Morning Rundown: Tribe Late Charge Comes Up Short; Perez Speaks Again

A lot of people are saying that the Indians have yet to play their best ball. A few members of the team have said it, Chris Antonetti has said it... Well stop saying it. Let's just do it okay? Play your best ball. It's time. Don't save it for the postseason because you might not get there. Start playing what you believe to be your best ball.

June 26th, 2012

Cleveland Indians - 4

New York Yankees - 6

W: Phil Hughes (8-6) L: Justin Masterson (4-7) S: Rafael Soriano (16)

[BOXSCORE]

Justin Masterson has an ERA of 4.09 after last night's game with the Yankees. It was just below 4.00 before the game. He has just four wins.

Phil Hughes lowered his ERA to 4.48 from 4.94 with eight shutout innings. He's been on a bit of a role lately, perhaps finally living up to his potential. He claimed his eighth win with the Yankees victory on Tuesday.

You have a pitcher who's given up four or more runs six times this season (15 starts) and has won eight games. He only won one of those games, but he's had a decision in all but one start, one of them being a game in which he gave up seven runs, the most he has all year.

And then you have Justin Masterson, just wanting some run support so he can win more than four games.

Was this one worthy of a win? Eh. It certainly wasn't his best effort, but it wasn't his worst, and he went six innings kept his team within a reasonable enough of distance but he simply had nothing helping him out.

I should stop there. He had something, it just.. It just didn't go right. But we'll get to that in a second.

Justin Masterson took his seventh loss of the season. A game maybe not worthy of getting a win for, but definitely not one you can blame and say he lost all on his own. I'd say if anything, holding the Yankees to just four runs (three of which came in one inning) while giving up seven hits and walking three is actually respectable.

"We went out there and more or less pitched the way we wanted to," Masterson said. "It wasn't the best control today, but we were able to make pitches. We had a lot of missed-hit balls, not real comfortable swings, which is exactly what you want. Somehow, four runs got on the board." 

He is talking in "we" terms, crediting his catcher of course, so he believes he pitched well. If he thought he pitched bad, he most definitely would have said "I" instead of "we". I like and pretty much agree with what he said that "somehow four runs got on the board." That's pretty much how you can summarize it.

The first run that scored off Chris Stewart's soft liner to third probably should have been an out had Jack Hannahan come up with the catch. It gets him out of the inning with no damage at all and that big second doesn't even happen.

Of course if we're going to get technical, the way the Indians put their four runs on the board was rather lucky. Johnny Damon's simple bloop to center was just luckily placed for a run to score and give Jose Lopez the opportunity to launch a three run blast with two outs.

So I guess in the end, it all worked out, but the central point is that Masterson pitched well and had that play been made, we're talking about this game taking on a completely different look.

Of course if the Indians also would have come through offensively, this game takes a different look. Of the nine innings, the Indians started five of them off with their leadoff hitter on base. Five times! That's more than half of your opportunities throughout a game. Overall they were 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position and those two hits came at the very end of the game with two outs.

Which was perhaps the greatest conundrum of last night's game to me. You a closer in Rafael Soriano that you can use, especially to get one out. Usually home runs are rally killers for your offense. Girardi wasted no time in bringing in Soriano after Wade gave up the home run.

However Soriano as nowhere near ready having not started warming up. The question becomes is he even prepared to close a game? He was just brought in, no time to really warm up. If here was more than two outs, I think the Indians would have had more of a chance because he would have probably been more inclined to show that ineffectiveness if there was any. With one out, he just needed one pitch.

But all of that is besides the point in the overall focus of this recap. A) Masterson was decent and could have been really good save for one pitch. B) The offense is frustrating.

"The team felt better after the last inning," Lopez said. "We've been struggling for a couple of games, but in the ninth inning, we showed up." 

You can only hope that this was just simply them breaking out and the early stages of the offense turning things around and not simply an avoidance of not being shutout, which they did with that ninth inning and keeping the one shutout on the season just one.

Fact of the matter is, this is four straight losses, something the Indians have not suffered yet this season. It's also the second series loss in a row, which can't be happening. If anything, avoiding the sweep is crucial not just for standings and record sake, but for sanity.

Random Details...

Boy Dewayne Wise i just in the center of controversy lately with his "triple" Monday and a defensive play on Tuesday.. In the top of the seventh with two outs, Wise flew over the railing in left field in to retrieve a foul ball. He took a tumble into where the seats and when he reemerged, he had the ball in his glove.

But did he catch it? Watching closely, it was pretty clear the ball bounced off the heel of his glove and the likelihood of it actually being caught is slim to none. It is more likely someone in the stands put the ball in his glove and I'd expect nothing different from those crafty New Yorkers.

Jose Lopez was able to hit that home run because Jack Hannahan, who started, was kicked out in the eighth inning for arguing with third base umpire Mike DiMuro about that Wise catch. Hannahan was ejected after he went into the dugout and saw a replay of it. When he came out to man the hot corner, he talked to DiMuro and got ran.

"I can live with the fact that [DiMuro] didn't see him drop the ball," Hannahan said, "or the fan jumping up two feet away that was excited he got the foul ball. But for him not to just ask [Wise] to see the ball, that's absolutely inexcusable, and it's frustrating."

DiMuro went on to say that he believed the ball was in the glove when he came out of the stands. Okay that's true, but was it in there when he fell into the stands? Of course DiMuro saw the replay and admitted Hannahan was right. Classy on him to admit the mistake, too bad it hurt the Indians for it to matter though.