https://twitter.com/ahmadyehya23/status/617955445139877889

https://twitter.com/Travis_Hoffman1/status/618323772580458496

What’s the Damage?

Things they don’t teach you in school:

1) How to grocery shop

2) That everything in life connects back to Call of Duty

You’ll play that game for hours and hours and hours and get absolutely manhandled. Shot in the kisser immediately after spawning, lit up from behind, things like that. This is, after all, the most accurate graph ever created:

But then you’ll have that one round, the 24-3 round, and you instantly forget about the hours of getting slaughtered. That seven minutes keeps your sanity in check and causes you to go right back to the well the next day. The same thing happens with a good round of golf, a good episode of a TV show, a good week in fantasy sports.

And the same thing happens with the Cleveland Indians. Their 25 kill round came down in St. Pete against the then-first-place Rays, where they took all four games thanks to gunships called in by Cody Anderson, Danny Salazar and Corey Kluber. Carlos Carrasco, as we all know, was one out away from a nuke. I don’t know what’s more Cleveland: Carrasco giving up a no-no with two outs and an 0-2 count in the bottom of the 9th inning, or Indians twitter complaining when their starting pitcher just went 8.2 innings, struck out 13 and the team won their fourth game in a row.

The Tribe went and took the first of three in Pittsburgh against the smoking hot Pirates on Friday. Then Jeff Locke threw his best game of the year, Gerrit Cole was Gerrit Cole and the Astros came into last night’s opener like their bats were going to expire. Another one step forward, two steps back. And we’re running out of real estate behind us.

The Royals remain a whopping 13 games over .500 and sport the second best record in the AL. They were two games over .500 at the end of the first half last year when they made it to the World Series. All-Star outfielder Lorenzo Cain tweaked a hammy on Sunday and won’t play in their doubleheader scheduled for today. It’d surprise me if he didn’t just rest through the break. Yordano Ventura returns from the DL on Thursday to face the Rays.

Thanks to the good folks out in Missouri, Twins second baseman Brian Dozier has to rely on the final fan vote if he’s going to make the trip to Cincinnati next week, despite using his bat to make solid contact with baseballs on multiple occasions this year.

The Twinkies are still treading above water though, and will close out the first half with four games at home against the team in the next paragraph.

Miggy Miggy Miggy’s, calf you see. Tigers first baseman and known Indian beater Miguel Cabrera is set to miss around 6 weeks with a grade 3 strain in his left calf. That puts him out until mid-August-ish. Naturally, the Tribe has seven games in the second half against the Kitties, and all of them come in the month of September. The good news is there’s a chance that J.D. Martinez has cooled off by then. Dude’s hit 11 dingers in the past 16 days.

Chris Sale’s streak of 8 straight games with double digit strikeouts ended last night in Toronto, where he whiffed a mere six. In nine innings. And it was his first win in 5 starts. What a time to not be a Cubs fan in Chicago.

https://twitter.com/BBTN/status/618241305135742976

In Other News

• In the least shocking news of this week, your league leader in WAR Jason Kipnis was not elected as the starting second baseman for All-Star game. He took to Twitter to emoji off a little steam, and had some pretty candid comments both before and after the announcement (he was obviously selected as a reserve).

Kip’s always been a pretty straight shooter so I have zero problem with him opening up a little bit about what’s clearly a sore subject. The people who are knocking him about showing his disappointment when baseball is a team sport have definitely not won any sort of award in their entire lives. You can say all the cookie cutter, politically correct answers until you’re blue in the face but at the end of the day it’s gonna sting when your fans don’t vote for you to represent their city. There’s absolutely no denying he’s been the best second basemen in the American League in 2015. It’s as black and white as it gets. He hits the nail on the head with “If I don’t win it this year, I’m not going to win it.” And that’s a GD shame. At least his peers recognize real.

https://twitter.com/BBTN/status/618204577758904320

• Speaking of snubs, here’s Corey Kluber’s ranks among AL pitchers this season:
  • Strikeouts: T-2nd
  • K%: 3rd
  • FIP: 2nd
  • WAR: 2nd
• And since the start of 2014:

That’ssssssss pretty crazy. Goes to show that baseball still hasn’t completely adopted sabermetrics.

• I personally had a pretty interesting night in the bleachers on Monday….

I gotta stop actually sitting in my seats. I think the last time my butt hit that metal was when Section 180 ruined our season and my life:

 

 

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What’s the Damage?

Three games, three losses in Baltimore. Zero runs in 18 innings of baseball on Sunday. Seven L’s in their last ten games. Players questioning the team’s heart. I was ready to write the 2015 Cleveland Indians obituary this week.

https://twitter.com/NeastWS/status/615513546802233344

Then Tito calls a team meeting Monday before our four gamer at the Trop (which I imagine ended like this)

…and BAM we’re back baby. Rubbing heads, making plays and having fun.

Cody Anderson continued his Major League domination, staying perfect through six and a third in game one. Danny Salazar’s no-no through five and two thirds last night? Yes-yes! And our young boys….mmm. They did some things.

(numbers 8 and 3)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQIMbceqft4

G’s three run tank

Never mind the fact that we’re 10 games out in the division and five and a half out of the Wild Card. The past two nights have been FUN. Kip and Smooth must have taken the pep talk from Tito to heart: 8 for 19 with two doubles, a bomb, 3 ribbis and a swipe so far since Tito threw down the gauntlet. Yan Gomes is 3-9 with a double and a Yahtzee ball. Can you imagine if we were getting anything at all from first base and center or right field? In the month of June:

Santana – .189 AVG, .294 OBP
Moss – .211 AVG, 28.3% K%
Bourn – .177 AVG, 28.6% K%, .239 OBP

A third of your every day lineup did that for 30 days. That’s, like, real bad Clark.

And it wouldn’t be a weekly recap without commenting on our record at Progressive Field. We’ve won as many games at home as the team with the best home record in our division (the Twins) has lost (15).

So we’ll never be Royyyalssss. ::cringes:: 6-4 in their last 10, swept the A’s in Oakland over the weekend. They have lost the first two out of three in Houston to open this week, however. Tough schedule leading up to the All-Star break, too: one more in first place Houston, four against the Twins, four against the first place Rays and three versus the red-hot Blue Jays. They’re rumored to be interested in Jeff Samardzija from the White Sox, Johnny Cueto from Cincinnati and/or Cole Hamels in Philly, which would really suck.

The Minnyions find themselves 4.5 games out now after losing two of three to the second-worst team in baseball in Milwaukee over the weekend. Rookie Byron Buxton is probably going to miss a month with a sprained thumb but they do get starter Ervin Santana back on Sunday after an 80 game suspension for PEDs.

I don’t even feel like talking about the Tigers. Down 4-0 with just two hits heading into the 8th inning on Sunday, the idiots came back and got a walk-off dong from their backup catcher James McCann. When are we going to start acknowledging the “At least we’re not Detroit!” curse from the hastily made Cleveland tourism video? They’re currently two games over .500 and six games behind the Royals but we all know who we’re going to be talking about as a playoff team in two months.

That McCann walk-off happened to be against the White Sox. Robin Ventura brought Samardzija back out for the 8th at 100 pitches and even Jeff was like, “Really?” I’m not entirely sure how Ventura still has a job but that’s neither here nor there. Chris Sale continues to do Chris Sale things.

In Other News

• Grady Sizemore broke up Cody Anderson’s perfect game on Monday with a bomb. Asdrubal Cabrera broke up Danny Salazar’s perfect game on Tuesday with a walk. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.
• Tribe signed second pick Triston McKenzie:

https://twitter.com/IndiansAccounts/status/615595958080942080

With that deal, all picks from the first 10 rounds have been signed.

• Is this lobbed toss to the backstop proof that robots are in @MLB? http://t.co/GbiLPjRVKT pic.twitter.com/EKA7yBB10B

  — Cut4 (@Cut4) June 30, 2015

• The absolute WORST picture of all time:

 

 

 

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Rock the (2015 MLB All-Star Game) Vote, fools

https://twitter.com/TheShaffyShaf/status/613172449300058112

https://twitter.com/toledomisfit/status/613155345133797377

What’s the Damage?

 

Decided to bring the Wild Card standings into the mix this week seeing as we’re one game away from being in a double-digit hole in the division. Optimism!

(Also, if you read last week’s recap, you’re cool to skip over the next few paragraphs. We suck at home, we suck against the Tigers, and we just kicked off a series at home against the Tigers.)

Another week, another series lost at Progressive Field for your home nine. After winning the only game Mother Nature would allow them to play at Wrigley Field in Chicago, the Tribe returned to Cleveland and split two more with the Cubs, then lost two of three to former bullpen coach Kevin Cash and the Tampa Bay Rays before beginning their bi-weekly grabbing of the ankles for the Tigers last night with an 8-5 loss.

I just don’t get it. Offensively, our home slash line of .254/.334/.387 is actually better than .246/.315/.388 on the road. We have struck out 40 more times at home, but that comes with a little more than 30 additional walks. When we do make contact, we’re hitting around 2% more line drives and making hard contact 2% more often next door to the Q.

The pitching, perhaps?

Sure, our ERA is more than a full run higher at Progressive Field. We’ve surrendered 13 more home runs, walked nine more batters and struck out 13 less (albeit in 37 more innings). Opponents are hitting 41 points higher in front of The Corner.

But maybe the most telling stat in regards to our home field disadvantage: our pitchers have given up two unearned runs on the road (113 runs, 111 earned). At home? 28. 192 runs, 164 earned. Opposing team’s .330 batting average on balls in play is A) absolutely ludicrous and B) 29th out of 30 teams at home this year. Our -14.8 defensive UZR for the year is 27th in the bigs.

The good news? In the week he’s been in the bigs, our shiny new shortstop has 2 defensive runs saved in 7 games (and two of the Sportscenter Top 10 plays last night). Jose Ramirez had -2 in 46. Lonnie Chisenhall was actually having a pretty damn good year defensively with 8 runs saved before his demotion, although you’d have to expect some regression to his mean of around -1. And Giovanny Urshela’s calling card is his leather. Fixing the left side of the infield should go a long way toward fixing our problems on our home turf.

Just going to hit the rest of the division real quick since your brains are probably all whimpering after all the knowledge that was just dropped on them:

The Royals are still in first place and I still hate them. They’ve won 6 of their last 8 but are in the midst of a rough nine game road trip that ends with three in Houston. Young whippersnapper Yordano Ventura hit the DL last week with some ulnar nerve problems, and will require a rehab start or two before rejoining the rotation and my GD fantasy lineup. Major League Baseball claimed they scrubbed some 60 million improper All-Star game ballots, but Salvador Perez is still the American League’s leading vote-getter, so they should probably refill the bucket and get back at it.

The Twins of Target Field called up baseball’s top prospect Byron Buxton in hopes of regaining the first place juju, but are 5-5 in their last ten and remain 3.5 games out. Buxton has hit just .200 in nine big league games.

The Tigers are 5.5 games out of first in the division. Nobody’s counting them out, right? The Indians are 5.5 games out of an AL Wild Card spot. Have some hope, people! Unfortunately for us they’re finally getting healthy, with Victor Martinez and Justin Verlander both making their return/debut in the past week or so. Catcher Alex Avila could possibly begin a rehab assignment as soon as Thursday.

Not a whole lot going on in Chicago aside from their lanky lefty.

https://twitter.com/jonahkeri/status/612115096823705601

In Other News

• Cody Anderson dazzled in his big league debut on Sunday. 7.2 innings, 6 hits, 0 runs, 4 Ks. Sitting in the low 90s but almost touching 96, the 6’4″ 24-year-old kept his stellar season rolling with the big club. In ten AA starts he notched three wins and posted a 1.73 ERA. He only had three starts in Columbus before Sunday, but impressed with 2.26 FIP and a K/9 approaching nine.

https://twitter.com/TJZuppe/status/612723759946948608

• You might think Jason Kipnis has cooled off since his AL Player of the Month performance in May. You also might be an idiot. He’s still 4th in the majors in hitting (.346) and second in WAR (4.3). Not to mention the fact he’s riding a 17 game hitting streak and also hitting .490 in his current 26 game hitting streak at home. But, by all means, let’s get Omar Infante to Cincinnati.

• Tito Francona admitted he may have rushed Yan Gomes back into the lineup on Saturday after he missed Friday’s game with neck stiffness.

https://twitter.com/MLBastian/status/613086516827414528

That’s the second worst thing he did all week.

He sat out last night’s game and his status tonight is still up in the air. They don’t sound too concerned about it but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

• We tossed first round pick LHP Brady Aiken a signing bonus of $2,513,280. That’s just over the slot value for that pick (17th overall) of $2,393,600. Not bad for a kid who was the first overall pick last year.

 

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