Written by Steve Buffum

---

There is a maxim in baseball: “Don’t give the other guy extra outs.”  Why not?  Because then the next guy hits a home run and you lose and everyone’s spleen explodes.  My spleen.  I used to love my spleen.  Such a delightful organ.  And now, swollen with bile to the size of a roast turkey, it has deserted me for greener pastures.  In today’s B-List, Buff remains surprisingly calm, perhaps as a result of having been sued by his own spleen.

FINAL	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Blue Jays (16-13)	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	3	5	11	0
Indians (10-17)	0	0	1	1	0	1	0	1	0	4	9	2

W: Frasor (1-1)              L: C. Perez (0-2)

Is this where Walter Matthau comes out with a cooler of beer and gives it to the kids?

1) Introduction

Yes, I was pissed off.  Disappointed, annoyed, livid, incredulous, despairing, outraged, floored.  The evidence is all over, from my Twitter feed to a chat with BP’s Mark Normandin.  It was a bad loss, an avoidable loss, an irritating loss, something my Dad would call a “Mets loss,” because he is of the mistaken impression that only his favorite team can look so inept while producing such soul-destroying losses.  Oh, poor, misguided Dad.  He is concerned that one of the Mets players strikes out too frequently.  Cleveland fans respond, “One?  What do you mean, ‘one?’  Is that like what happens when the other six go on hot streaks simultaneously?”  Dad is 70, and hopes to see the Mets win it all before he dies.  My daughter is 7, and I hope the Indians win the World Series before her grandchildren die.  If I die before the Tribe wins the title, you bet your ass I’m haunting them.  Oh, yeah.

But really, with a day and a night and a sleep and some coffee under my belt, I have to say: what made this loss such a kick in the groin was that the Indians did a lot of things really well in this game.  The two main “culprits” in the loss had actually been responsible for putting us in the position to get a good-looking win.  So, since I got most of my real good venting out of the way yesterday afternoon, let’s take a more measured look at the game.

2) Steps forward, steps back

Fausto Carmona was trending in the right direction with his walks, going 6, 4, 2, and 0 over his first four starts.  Although it was unlikely for him to walk -2 batters in his next start, it did seem like he was at least getting away from the Walk-a-palooza that marred his first couple of outings.  Sure enough, he walked 2 in his 5^th start, but hey, 2 isn’t bad.

4 is pretty bad.

This better not be a permanent bounceback pattern, or Carmona’s going to be duplicating the Akron-famous Polish American Club team record of walking 14 consecutive batters (although it took us three pitchers to do it, and, in our defense, Pierson Insurance had three players under 4 feet 6) by the end of June.

On the other hand, through the first five innings, Carmona only had one walk, and he erased that guy with a double play.  Carmona in fact induced three DPs in the first 4 innings, and had given up only 1 run because no one stops the mighty Jose Bautista, and Matt LaPorta has decided to use Carlos Lee as his role model.  He gave up a second run in the fifth, but it was really “just a run.”

Through those 5 innings, Carmona threw 46 strikes and 26 balls, which is a damned fine ratio.  Sure, he lost his command in the last inning-and-a-third, walking three guys and throwing 10 strikes in 24 pitches.  That’s not very good.  On the other hand, nobody scored from this blunderbussery, so it was more troublesome for his overall stats than it was for the game.

This makes the fifth Quality Start in six starts overall for Carmona, and except for the end, it was about as good as can be reasonably expected.  Carmona produced a 12:5 GO:FO ratio and gave up 5 singles: in fact, if anything it was the fact that each of the two extra-base hits he allowed led to the two runs that hurt him.

3) Culprit in Depth I

Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room: with two outs and a runner on second, Chris Perez induced a weak ground ball to shortstop Luis Valbuena.  Valbuena, forced into shortstop duty by Asdrubal Cabrera’s quadricep strain and Jhonny Peralta’s non-shortstopitude, allowed the ball to roll directly through his legs in an almost inconceivable error.  Instead of ending the game on a routine ground ball, this drove in a run, and allowed Adam Lind to blast the game-winning homer immediately thereafter.  It was a terrible, terrible play.

Consider this, though: up to that point, Valbuena had played shortstop well enough to be the pivot on three double plays, starting them from a position he hasn’t played regularly in a long time.  (He has played short in the past, which is why he was there, but he’s not played much short in the Cleveland system.)  Two of these DPs were 3-6-3’s, which means the throw is coming from the baserunner’s path instead of the typical back side of the play.  He also cleanly fielded several ground balls, took another 3-6 fielder’s choice, and caught a popup.

But more importantly, in the bottom of the 8^th, Valbuena produced Cleveland’s only 2-out RBI with a wonderful opposite-field double down the line.  He had fallen behind 1-2 and fouled off a third strike before hitting the double.  And he hit it off the left-handed Rommie Lewis, who had struck out 3 of the first 5 hitters he faced.

(Rommie?)

I guess the point is, I acknowledge that Valbuena made two errors in the 9^th (one didn’t matter: it came after the homer but the next batter was retired).  He’s hitting pretty poorly, although you could say that about a lot of guys on this team.  But it’s not like Luis Valbuena is a complete schmoe.  If Jason Donald is called up and takes some of his playing time, I could certainly live with that.  I will not accept Mark Grudzielanek taking significant playing time from him, though.  That would be face-spiting of the highest order.

4) Culprit in Depth II

With a 4-3 lead, two outs, and a 1-2 count on Adam Lind, Chris Perez uncorked a belt-high fatball that might as well have been blinking neon, “Hit me!  Hit me hard!”  Lind obliged, and the Tribe lost their lead and ultimately the game.

Consider this, though: with one out, Tony Sipp allowed Lyle Overbay to single to center.  He had done an admirable job to this point, but with righties Alex Gonzalez and Jose Bautista, each with home run power (ISOs at least .250), Chris Perez was summoned for the “five-out save.”

Now, I’ll get into that decision a little later, but here are the facts: Gonzalez saw four pitches.  Each was a strike.  He swung and missed at the last one.  Bautista saw four pitches.  Three were strikes.  He swung and missed at each of the last TWO.  If you wanted to draw up a script as to how the shutdown reliever would come in with the potential tying run at the plate and look thoroughly demoralizing and dominant, you would have shown footage of Chris Perez’ 8^th inning.  It was good.

In the 9^th, Perez still had “stuff in the tank:” lefty power-hitter Trav Snider grounded out to first, and John Buck grounded out on his first pitch.  Perez actually got ahead of Fred Lewis 0-2, but then Lewis pulled a ball to right for a double.  Hey, it was a hit..

The next hitter, Aaron Hill, looked at strike one, swung and missed strike two, and fouled off the third pitch.  He then hit about the weakest, most feeble grounder imaginable to Valbuena.

Now, think about the stats on this outing: at this point, Perez has thrown 16 pitches, and THREE of them were balls.  Hitters have swung and missed FOUR TIMES.  He has two Ks, 1 hit, and three relatively harmless ground balls.  This is simply a dominant outing.

I acknowledge that Perez threw a really awful pitch to Lind, and Lind punished it.  Perez lost the game.  But for a guy whose problem to this point has been all about command, Chris Perez threw 24 strikes and FIVE balls, got 2 Ks, and should have gotten the save.  If Chris Perez pitches like that, we will win ballgames.

5) The Hidden Culprit

On the surface, Matt LaPorta had a great game.  He went 2-for-3, and one of his singles contributed to Cleveland’s go-ahead third run.  Although he was lifted for defensive replacement Austin Kearns, his singles were both solid and he looked better at the plate.

Consider this, though: why was LaPorta lifted for a “defensive replacement?”  I mean, it’s left field.  And really, Austin Kearns, while athletic enough, is not going to win any Gold Gloves soon.  Why bother?

Because Manny Acta was apparently paying attention in the 3^rd inning.

Yes, Jose Bautista’s ball was well-struck, but this was no more a triple than my bowling ball is a hat.  This was a tripe.  LaPorta wandered back, with a grace one normally associates with male elephant seals smothering their offspring, suddenly found inspiration from Quickdraw McGraw’s alter ego, “El Kabong,” pulled out an acoustic guitar, and smashed the ball with a mighty blow from the guitar.  Okay, there was no guitar involved.  But to say that LaPorta should have made that catch, or at least not played the ball into a tripe is an understatement.  It would not be an overstatement to say that only Lee himself (in the absence of Pete Incaviglia or Pat Burrell) could have played that ball into a tripe.  It banged off this glove!  And I say “banged,” because you could actually hear the clanging of iron.

It wasn’t a dramatic three-run swing like the other two guys, but it was a candidate for The Worst Play in the World.  (It still loses out because it was a one-run play, not a THREE-run play like Peralta’s.)

 

6) On the five-out save

Big proponent.

Look, Perez’ problem to date has been what is colloquially-termed “losing his shit.”  When he flamed out in the 9-8 Detroit loss, he walked a guy on four pitches and uncorked a wild pitch.  He was out of gas.  It’s hard to argue that Perez was “out of gas” when inducing a weak ground ball to Aaron Hill.  The man threw 24 strikes in 29 pitches!

Now, is it possible that he let the error affect his concentration on the 1-2 pitch to Adam Lind?  Of course it’s possible.  I would like to point out that he did have a 1-2 count on Adam Lind, though.  It’s not like he melted into a pile of goo immediately.

As much as anything, I wanted to see if we COULD ask Chris Perez to make a five-out save.  A guy who can do more than the classic LaRussan one-inning save is more valuable than one who can’t (which, ironically, probably describes Kerry Wood at this point in his career).  And we answered the question: yeah, he CAN.  He DIDN’T, but it would take a whale of an argument to convince me he’s INCAPABLE.  With Cabrera at short, he arguably DID.

7) Pronk smash!

Travis Hafner hit his third home run of the season.

This proves nothing, but I thought I’d mention it.

8) Dept. of Not Surprise

Wait, you’re telling me that Russ Branyan struck out?!  What are the odds of THAT?!?!

What, maybe 1-to-4?  A second consecutive Tinfoil Hat for The Windmill.  Good times, good times.

9) Obligatory Cheap Shot

Reader Michelle McKelley points out that given his advanced age, a “hip injury” to catcher Mike Redmond is perhaps the second-least surprising thing that happened yesterday.  (Branyan’s 3 Ks are the least surprising.)

More calcium supplements, Mike!  Gotta watch out there!

10) They’re not booing, but they’re sure as heck not saying “Grudzielanek”

Grood went 0-for-4 and grounded into a double play with the bases loaded.

At least he drew a game-opening walk: Jhonny Peralta simply went 0-for-5 and made the last out of the game with Shin-Soo Choo standing on second as the tying run.

11) Wow

Brandon Morrow threw an even 100 pitches, and Cleveland hitters swung and missed TWENTY-SIX of them.  I mean, that’s a lot.