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

https://twitter.com/CG2584/status/609521634345623554

https://twitter.com/richhenschel/status/609924517092159489

What’s the Damage?

Well at least we’re consistent.

Since 2013, the Indians have a record of 14-33 against the Detroit Tigers. They also have the third worst home record in baseball in 2015.

In the two games they lost in Detroit this past weekend, the Tribe were outscored 12-1. That followed a six-game home stand where, one game away from .500 at the outset, they went 2-4.

But none of that matters now. Throw records out the window. Statistics are flushed. Slumps cease to exist. The 2015 Cleveland Indians season officially began on Saturday, June 13th.

So, when you’re at your lowest of lows as Tribe fans, take solace in the fact that you finally get to watch what will be your left side of the infield for years to come.

Kansas City has been all the buzz in the national media, but not for anything happening on an actual baseball field. In the latest update for the American League All-Star voting, these idiot Missourians have eight Royals leading their respective positions in votes. A legitimate argument could be made that exactly zero of of them realistically deserve to be there. I’m all for supporting your team, and you’re damn right I voted Kip and Brantley on my ballot, but there’s a fine line between homerism and douchebaggery. You’re not only depriving deserving players of a serious honor, but you’re fucking over every team (including yourselves) in the American League in terms of home field advantage come World Series time. The league should step in, and they won’t, but I pray to god I’m not allowed to vote for the All-Star game next year.

In a week that saw MLB.com’s top 3 prospects all called up to their big league squads, Minnesota Twins outfielder Byron Buxton was probably the biggest surprise of the three. He went 0-4 with two Ks in his debut on Sunday, but notched his first career hit in the major leagues yesterday in the form of a stand up triple. Like the Tribe and Lindor, the call up was probably in hope of a spark for a team that’s lost 8 of their last 10.

After their eight game losing streak at the end of May/beginning of June, it’s starting to look like the Tigers of old out there in Michigan. Including the Wahoo drubbing this past weekend, they’ve won 6 of 8 and have given up 1 run or less in 5 of those games. DH Victor Martinez went 1-4 in his first rehab game for Triple-A Toledo on Sunday and is expected back in the bigs sometime relatively soon. The other Martinez is slugging .587 in the month of June and Justin Verlander surrendered only 2 runs in 5 innings in his first start of the year on Saturday.

Chris Sale is doing Chris Sale things for the White Sox…

…but rookie Carlos Rodon surrendered five runs before recording an out on Monday and the team was just swept in Tampa.

In Other News

• I wrote a blurb last week about Apple fulfilling the bullpen’s ransom note for Brandon Moss’ 100th home run ball. The Tribe then tweeted this out today:

I’m gonna take a shot in the dark and guess they’ll be presenting the products given to them by Apple to the Boys & Girls Clubs, and probably some additional goodies as well. Smooth move by the club. Hopefully something just as positive will come from Trevor Bauer & the starting pitchers…

• Frankie’s first MLB hit. Absolutely smoked. Terrific reaction too. Couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. And I hate Miggy for the emotional abuse his lumber has caused me over the years but god damnit he’s cool sometimes.

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

• The “other guy”, rookie 3B Giovanny Urshela, notched his first hit and blasted his first career bomb last Thursday. His family was in town for his big league debut, but had to leave after the second inning of the game and missed his tank piece. Since the call up, Gio is 4-16 with 2 BB, 2 K, 3 runs and 3 RBI. Yesterday’s lineup had Lindor in the 2 hole against the Cubs before the game got rained out. All of a sudden, a Kipnis-Lindor-Brantley top of the order and an Urshela-Bourn-Aviles bottom isn’t looking all that bad. .

GO CAVS

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

https://twitter.com/RachDurbs/status/608479483084075008

What’s the Damage?

If home is where the heart is, the Indians have been a bunch of heartless bastards so far in 2015. Their 11-17 mark in Cleveland is worsted by only two other teams in the majors. The Philadelphia Phillies, owners of the worst overall record in baseball, have four more home victories than the Tribe. If you double the eleven wins the Tribe have accidentally stumbled upon on their home diamond, you only have two more wins than the Minnesota Twins have at Target Field.

The good news is that nobody in the division is playing particularly well, either. Our 5-5 record is tied with the Royals and White Sox for the best in the Central over the past ten games. In fact, the entire American League is pretty cozy:

The Royals and freakin Twins have been jockeying for first place for a couple weeks now, with the former regaining the top spot after taking the first two games of a three gamer in Minnesota. They’ll travel to St. Louis for three after the finale tonight, and won’t dance with another central team until the Twins visit Missouri the first week of July. That series will close their book on divisional play for them until after they face off against the National League in the All-Star game on July 14th.

With losses in the first two games against the Royals, the Twins are going to drop their second consecutive series (the first was to the 22-37 Brewers). Hopefully these bozos are coming back down to Earth cause I don’t think I can handle another Cinderella team coming out of our division in October.

The Tigers recent eight game losing streak was pretty much baseball euphoria for me. So naturally they’ve won three in a row, send David Price out against the Tribe on Friday and get Justin Verlander back for his first start of the season on Saturday. DH Victor Martinez has started hitting but there’s still no timetable for his return from knee inflammation. And, lastly, Rajai Davis.

Glad we’re finally back down with the Windy City boys after we briefly considered getting back to .500. Always utilize the buddy system, especially with these damn crowds downtown for basketball games. Rookie phenom Carlos Rodon is still walking too many guys (5.31 BB/9) but he’s also sitting their asses down (10 k’s last week in Texas). Former Yankee closer David Robertson in his last 4 appearances: 3 saves, 5 innings, 7 k’s, 0 walks.

In Other News

• The big news of the week was a certain delivery to Cleveland from Columbus. Giovanny Urshela made his major league debut last night at third base. He went 0-3 at the dish but had a single up the middle taken away by Robbie Cano before he was pinch hit for by Michael Bourn in the 9th. I hope Tito gives him regular playing time over there, and unless he completely faceplants, I have to think he will. You don’t call up somebody (somewhat) unexpectedly like that to ride the pine. His glove is an instant difference-maker, and his bat has shown tremendous growth in the past two years. Bottom line is it’ll be damn near impossible to have a net loss in production from Urshela and Aviles than you got from Lonnie and Ramirez.

I love the move from two perspectives. First, it’s classic Tito. The team obviously needs a spark and people are starting to call on the front office to see what we have in some of these young bucks on the farm. But he knows Cleveland would be expecting Francisco Lindor to be a savior, and when he inevitably wasn’t, things could get rough quickly for a kid who’s still only 21 years old. So he lightens the blow by giving another prospect, albeit one with less expectations, a shot first. That’s why guys love playing for Francona, he’ll always take a bullet for his players and guard them from outside pressures.

Secondly, I’m glad they didn’t leave Ramirez up here to play once or twice a week. He’s been around and playing consistently for so long that people forget he’s only 22 himself. He’s going to get regular playing time in Columbus, which is great, and at a bunch of different positions other than shortstop, which is even better. I wrote in the initial blog that I wished for an Urshela-Lindor-Ramirez-Santana infield before the season started, and I still do. He’s much better suited for second base, Kip was an All-American outfielder at Arizona State and it would mean less ABs for Swisher.

• With the MLB Amateur draft wrapping up this afternoon, I’ll save the results as a whole for a separate blog, but I do want to mention our first round pick Brady “Don’t Call Me Clay”* Aiken. If you’ve read this far into the recap you obviously give a little shit about the Tribe, which probably means you know about Aiken’s story, but I’ll re-hash it anyway. He was drafted first overall last year by the Astros. They lowered their initial contract offer to him because of something they noticed in his physical, he didn’t sign (first player to go 1st overall and not sign since 1983), went to some boarding school to pitch for a year, got pulled in the first inning of his first start, had Tommy John.

It’s a risky pick, sure. But this is a guy that, when healthy, has been compared to Clayton Kershaw. A fastball that can hit 97 and a curveball that can do this:

And at this point, getting Tommy John out of the way this early is almost an advantage. It’s about as close to a layup as you can get for a major procedure on a pitcher, and the list of names that come back stronger after having it done is lengthy. He won’t have a ton of bargaining power coming off an injury, so we should be able to sign him. He obviously won’t pitch this year, and who knows when he’ll be able to ramp it up in 2016, but once he does, buckle up.

• Brandon Moss’s 100th home run ball will be returned to him courtesy of Apple.

Hard to see,  but there seems to be an item missing…

 

 

 

 

 

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

https://twitter.com/pikestaff/status/605141865642520578

https://twitter.com/peerishere/status/605125982614396929

What’s the Damage?

This week in “Only In Cleveland”: The Indians go 17-12 in May, have possibly the AL Pitcher and Player of the month, don’t have even close to the best month in the division, are still two games below .500 and in fourth place. Swag.

I don’t know what’s gotten into the Minnesota Twins lately but I’ll tell you one thing, I do not like it. Not one bit. Some people would probably argue they over-achieved in April when they went 10-12. I’m not sure how else to describe what this team did in May other than “the apocalypse”. 20-7. Only lost one series the entire month. They now sport the second best record in the American League behind the Houston Astros. What planet am I on?

And just like the last three weekly recaps, I’m at a loss as to how they’re doing it. Their starting pitching is just below average, sitting at 19th in the league with a 4.13 FIP. Kyle Gibson and Mike Pelfrey both have sub-3 ERAs, but they also both have sub-5 K/9s (!!!!!). The bullpen is probably where their greatest strength lies, between closer Glen Perkins (19 SV) and setup man Blaine Boyer (10 holds). Offensively, it’s the usual suspects of Dozier, Hunter and (did I say “usual”?) Plouffe. Other than that, not a whole lot. This team has to go away eventually, right? Not if top-prospects-waiting-in-the-wings Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano and starter Ervin Santana, who’ll be able to pitch around July 4th after serving an 80 game suspension for PEDs, have anything to say about it.

It WAS kinda nice to not have to write about the Royals first though. Those sons of guns are finally starting to struggle a bit, 5-5 in their last ten and 1-5 in their last six. Even so, if the All-Star game was today they’d have five starters (Perez, Moustakas, Escobar, Cain and Gordon) and the American League’s leading vote getter (Perez). That, my friends, is absolutely absurd. Sally Perez having the most votes in the entire league makes me long for a world in which fans do not vote for shit. Also, this is still a thing:

Rios has played in one game in the past 48 days.

The Angels, in a momentary lapse of Catholicism, beat the living hell out of some Kitties this past weekend. Detroit was outscored 26 to 10 in a 4 game slaughter out west, an exclamation point on an abysmal stretch of 15 games where they scratched out just 5 wins. They’re now three-and-a-half games back of the motherloving Twins. Justin Verlander threw a rehab game in AAA Sunday and could re-join the rotation either this weekend in Chicago or next weekend at home against…Chicago. The Cubs.

The former Chicagoans from the sentence above took two of three from the best team in the American League this weekend in Houston. That was before they split a double-header in Baltimore, and won the final game of a 3-game series in Toronto. That’ll help in forgetting the fact they lost 7 of 8 before that. Chris Sale is finally getting into midseason form after struggling early due to a shortened spring training (7.2IP, 0 R, 12 K in his last start, 40K in past 4 starts), and left-handed rookie phenom Carlos Rodon has been cutting down his walks in an effort to stay in the big leagues. They’ve got some ground to make up, but don’t tell VP Kenny Williams that they won’t win the AL Central just yet.

In Other News

• Ask any Indians fan what their biggest weakness has been this season and you’re bound to hear about their bullpen struggles pretty quickly. But I got a tingly feeling in my tummy Sunday evening at the end of a 12 inning tango with Seattle, courtesy of rookie reliever Austin Adams (and the General Tso’s from Emperor’s Palace). Not only did he strike out one and notch his first career major league save, but he did this:

A 5th round draft pick in 2009 by the Tribe, Adams is 28 years old and just getting his first taste of the show. While Sunday was his first outing since May 16th and just his fourth all year, he’s struck out 13 in 8.1 innings in AAA this year and has a 9.24 career K/9 in the minors. While his career BB% is not great (9.7), if he can come in, hit triple digits and put it somewhere near the plate more often, he could prove to be a useful bullpen piece here in the near future.

• .@MLB @MLBGIFs pic.twitter.com/MLFcXKpGFK

  — Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) June 1, 2015

• This cat who got on SportsCenter for catching a Robinson Chirinos dinger in the bleachers while holding a hot dog?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJXY2EvNfM

…..literally one row behind my season tickets.

A season of missed opportunities.

• I don’t know what your plans were for this Friday, but I do know that they’re no longer your plans. TWO DOLLAR Miller Lites in the stadium from 5-7 before first pitch against the Orioles at 7:10. Oh ya it’s dollar dog and fireworks night too. And also Cardale Jones is throwing out the first pitch. Not sure what this jabroni’s deal is, but I’ll be there, and you should too.

 

 

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