corey kluber | Bottlegate

📂 Cleveland Indians
└📁 2016 season
└📁 Losses at home
└📁 June
└⚠️ This folder is empty

— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) June 23, 2016

.@Indians finish June 11-0 at home. First undefeated full month (min 10 games) in team history. @EliasSports pic.twitter.com/NgHsbJXh93

— Rob Ostrom (@RobOstrom) June 23, 2016

In the month of June, the Indians’ ERA of 2.69 is easily the best in the AL, https://t.co/sBQStSL6TX by the difference of about half a run.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) June 22, 2016

So I rather enjoyed June 2016.

An undefeated calendar month at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario has the Tribe’s home record up to 23-12 on the year, their overall record eleven games over .500 and in first place in the AL Central by three games. For context, they posted one of the worst home records in baseball last season of 39-41. This is good.

Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer threw back-to-back complete games to end the month, allowing one run total between them. Bauer pitched 38.2 innings in June, the most of any Indians starter by almost 10. He allowed 8 earned runs, a .181 opponent batting average and just a single home run. His 38 strikeouts, 0.23 HR/9, 1.86 ERA and 1.5 WAR were all the best among Indians starters. This is good.

The starting pitching staff as a whole led all of Major League baseball in June innings with 143.1, 15 more than the second place Cubs. Their 135 strikeouts, 43 earned runs allowed, 3 complete games, 17.8 K/BB%, .218 opponent batting average, 1.05 WHIP, 2.70 ERA, 3.48 xFIP were all the best in the American League. This is good.

The Indians will close out the first half the week of July 4th with three games against Detroit and four against the Yankees, all at home. We’re 6-0 against Detroit this year, and the Yankees are currently a game below .500 and are 16-21 on the road this season. This is good.

Abraham Almonte can potentially return to the team from his suspension on July 3rd. Buster Olney reported this week that the Indians have told teams they will have some money to blow at the trade deadline. Terry Francona said Roberto Perez, who is recovering from surgery to repair a broken thumb in May, was “probably ahead of schedule” as of last Friday, and has started a throwing program and doing some catching drills. This is good.

The Cleveland Indians are in first place heading into July without Michael Brantley.

This is great.

KEEP THE CHIEF

The AL and NL Cy Young awards will be announced today around 3:45 PM on MLB Network. Here’s a little list of reasons why Corey Kluber should triumph over Seattle’s Felix Hernandez and become the first Indians pitcher since Cliff Lee in 2008 to bring home the hardware.

WINS – Kluber 18, Hernandez 15
K/9 – Kluber 10.27, Hernandez 9.46
Left On Base % – Kluber 78.6%, Hernandez 77%
WAR (Wins Above Replacement) – Kluber 7.3 (first in MLB among qualified pitchers), Hernandez 6.2
- 2013 Cy Young Winners: Max Scherzer (6.4 WAR), Clayton Kershaw (6.6)
- Highest WAR for a SP since Roy Halladay in 2011 (8.1)
FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching…basically an ERA that only takes into account what a pitcher can control) Kluber 2.35, Hernandez 2.56
Complete Games – Kluber 3, Hernandez 0
Strikeouts – Kluber 269, Hernandez 248
Kluber’s curveball was the nastiest in the majors in 2014, a 21.5 pitch value from Fangraphs (Hernandez’ was 12.6).
Kluber needed only 85 pitches to record a complete game shutout against, you guessed it, Felix Hernandez and the Mariners on July 30 (Hernandez – 7 IP, 2 ER)
This was a real thing that happened during one of his starts

It’s too bad Mike Trout exists, or your Cleveland Indians would be sweeping the two biggest awards in the league. I’ll be stunned if Klubedaddy doesn’t win this one today. Pay the man!