Written by Steve Buffum

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After seemingly blowing the game on one pitch in the 78^th inning, the Indians in fact totally DID blow the game in the 7^th inning.  In one of the more painful 9^th-inning non-rallies in recent memory, would-be hero Matt LaPorta followed his 7^th-inning homer with a tremendifying 4-2-3 double play with the bases loaded and nobody out, and everyone went like this: *whoomp*.  And then previous night’s hero Jason Kipnis struck out, but really, that was more coda than anti-climax.  *whoomp*.

 

 

FINAL	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Angels (56-48)	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	2	4	0
Indians (52-49)	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	7	0

W: Jer. Weaver (14-4)                 L: Tomlin (11-5)

 

Starts with F, rhymes with “truck.”.

 

1) Texas Boy

 

Faced with the unenviable task of going up against Cy Young candidate and All-Star starter Jered Weaver, Josh Tomlin took the approach that, “By gum, I can do that.”  And for the most part, Tomlin did.

 

Really, Tomlin threw fewer pitches to complete more innings while allowing fewer hits and fewer walks with a higher strike percentage than Weaver did.  Tomlin allowed a baserunner in 3 of his 8 innings, Weaver allowed a baserunner in 5 of his 7.  The Angels had 5 baserunners, the Indians 7 off Weaver alone.  Weaver struck out 5 hitters to Tomlin’s 3, but Weaver got to pitch to the Cleveland Indians, and the conversion factor for this makes these roughly equal.

 

It could be argued, in fact, that each pitcher made one mistake, and Weaver’s actually went over the wall, meaning even his mistake was worse than Tomlin’s.  Sadly, Tomlin’s mistake came with two runners on base (one of whom was walked intentionally) while Weaver’s came with the bases empty, and thus Tomlin lost 2-1.

 

Of the 28 hitters Tomlin did not intentionally walk, he threw a first-pitch strike to an astonishing 26 of them.  He needed only 97 pitches to complete his 8^th inning of work, and 70 of these were strikes.  He acutally got more ground ball outs than those in the air, a brisk 12:9 ratio.  And as intimated earlier, 5 of his 8 innings were 1-2-3 affairs.

 

In short, Tomlin was brilliant except for one pitch to Mark Trumbo, a bad hanging curve that Trumbo did a good job of hitting the other way.  With two strikes, I thought a curveball would be a good choice, but the execution was simply not good.  And while I was confused by the decision to walk Howie Kendrick to get to Trumbo, the justification for it (Kendrick is hot, a better hitter, and had two solid shots off Tomlin, while Trumbo is a lesser hitter, was in a 1-for-15 slide, and had two weak grounders to that point) was perfectly acceptible.  That’s just execution.

 

But the process was tremendous.  Tomlin was great.  He didn’t “deserve” better any more than the offense “deserved” a 1-0 win.  But matched up against one of the best pitchers in the league, while supported by one of its feeblest offenses, Tomlin simply hitched up his pants and gave a strong “bring it on” vibe that ought to be remembered fondly regardless of the ultimate outcome of the season.

 

2) Squander Ball

 

Well, the offense was MUCH better against Weaver than against Haren the night before, which meant that the fact that they could not score was that much more painful.

 

Where do we start?  Perhaps with the leadoff double by Jason Kipnis in the 3^rd?  Yes, let’s.  As we saw against Chicago over the weekend, it is no great feat to score one run in this case.  A ground ball to the right side, a grounder or fly ball, and the run scores.  It doesn’t take extraorinary skill.  It barely takes adequate skill.  All you have to do is be out in two of the more mundane ways possible.

 

Travis Buck did his mundane part, grounding to second.  Excellent.  And Zeq Carrera actually drew a walk after a foul bunt attempt.  Good idea on the bunt, it’s worked before.  Fine job drawing a walk.  So far so good.

 

And then Mike Brantley popped out instead of doing something productive and Asdrubal Cabrera followed suit with a routine groundout to end the (scoreless) inning.

 

The two singles in the 4^th that came to naught.  Not one but TWO double plays from Mike Brantley.  And then, of course, the 9^th inning.

 

Yes, this was great stuff … if by “great” you mean “carcinogenic.”

 

3) The Worst Plate Appearance in the World

 

I will not go into great, gory detail about Matt LaPorta’s Epic Fail in the 9^th.  I can’t.  But let me say this about that:

 

It looked very much to me like on a full count, LaPorta grounded to second on ball four.

 

Look, he was down 0-2.  He made it 3-2.  I applaud this.  And he hit the ball solidly.  But great Einstein’s hairpiece, how many things prevent you from scoring one friggin’ run with the bases loaded and no outs?  Popout, strikeout, planking?  Any of which beat a double play.

 

4) Ho Hum Dept.

 

Raffy Perez, not being dead after all, pitched a perfect 9^th.

 

5) Ducks on the Pond!

 

The Indians left 7 men on base, and this doesn’t count the THREE that were erased on double plays.  They hit 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, including 0-for-2s from LaPorta and Jason Kipnis, and including 0-for-3 (albeit with a walk) in the aforementioned 3^rd inning.

 

The Angels left 3 men on base.

 

6) I’d rather pitch to Mike Brantley than be good

 

Scott Downs pitched a scoreless 8^th inning while thowing 33% more pitches OUT of the strike zone than IN it.

 

One of the pitches in the strike zone was rapped for a double play by Brantley.

 

7) Tyner Zone update

 

Is anyone really surprised that Zeq Carrera is in the Tyner Zone with an OBP of .357 and a SLG of .270?  His ISO is .000.  This is not entirely unexpected.

 

But joining him in the Tyner Zone is … Austin Kearns (.322, .318).  Um … you should not have two OF in the Tyner Zone.  I mean on your ROSTER, not on the field at the same time (which we have).

 

Outfielder slugging percentages:

 

Carrera: .270

Kearns: .318

Buck: .345

Brantley: .389

 

Jason Kipnis is listed as an OF, although he has not played OF.  His SLG is .300.

 

For yucks, Shin-Soo Choo: .353.

 

It is hard to believe this team has difficulty scoring runs.

 

8) Stats Corner

 

Orly Cabrera has the same SLG as Austin Kearns.