gift to Trevor Plouffe seemed to deflate any hope for a ninth inning rally. And the Twins’ new “Everyday Eddies” (that’s an Eddie Guardado reference for you youngins), Rosario and Nunez, combined to cement yet another day of frustration and futility for the Tribe. And it may not get easier, as they head to Boston to face a galvanized Red Sox, who are playing for more than just professional pride now.
Sure felt like the Indians could’ve done better than they did after Kluber’s magnificence on Friday, but I guess we should stop trying to figure out this team of 2015.
I have no statistical evidence to back this up, but it feels like lately that the Indians win every series opener, and then lose the rest to lose the series.
Man has this been a trying year for we Tribe fans.
well, I guess that is a small improvement over the earlier strategy: lose the opener, then lose the rest!