Indians offensive woes continue

Cleveland Indians third baseman José “Home Run Peetch” Ramírez has been the only spark in the Indians lineup slashing .333(12-36)/.429/.556 with R 7 2B 2 HR 2 RBI 5 BB 5. Photo by Joshua Gunter/Cleveland.com.

John Butler

Jbutle58@lakers.mercyhurst.edu

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota – For the fifth straight day, the Cleveland Indians’ bats were left in the hotel room. It all began the day following a doubleheader sweep of the up and coming Chicago White Sox on Wednesday. Zach Plesac gave his team eight-strong shutout innings but got no runs of support. And Brad Hand looked disinterested and blew his first save by allowing ER 4`and R 3 while only managing to get one out.

Cleveland Travelled to Minneapolis for a four-game weekend series against AL Central Division foe, the Minnesota Twins. Shane “Not Justin” Bieber pitched lights out in the series opener. And a two-run Francisco Lindor homer proved to be enough in a 2-0 win. Bieber made some history that night by tying Karl Spooner (1954) with 27 strikeouts through two starts. That was the only bright spot underneath the horrible hitting display put on by Indians batters all weekend long.

In game two, the former Uber and Lyft driver, tax consultant, and pizza delivery guy Randy Dobnak pitched a three-hit five-inning shutout for the Twins and the bullpen took care of the rest. Mike Clevinger, on the other hand, did not even give his club a chance to win since his balls were sailing all over the place and made mistakes that Minnesota never missed.

Clevinger only went four frames which ended an improbable run of seven consecutive outings of at least six innings and allowing two runs or fewer to start the season. They tied that mark set by the 1993 Atlanta Braves that featured the Hall of Fame pitching trio of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz. The Cleveland pitching rotation was back to their usual ways the next evening at Target Field, however, the Indians hitting woes got worse.

Terry Francona’s club only banged out a combined two measly hits of off Japan’s Kenta Madea and reliever Trevor May who were two of the four pitchers that shutout the Indians. Also, for the second time in as many days, a Cleveland starter allows a small number of runs, receiving no run support at all while saving the bullpen in the process as well. It looked like the young-twenty-five-year-old righthander Aaron Civale out of Northeastern University would end the two-game losing skid.

The Baseball Gods had other ideas. Civale pitched a dandy producing this state line: IP 6 H 5 ER 3 R 3 BB 0 SO 9 BF 22 on just one-hundred and six pitches. He threw five bad pitches and three of them resulted in putting runs on the scoreboard. Those five were back-to-back hits to start the game, a homer, and another led of double-RBI single combination. A Max Kepler ground-rule double and Jorge Polanco RBI gave Minnesota a quick 1-0 advantage. The Indians had a chance to tie or take the lead of former reliever and opener Tyler Clippard in the second but let it slip away. An inning later, Civale allowed a Mitch Garver homer and another Kepler double that led to a Nelson Cruz platting Kepler on a single making it a three-run Tribe deficit. Despite Civale pitching well, his offensive did not help him at all leading to the Indians' third consecutive loss.

In the four-game series against the Twins, the Indians scored just four runs on sixteen hits and had a team batting average of .133. With 16.7 percent of the season already being played in ten quick days, the Indians stand at 5-5 which is good for third place and are 2.5 games out of first. The good news is that Terry Francona and company faces the Twins six more times, but the bad news is that three of those games are at Target Field. More importantly, if the Indians want to turn it around it starts with getting good, patient at-bats where the hitters are working the count, and finding a pitch to work with. Until that happens, they will be shooting themselves in the foot all season and waste good starting pitching night after night. The turn around might not even see the light of day because of how teams are handling the coronavirus within their day to day interactions. Last week alone MLB had 33 postponements from COVID related issues and horrible weather. The whole baseball world will be watching to see how it unfolds.

The Indians travel to the Queen City to play the Cincinnati Reds in the first two games of a home and home to battle for the Ohio Cup. Francona will tab Zach Plesac to go up against the Reds Sonny Gray. First pitch is set for 6:40 pm at Great American Ball Park. Sports Time Ohio and WTAM/WMMS will carry the game.