Written by Steve Buffum

---

All pitch and no hit makes Cleveland a dull team. All pitch and no hit makes Cleveland a dull team. All pitch and no hit makes Cleveland a dull team. All pitch and no hit makes Cleveland a dull team. All pitch and no hit makes Cleveland a dull team. All pitch and no hit makes Cleveland a dull team. All pitch and no hit makes Cleveland a dull team. All pitch and no hit makes Cleveland a dull team. Defense would help, too.

 

FINAL	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
White Sox (48-51)	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	3	8	0
Schmendricks (51-47)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0

W: Floyd (8-9)               L: Carrasco (8-8)            S: Santos (19)

 

FINAL	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
White Sox (49-51)	1	0	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	4	6	0
Schmoes (51-48)	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	2	5	3

W: Ed. Jackson (7-7)                 L: Masterson (8-7)          S: Santos (20)

 

Who knew that Saturday’s game would be the highlight?

 

1) Who let all these damn snakes in here?

 

Let us consider the runs Justin Masterson allowed on Sunday.

 

In the first inning, Masterson gave up a double to Juan Pierre, which is admittedly a terrible thing to do.  Masterson has to wear that one.  Pierre was sacrificed to third and scored on a routine groundout.  This means that Masterson gave up a run on one decent hit and a couple of fairly worthless outs.  This brings up two points:

 

a) Giving up a run is really not that hard to do
b) Most teams score when they get a guy in scoring position with no outs.

 

You may have forgotten point (b) because of your most common viewing experiences.

 

His next two runs were allowed because, with two outs and two men on base, Zeq Carrera turned into Pete Incaviglia.  That’s just Massive Fail.  Question: Paul Konerko had grounded out and struck out.  He is right-handed, the kind of hitter who cannot hit Justin Masterson with help from post-death Christopher Lloyd.  Why are you intentionally walking Paul Konerko?  No matter, this is just awful baseball.  Masterson allowed two runs on … a leadoff single.  Well, a leadoff single, a terrible decision, and truly execrable defense.

 

Wait, did I say “execrable?”  Perhaps Carrera’s gaffe was Merely Bad.  Because Masteron’s FOURTH run was the result of:

 

E-6 (runner on 1^st)
E-2 (runner on 3^rd)

1B (runner scores)

 

Now, should you put away Mark Teahen on an 0-2 count?  Yeah, you probably should.  But Mark Teahen is a professional baseball player.  Remember the Fundamental Error of Attribution.

 

Anyway, Masterson threw 7 innings, posted a 6:1 K:BB ratio, got 10 groundball outs to 4 in the air, and allowed 4 hits.  He should have allowed one fairly cheap run.  Can Masterson tie the whole damn team in their beds and run around the room with a tube sock of soap?

 

2) One Bad Pitch, or The Slippery Tightrope

 

While it’s nice to think that Carlos Carrasco could have escaped Friday night’s matchup with a little more than 6 shutout innings except for the one pitch Carlos Quentin got a hold of, the fact is that Carrasco was tempting fate all night up to that point.  He stranded two runners in the first.  He stranded two runners in the second.  He stranded THREE runners in the third.  At some point, poking the bear enough times results in a somewhat direct measurement of bear jaw strength.

 

In one sense, it is encouraging to see that Carrasco can be moderately successful without having any damn command whatsoever.  H walked four guys.  He hit the #9 hitter.  He uncorked a wild pitch.  While the overall numbers aren’t bad (66 strikes in 102 pitches), and 6 Ks in 6 1/3 IP is good, there was literally not one single batter for whom I said, “Okay, Carrasco’s got this guy.”  There weren’t that many batters for whom I said, “Okay Carrasco DEFINITELY won’t hit the screen on this guy.”

 

This is all part of the development process for Carrasco.  I’d rather have Carlos Carrasco in my rotation than Edwin Jackson, and Jackson is having a pretty good year.  But Carrasco sure wasn’t anything approximating “sharp.”

 

3) Welcome to the club!

 

Today’s Savior du Jour is Jason Kipnis, having a fine season in AAA and a high-pedigree performer who should help the Indians for quite a while.  In fact, a Chisenhall-A. Cabrera-Kipnis-LaPorta/Santana infield is pretty neat to think about, especially after we acquire a first baseman.

 

Is it reasonable to expect Kipnis to kick-start the offense into adequacy?  Of course not.  Is it reasonable to lament Kipnis’ arrival as One More Failed Prospect?  That’s even sillier.  Kipnis looks fine.  He is a very good prospect.  Multiple sources agree that he was actually “ready” a couple months ago.  And I certainly applaud him working out his major-league debut adjustments in the last two months of 2011 rather than the first two months of 2012.  But he’ll be a Guy, not Superman.  (Mind you, this will compare favorably to other second basemen we’ve seen.)

 

Anyway, Kipnis went 0-for-2 with a HBP in his debut.

 

4) Lashin’ Lonnie

 

Lonnie Chisenhall is no more the Savior of 2011 than Kipnis is, but he had a nice weekend as one of the few Indians to actually hit the ball.  Chisenhall went 1-for-4 Sunday, but posted a fine 2-for-3 day against Gavin Floyd’s Medicine Show, including his 5^th double on the season.  The only other hitter to collect a hit in each game was Zeq Carrera, led the team in RBI for the weekend with … one.

 

5) Other things to say about the offense

 

It may have been bad, but it really wasn’t any good.

 

6) Jammin’ Joe

 

Joe Smiff seems to have worked through his two-baserunners-a-game stretch and is now pitching very well: in a perfect inning Sunday, he put up a pair of Ks, and on Friday struck out 1 in another perfect inning, this time throwing 7 strikes in 9 pitches.

 

One of the more amazing things about Smiff this season is his left/right split.  Smiff has a low arm slot and a reputation for being a right-handed matchup guy.

 

In 39 AB against Smiff, LHB are hitting .103/.217/.128.  One twenty eight!  They have five hits (4 single, 1 double), 5 walks, and 10 punchouts.  Left-handers do NOTHING against Joe Smiff.

 

Now, would I consider this some Massive Turnaround or Role Redefinition for Smiff?  I would not.  This is far more likely to be a small sample size gork.  But results report on what has already happened, and what has happened is that Joe Smiff has done VERY well against left-handed hitters this season.

 

7) Around the bullpen

 

Raffy Perez was pretty good, getting two outs (1 K) against a hit, throwing 8 strikes in 9 pitches.

 

Frank Herrmann was a little less good, giving up a hit and walk in his scoreless inning with 13 of 19 pitches in the strike zone.  (This is a nice return to form for Herrmann.)

 

Tony Sipp was a little more less good, giving up a pair of hits in his scoreless inning.  16 of his 21 pitches were strikes.

 

That’s it.

 

8) Harbingers of Doom

 

Two players got a hit with a runner in scoring position.  One was Zeq Carrera, the other was Austin Kearns.

 

Zeq Carrera drove in a run.  Austin Kearns did not.

 

There is simply no way to spin this weekend’s offensive performance into something you can read while eating edible food.