Remember last week when the Indians offense was inept, the division lead was slipping away and dramatic overreactions were rife on #IndiansTwitter?

Feels like a long time ago doesn’t it?

After a 10-4 victory on Thursday, the Indians have rattled off six straight wins since returning home and have an opportunity to sweep the home stand on Thursday afternoon against the Angels.

Wednesday’s victory was another offensive explosion, with the Tribe roughing up the Angels bullpen for seven runs in the 8th inning. They’ve now scored 50 runs on the home stand, immediately following a six-game road trip in which they scored just 16 times.

Other thoughts on notes from the game….

Carlos Carrasco gave up two runs in just over six innings pitched. He didn’t have his dominant stuff, but he got the job done and was able to hand the game over to Shaw and Miller, before Otero came on to close out the game once it got out of hand. It was encouraging to see Carrasco have success when he clearly didn’t have his best stuff, because those types of games sometimes get out of hand for him.

Bradley Zimmer went 2-4 with a home run and double, and looks like he might be starting to heat up. Realistically, he will likely continue to be streaky throughout his rookie year, but it’s obviously a great sign that he’s already capable of catching fire and having these hot stretches. On the current home stand Zimmer is batting .409 with a 1.280 OPS.

Bryan Shaw was booed while entering the game tonight, because apparently there’s a disturbingly large portion of the fan base that lacks basic common baseball sense. The scoreless inning dropped Shaw’s career ERA to 2.99—that’s pretty damn good. And when pitching in a tie game or with a lead of one or two runs, Shaw has a 2.61 ERA this season. If you’re booing Shaw or complaining about him on Twitter, you’re embarrassing yourself.

5 Comments

  • Travis Herr says:

    Hey Ryan, can you please provide the source for stats on Shaw? I only ask because when I researched this myself just last week I came across a much different picture. Wondering if maybe my sources are not as clear.

    • ryanmccrystal says:

      that specific stat was done manually through baseball-ref play index. I prefer it to leverage index stats because it uses a larger sample size. Shaw only has 8.2 IP in high lev situations, but 20.1 IP in the split I used. Leverage also cherry picks data with runners on base – but if you prevent runners from reaching, you can avoid or get yourself out of high lev situations, which Shaw has done multiple times this year.

      • Travis Herr says:

        Honestly not trying to boast or come anything close to saying “I told you so” but after tonight’s game can you start to see why fans dislike Shaw? To lay it out in numbers:

        I did the math and Shaw has give up 6 runs in 10.2 innings in the month of July for an ERA of 5.06. This doesn’t even include the inherited runners he has allowed to score which doesn’t affect his ERA (which is 8 in 10.2 innings). He has 4 strikeouts all of July (a steep decline). I get that sometimes a pitcher has a bad month, but if you look at the whole season he has given up 24 runs (18 earned) in 51 innings. It’s just mind-boggling that Tito keeps relying on him with seemingly better options for pressure situations.

        On a side note: I really do wonder if losing the game in Game 7 of the WS last year has messed with Shaw’s psyche.

        • ryanmccrystal says:

          I did the math and Bryan Shaw has a 2.98 ERA in 5 years with the Indians. So no Travis, I don’t understand why you don’t like Shaw. You’re cherry-picking stats from small sample sizes to justify a nonsensical position.

          • Travis Herr says:

            And you’re using historical stats to try to stick to your position that he is just as good as he once was when he isn’t. Based on your logic we should try hard to field a team with Jose Bautista, Troy Tulowitzki, and Victor Martinez. Could the fact that he is being overused play into his mediocre stats this year? Yea probably. Could he have a bounce back year next year? Sure he’s still young. But you are being delusional especially after another failed performance of his last night if you can’t see that he is not himself right now and why the fans are not happy with him.

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