Category: Cleveland Indians (Page 92 of 96)

Jhonny Peralta doubled and homered and Coco Crisp had three hits, including a ninth inning home run off closer Francisco Rodriguez, but the Indians fell to the Angels 5-4. C.C. Sabathia wasn’t terrible but he certainly wasn’t all that great either, surrendering four runs on eight hits in 6.1 innings of work, with all the runs coming on a pair of two-run homers by Garrett Anderson and Josh Paul. While Coco and Peralta delivered last night, the rest of the offense continued to struggle, with Casey Blake, Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner and Aaron Boone going a combined 0-16 with six of the team’s eight strikeouts.

The ABJ is reporting that Scott Elarton’s next start may be skipped. It’s about friggin’ time. If Aaron Boone can be benched for his .139 average, Elarton and his 7.47 ERA certainly deserve to be skipped. He’s given up 41 hits in 31 innings with 12 walks, and he followed up his one truly effective start of the season (3 ER in 6 IP against the Royals on May 1) by getting bombed by the Rangers his last time out (6 ER in 6.1 IP). The ABJ says Jake Westbrook would slide up to take Elarton’s start, though if a permanent change was made regarding Elarton, we’d see one of the young arms called up. Stay tuned.

The good news is, Travis Hafner has turned his season around, swatting four homers in his last nine games while driving in eight runs and raising his average to .291, and Victor Martinez seemed to find a groove against the Rangers, totaling five hits in eight at-bats and driving in two runs.

Unfortunately, the bad heavily outweighs the good with this lineup. In last night’s win over the Angels, Aaron Boone had two hits for only the second time all season, his average currently sits at .139 and he’s slugging a pathetic .277. Coco Crisp hit a homer and stole a base last night but his overall numbers (.250, .304 OBP, 4 steals) aren’t anywhere close to what the Tribe expected from their leadoff hitter. In fact, Crisp has been so ineffective at the top of the order that Eric Wedge has tried several other guys in the leadoff slot, with Casey Blake and his .288 OBP getting a shot last night. Ugh. Ronnie Belliard’s hitting an okay .275 with six homers, Grady Sizemore’s hitting .260, Ben Broussard’s at .255 with only one homer and Jhonny Peralta’s hitting .231.

The Indians are second-to-last in all of baseball with 114 runs scored and a .233 team average, their .298 OBP ranks 28th out of 30 teams, their .385 slugging percentage is 24th and, despite ranking 11th overall with 34 homers, their 110 team RBI ranks 28th.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with the lineup once Juan Gonzalez and Jody Gerut return. Grady’s most likely heading back to the minors and, if Boone’s not hitting by then, we could see Blake slide back to third to open up right field. Then again, Blake hasn’t been any better than Boone so I’m not sure what that would accomplish. Some say Coco’s job is in danger but there isn’t anyone else on this team more capable of leading off than Crisp. He’s the only legitimate stolen base threat and while he hasn’t been getting on base consistently this year, his .344 OBP last year is at least somewhat respectable.

I realize the “it’s still early” excuse doesn’t really fly in the middle of May, but I still feel like this team will eventually start hitting. Hopefully the pitching staff can keep the Tribe afloat until that happens.

Kevin Millwood gave up one hit over eight innings to lead the Tribe to a 3-0 shutout of the Angels. The offense still needs work, but the Indians have a chance to turn their season around if the pitching holds up.

The Tribe offense is starting to show a little bit of life and they’ve won three of the last five games, but the bats are still very inconsistent. Meanwhile, the White Sox have extended their lead to 10.5 games. The White Sox offense has not been much better, but their pitching staff has been on fire.

It’s still way too early to panic, since the White Sox likely won’t keep this pace up all season, but we’re getting closer to Shapiro’s mid-May timetable for assessing the progress of the team. Boone and Elarton top the list of players who are on the hot seat. Shapiro has plenty of options with young players in the minors, so we might see changes soon.