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Baseball, Indians

A minor league first baseman struck out Nick Swisher last night

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From lehighvalleylive.com:

“Lehigh Valley IronPigs manager Dave Brundage came to Brock Stassi in the dugout in the seventh inning of Thursday night’s game at Coca-Cola Park. The IronPigs were trailing Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 10-1, and after having to use the bullpen for 13 of the last 18 innings of baseball, Brundage was looking for help.

Brundage called on Stassi to toe the rubber in the ninth inning, with the RailRiders’ 4-5-6 batters due up.

Stassi punched out Slade Heathcott on six pitches to begin his outing. Then, Swisher walked to the plate.

The first pitch was a strike, low in the zone. The second and third were balls, one high and the other outside. Swisher fouled the fourth pitch, before the fifth came in low and inside for ball three.

Stassi had seen Swisher mash plenty of baseballs before. On a 3-2 count, he wasn’t serving up a fastball.

“That’s why I threw him a 3-2 curveball,” Stassi said, “cause if I threw him a fastball, I figured it was coming back at me.”

The looping breaking ball dropped into the bottom of strike zone at a slow-motion 69 mph. Swisher watched it go by. Umpire Ryan Additon called strike three.”

I was gonna start out the blog with “oh, how the mighty have fallen” but this is more of the mighty’s outstretched hand falling to the ground from one last grasp at hope after lying down helplessly since 2013.

Do yourself a favor and read the full article from Greg Joyce (@GJoyce9). He had me on the edge of my seat, feeling like I was watching this clash of the titans unfold with my own two eyeballs.

“Then, Swisher walked to the plate.

This was the former major league All-Star Nick Swisher, the World Series-champion Nick Swisher, the one who has hit 245 homers in 1,527 big-league games and is now trying to get back there while playing for the Yankees’ Triple-A club.

“Just don’t leave the ball up and get yourself hurt,” Stassi thought to himself.“

Just beautiful storytelling.

That face you make when you just struck out looking against a first baseman that was drafted in the 33rd round and hasn’t gotten a big league at-bat in 5 professional seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies but you’re still making $15 million this season

swishheader

“I guess that’s a feather I can put in my cap,” Stassi said with a chuckle.

KEEP THE CHIEF, BROCK

 

Indians

FYI, selfies look glorious on the new Progressive Field scoreboard

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progself

In a game that featured three hits and a bomb from Francisco Lindor, six innings of stellar pitching from Josh Tomlin and a two-out, two-run double from Mike Napoli to give the Tribe the lead early, it was Kyle Chaboudy who delivered the unequivocal play of the night at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.

Regular selfies (ones that are taken for the purpose of showcasing things in the foreground, like the people taking it) have long since crossed over into the realm of ridicule. It is allowed, nay, encouraged to make fun of people for taking them.

In most cases, there are people in literally every direction. Ask one of them to take your picture.

You’re doing your country and, quite honestly, all of mankind a disservice if you don’t turn to the person next to you and point & laugh at the two duck-faced bimbos rotating their phone at every conceivable angle with their outstretched arm in an effort to hide as many of their chins as possible.

I mean it. They deserve it.

But selfies with a purpose, that take advantage of an opportunity to seize a moment that doesn’t come around often, those get you in the hearts of the American people and on the front page of Reddit. It’s those men and women who snap selfies to get those duck-faced bimbos in the background that our founding fathers had in mind when they talked about a “perfect Union.”

So I guess what I’m trying to say is, thank you Kyle.

 

 

 

That blog got away from me.

 

KEEP THE CHIEF

Indians

A better April in 2016 isn’t saying much about the Indians

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cant

I was gone for one week.

It was Saturday morning, the 23rd of April. I got up bright and early, sans the bright – was on my way to Hopkins to kick off a week long vacation down in St. Pete by 4 AM. The Tribe had just taken game 1 in Detroit on the back of Josh Tomlin. I obviously didn’t know it at the time, but they’d go on to sweep the Tigers in the Motor City for the first time since people started wearing shoes. 9-7 heading into a 3 gamer against the caboose of the American League in Minnesota, followed by 3 more against the no-demeaning-introduction-needed Philadelphia Phillies? We were finally gonna have ourselves an April folks.

Three walk-off losses in four days. Five one-run losses in six days. One Cy Young candidate lost for 28-42 days.

I was gone for one week.

The dust has settled, the bodies have been cleared and we’re left with the fourth sub-.500 April in Terry Francona’s four Aprils in Cleveland. Underwhelming, considering getting off to a “hot start” was the overwhelming takeaway from coaches and players alike when they broke camp in Goodyear a month ago.

Here’s how things stood before the calendar turned to May:

april16

Not great.

Comparatively speaking, though, not that bad.

aptito

I know it’s not great. I wish they would get off to better starts. They wish they could get off to better starts. But at this point, until they have another chance to try again next year, it is what it is. And “what it is” is that it could be worse.

I caught myself using this line in an argument a while back – “If we played .500 ball in April and close to .500 ball against the Tigers, we’d have made the playoffs every year since Tito got here.” So like we always do here at Bottlegate, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and try to back up my point with lackadaisical research and questionable logic.

It’s real simple – I wanted to apply the Indians winning percentage in April this year to each of the past three seasons to see if that change in record would have changed the outcome after game 162.

aprapply

2013 was basically a wash, but we made the playoffs anyway, so ha. Three more wins and three less losses in ’14 and ’15 would surely launch us to the top of the (Wild Card) table.

apresults

That argument sounded so much better in my head. Although I stand by it if we could have managed a winning % better than what you get for putting your name on an exam in college against the Tigers.

 

KEEP THE CHIEF