Zach McAllister had an okay outing on Wednesday’s match-up against the White Sox. He went 5.2 innings, gave up 3 earned runs, 5 walks, and had 4 strikeouts. That’s too many walks and not enough strikeouts, but the Tribe’s defense managed to prevent the run total from being higher. (Especially a fantastic diving catch by Jason Kipnis in the 2nd that otherwise would have been a Paul Konerko single.) So yeah, giving up 3 runs isn’t great, but it isn’t absolutely wretched either. It’s just okay.
But we need better than okay, especially when the offense is anemic and the opposing pitcher, in this case Jose Quintana, holds us to only 2 runs. Quintana has a 1.48 ERA against the Indians. When you’re facing a pitcher who just seems to have your team’s collective number, you can’t make mistakes. And today, McAllister did. Not too many mistakes, but enough for Alex Rios to hit a two-run dinger off him in the 5th.
Ryan Raburn made a rally-killing mistake in the mistake in the 4th when he came up with one out and the bases loaded. You could see as he came up to bat that he was twitchy and overly excited. He went after the first pitch and grounded into a double play to end the inning. Losing 3-2 to the White Sox isn’t horrible, you could even say it’s a respectable loss, but we need more than respectable.
McAllister has truly developed as a pitcher since we first brought him up in 2011. He started this season as our #4 starter, but he’s done much better than our #2 and #3 pitchers. With Jimenez being, you know, the Jimenez of 2013 and not the Jimenez of 2010, and Myers on the 15-day DL, we need McAllister to step up. Justin Masterson can’t pitch every day (oh would that he could). It’s time for McAllister to be more than just okay.
Raburn robbed me of being able to scream, “BRING ME THE FORLORN TEARS OF HAWK HARRELSON!!!!”
:-/
While overshadowed by the travails of the rotation – the Indians offense has been maddening at times. So far, it’s been feast or famine, all or nothing.
I can’t wait for Bourn to get back, and for Kipnis and Cabrera to get rolling. The top of the lineup has killed the Tribe’s ability to be consistent offensively.
For the next month or so, the Indians need to do a lot better than “okay” if they’re going to win some games. Of the next 34 games in April & May, only 8 are against teams that currently have a losing record, with 26 games against winning teams. 8 of those games are against first place teams, 12 against second place teams. Forget about the “June swoon” – I think we’ll know how good this team really is before June rolls around.
Why is a backup utility infielder batting 5th anyway?
While I agree it wasn’t the best effort by McAllister, the offense needs to score more than 2 runs. Holding a team to 3 on the road should give you a decent chance to win. Quintana is tough, but not getting anything out of the bases loaded and one out situation killed them. I’ll take the team givung up 3 runs per nine innings for the rest of the season!
I would have choked out Raburn yesterday if I had the chance – a bases loaded first pitch GIDP, a man on third first pitch pop out, and then on top of those two, watching strike 3 sail by when we’re only down 1 in the 9th?
Raburn has already started 6th games in RF this season – this is not good. Raburn is one of those players best seen in small doses. There’s really no good explanation for playing anyone other than Swisher in RF when Stubbs is out/in CF.