Mama said there would be days like this.

The Indians’ eight-game winning streak ended with a loud thud as the Indians came into Miami and promptly took it on the chin by the tidy score of 10-0.

The star of the game was Jose Fernandez (8 INN/3 H/14 SO/1 BB), who made the Tribe offense look like hungover teeball players. The Marlins’ young star backed up his hype, completely to the point by the time the fifth inning rolled around, the Indians were more than happy to just get the game over with. It’s a nice thing to know that the Indians don’t face this 21 year-old again, presumably, for four years.

But you kind of had the feeling that it just wasn’t the Tribe’s night early on. Asdrubal Cabrera booted a rather routine double play ball that set the tone for the game. Ubaldo Jimenez’ (4 INN/9 H/5 R (2 ER)/4 SO/2 BB) struggles once again appeared on top of the shoddy defense.

Matt Albers would get an ERA raise, as he allowed five runs in the eighth inning.

It was a combination of facing a young phenom, sloppy defense, unfamiliarity with the yard and good, old-fashioned luck for the Marlins that made tonight just one of those nights. A night made worse by both Detroit and Baltimore winning, which dropped the Indians down to three games back in the AL Central and a half-game out of the second Wild Card berth.

The Tribe will attempt to even up the series tomorrow as Zach McAllister faces off against Jacob Turner.

W: Jose Fernandez (8-5); L: Ubaldo Jimenez (8-6)

20 Comments

  • medfest says:

    That is the first time I’ve seen Fernandez pitch………….WOW.

    Forget Matt Harvey, this guy has some serious……..stuff!
    I’m talking Dwight Gooden stuff.

    Could we trade Cabrera for this guy?
    Please?
    Pretty please?

  • Andy says:

    It’s time to get Danny Salazar another start. It is getting really tough to watch Ubaldo struggle through 5 (maybe) innings when we have a kid who throws 99 and has only walked 14 in 60 innings (to go with 78k’s).

    • Sean Porter says:

      The problem with Salazar is that he’s already pitched more innings in ’13 than he has ever pitched, two years removed from Tommy John surgery. I think its more likely that he’ll be shut down soon than for him to pitch again in a Tribe uniform.

      • Sean Porter says:

        Correction: Salazar threw for over 100+ innings in ’09, which he hasn’t quite approached this season. I still would guess that the Indians are going to be very careful with him though, possibly shutting him down sooner than later…

        Here’s his career stats in the minors. His numbers post-TJ surgery are ridiculous:

        http://www.baseballamerica.com/statistics/players/cards/42270

      • Weston says:

        that sounds terribly irresponsible to me, from a coaching and management perspective. wouldn’t they have the sense to plan ahead, knowing he would likely be needed, if only for a few more starts?

        • Sean Porter says:

          The Indians organization should have planned ahead his elbow needing Tommy John surgery, so they could have gotten a few more starts out of him in the majors in 2013?

          I’m not even beginning to understand the logic in this.

          • Weston says:

            Are you kidding me? That’s not at all what I implied; it’s not like his surgery just happened. If they have known all along this season that he would have to be shut down soon, then it was irresponsible for him to have pitched so much already. He could be contributing now. This isn’t hard to understand, it has nothing to do with his surgery, which is remote at this point, which I did not even mention, so I really don’t understand the confusion.

    • Swift says:

      To be a little fair to Ubaldo, he should have gotten out of the first with no runs on about 10 pitches.

      • Weston says:

        Yes but he also has a little bit of responsibly to battle out of it as well…he’s such a headcase that if one thing goes wrong it snowballs into a disaster

  • Brokenbones says:

    Far be it for me to second guess Tito (best Tribe coach since Grover) but his day-in, day-out lineup puzzles me. As it stands now (and has been for some time), the fizzling (not sizzling) stats of Reynolds, Stubbs, Giambi, and Chisenhall and the “who is going to show up tonight?” performances by Swisher and Acab have handicapped the Indians to a point where they go into games with four dependably good hitters (Bourne, Kipnis, Santana and Brantley), two who-knows (Swisher, Acab) and three dependably weak hitters (pick ’em among Reynolds, Stubbs, Giambi, and Chisenhall). Not much you can do about that overall situation, but what I’m questioning is how Tito lines these commodities up.

    Lately, poor Brantley has drawn the short straw of batting sixth or seventh, thus, one of the better on-base guys gets stranded game after game by the vast wasteland known as the bottom third of our lineup.

    Ignoring the conventional “wisdom” (which is actually the opposite) of not grouping too many lefties or righties together and ignoring what you hired these guys to do (i.e., Reynolds Giambi), why not lead off with Bourne (naturally), “promote” Rayburn (for Stubbs in RF, and if you really need Stubbs’ speed, bat him second as DH and make him bunt his way out of his season-long slump), slide Brantley into the #3 spot, anchor your lineup with Kipnis as clean-up, followed by Rayburn as your “second clean-up” at #5, Santana at sixth, Acab at seventh, Swisher at eighth, and suck it up with either Chisenhall or Reynolds at 9 (yeah, I know: slow toads hitting before our top of the order speed? Check out the stats, very, very, very few times 8, 9, 1, 2 hit in the same inning.)

    Admittedly, if Swisher or Acab return to the hitters they were or are supposed to be you’d have to re-shuffle the deck, but not by much.

    And let’s not quibble about what this lineup would do for our defense – c’mon, we’re not nearly as good as advertised (check it out, we’re in the bottom third of the AL in fielding), so how much more could we be hurt.

    If you really want to get excited, look to next year. With this order you’d only have to go shopping for a DH/3B type, allowing you to concentrate on what every team always needs, which is pitching.

    And one other thing should be abundantly clear to management: sign your young core to long term contracts NOW so that this lineup can stay intact.

    • Kevin Price says:

      In this scenario, all the guys that can steal bases i.e Bourn, Stubbs, Brantley, and Kipnis are all batting 1-4????? I am sorry but I disagree strongly with the above unbalanced batting order.

  • Sean Porter says:

    Weston: Considering Salazar started the season in AA Akron, and in the whole scheme of things was probably not considered a legit prospect to start for the Tribe this year by the front office (considering his age, relative inexperience and injury history), to imply that the Indians organization was “irresponsible” to not plan for a few random late season starts at the major league level is laughable. Or hard to understand. You pick.

    I’m not sure you are aware of this, but major league organizations in general do not like there young pitchers to heavily increase their workload from one year to the next. Salazar pitched roughly 88 innings last year. He’s been healthy this year, and he’s around 100 innings so far. Not sure how a starter could have been “held back” anymore than he already has.

    • Weston says:

      Why was he even brought up to face the white sox then? That refutes your argument right there. He isn’t capable of making a couple more starts?

      • Sean Porter says:

        Let’s see: Trevor Bauer and Carlos Carrasco had recently been atrocious in spot starts. They gave the next guy in line – Salazar – a shot. He did very well.

        The Indians now have their five starters back in the rotation. Why, exactly, would Salazar be needed?

        • Weston says:

          Did you watch Friday night’s game?

          • Sean Porter says:

            You can continue to throw things on the wall and hope they stick concerning this topic Weston, knock yourself out.

            Salazar may or may not be approaching his limit of innings pitched this year. This is just speculation on my part, as is most of my argument, which you took as fact and started throwing a hissy fit over.

            My guess is that he most likely is approaching a shut-down, because he’s already exceeded his innings pitched in ’12. I have no idea if this is true, once again, I’m just speculating. He pitched roughly 90 innings last year, he’s around 100 in ’13. I would GUESS that he would not exceed 120 or so innings.

            Which means, to ME, that the chances he pitches again in Cleveland might be minimal. Perhaps not, since there is talk that he might take Ubaldo’s start Weds night vs Detroit. I don’t know.

            The fact remains: Salazar has averaged less than five innings per start this season, between Akron, Columbus and Cleveland. To state that the Indians management was “irresponsible” by implying that they were reckless in allowing Salazar to rack up his season total of innings is without merit.

          • Weston says:

            Now that Salazar has replaced Ubaldo you can go ahead and admit I was right. I won’t it–or your snotty attitude–against you. You made excellent points and I certainly understand you. I do not think you were wrong; the worst I can accuse you of is being an apologist. But the fact remains, Salazar has replaced Ubaldo, exactly as I was saying needed to happen. Now how do you feel about his limited remaining innings? I feel it was irresponsible to get him that far along, BECAUSE NOW WE NEED HIM. That’s the whole point! Throwing stuff to the wall and seeing what sticks? I think what’s sticking is Salazar. In the majors that is.

  • Sean Porter says:

    Weston:

    Considering I never guaranteed that Salazar wouldn’t make another start with the Tribe, or say that if he did it would be a bad idea, no buddy, I won’t admit anything to you. If you construed my remarks to you as having a “snotty attitude” than I’ll give you this, your perception is quite keen, even if your general reading comprehension skills are not.

    The Indians are grooming Salazar to be a starting pitcher. He’s made 21 starts this season, and apparently at a strict pitch count, which explains his relatively low inning total for the season (Less than 5 innings/start). It was MY speculation, based off what I could see, is that he probably would not rack up that many more innings this year, which lead me to think that he possibly would not be up in Cleveland again. YOU, on the other hand, were already complaining that the Indians organization screwed up and overused him, based on MY speculation that he might be done for the year. Now that he is coming up, in your head, YOU are right. Priceless.

    • Weston says:

      You wanna talk about reading comprehension skills? You’re the one whose off the wall response my original post started this whole fight. My original post was not even about you; it was about the Indians. I did not make a comment on your beliefs or speculations. I did not use your speculations as fodder for argument. You have this delusion of grandeur that I used your ideas about Salazar to form my opinion, as if I even cared enough about your views to comment. It’s well known that Salazar would likely be shut down; I did not get the idea from you. And if this has been the plans of the organization all along, would it not have been prudent to save him for use in this late season push? Do you work for the Indians or something? I don’t understand why you seem so emotionally defensive.

  • Chris Burnham says:

    You two can cool it at any time now.