Lonnie Chisenhall clobbers a three-run homer in the bottom of the 5th inning in the Indians’ 12-5 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Even though Chisenhall didn’t enter the game as a pinch hitter until the 5th, he had 5 RBI.

 

 

There was a time several years ago when the Indians couldn’t win a day game to save their lives, particularly the noon getaway day games.  The offense was non-existent, and the pitching was hit or miss (literally).  My frustration boiled over in this old post from 2012, as I was tired of seeing the Indians inability to win during day games.  I can’t count how many times I’d have tickets for Saturday and Sunday, and I could pretty much count on a loss on the Sundays.

Even though that hasn’t been the case for quite some time, for some reason it’s stuck with me.  Every time there is a day game (particularly a weekday getaway game) I automatically think “oh boy, here we go.”  However, this year in particular, the Indians have performed well in home day games, often managing to salvage the final game of what has been an otherwise lackluster series.  Thursday afternoon was no different, as the bats came to life and the Indians beat the Dodgers 12-5.

Counting Thursday’s game, the Indians have played 8 home games this year with 12 p.m. or 1 p.m. start times.  In those games they are 6-2 and have outscored their opponents 59-26.  They scored 8+ runs in 5 of those 8 games.  There were several times where the Indians lost the first two games of a series, and then salvaged the final day game – on Sunday May 14 against the Twins, on May 28 against the Royals, and today against the Dodgers.  Despite the Indians’ struggles this year, they’ve managed to maintain their streak of avoiding more than 3 straight losses thus far.

Even though Josh Tomlin wasn’t exactly untouchable today, it was a great improvement over his last start against the White Sox.  He allowed 4 ER on 7 hits over the course of 5 innings, striking out 7 and walking 2.  He gave up a couple of home runs (as I feared) and had a rough time in the fifth inning when he gave up back-to-back doubles, followed by a 2-run home run.  All of this happened with nobody out, so it looked as if this could get bad quickly…the Indians’ early 5-1 lead was reduced to a 5-4 lead.  But Tomlin managed to strike out the next two batters, and induced a ground ball for the final out of the inning.

And speaking of the offense, things went the Indians’ way right off the bat this afternoon.  Francisco Lindor, Daniel Robertson, and Jose Ramirez hit back-to-back-to-back singles to help the Indians out to an early 1-0 lead.  Rich Hill hit Edwin Encarnacion with a pitch to load the bases, and later walked in a run when he gave a free pass to Roberto Perez with the bases still loaded.  A Bradley Zimmer single made it 3-0.  The Indians just kept adding on after that, with home runs from Edwin Encarnacion, Lonnie Chisenhall, and Erik Gonzalez (the latter’s first major league home run).  Chisenhall didn’t even enter the game until the fifth inning, when he pinch hit for Austin Jackson and hit a three-run homer. (Rich Hill was out of the game by then and Terry Francona went to a lefty against the right-handed Ross Stripling).  Chisenhall managed to get 5 RBI today, despite the fact that he only played for half of the game.  I found myself thinking “huh” when I saw that Daniel Robertson was batting second, but he went 2-for-5 and scored.

Overall, the Indians are hitting .272/.341/.443 during day games, compared to .229/.306/.405 during night games.

The Tribe has a big week and half coming up, where they will face the Minnesota Twins 7 times over that time frame.  Oddly, both of these teams have played better on the road this year, with the Twins 14-20 at home and 20-9 on the road, while the Indians are 15-17 at home and 17-14 on the road.  The first four against the Twins will be at Target Field, so you just have to hope that pattern continues.  The Indians are just one game above .500 and have had a pretty lackluster season so far, but they’re lucky in the sense that the rest of the AL Central has been just as mediocre.  In fact, the Indians are the only team in the Central with a positive run differential right now.  The Tribe can step up and take charge of the division with a good showing against the Twins this weekend, or they can let the Twins pad their current two game lead.

The best metaphor I can think of for the 2017 Cleveland Indians so far is a pain-in-the-butt, unreliable lawn mower.  You know the kind – you have trouble starting it and when you finally get it running it works well for like five minutes before it dies again.  Then you sigh, and go through starting it all over again repeatedly pulling the cord trying to get it to run evenly.  It sputters and runs well for a few minutes and you think “here we go…I’m finally going to be able to finish mowing the lawn” before it dies again.

With the Indians, you find yourself thinking “okay, this was what they finally needed to get rolling and break out of their funk” before they sputter and return to their old ways.  Over and over you wonder “this is when everything will start to click, just like it did last June,” but nope…that good offensive performance is followed by a game where they only manage 4 hits.  Encarnacion is starting to heat up, but for every player that gets hot it seems like 3 or 4 others suddenly turn ice cold.  It’s just tough to get everyone all clicking at the same time.

By game 63 last year, the Indians had yet to start their 14-game win streak and were 35-28.  So at this point they’re only three games behind where they were last year at this time.  And granted, you can’t expect to rattle off a 14-game win streak every year, but even without that streak it’s not like they would’ve gone 0-14 during that stretch.  (I always see people say things like “well, remove those 14 wins and…” but maybe more realistically remove 6 or 7 wins).  They don’t even really need a 14-game streak yet; they just need to have a good week and a half against the Twins.  The Indians did so well against the teams in their division in 2016 (49-26 overall) but are just 15-15 so far this year against the rest of the Central.  If they can improve upon that record, the rest could end up falling into place.

 

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