2021 Season | Series #42 | Indians @ Red Sox | Sep. 3-5

Thats the way to do it, Zim.

Tell Harold to get out of the freaking way.

Schwarber.. just missed that one.. good pitch by Young.. two down..

Think maybe Young wanted to send a message.. the plate belongs to ME !.. eat some dirt. devers...

A little chin music, Hahrry.

Albert Young can go to hell. Throw a strike!!!

Zimmer would have caught that.

4 relief pitchers for us today - 3 gave up runs, the 4th gave up the game winning hit

...and the band played on.. alex young gives up the winning run... Lefty on Lefty..just too much plate on the pitch.. Matinee at 1:10 tomorrow.. perhaps a salvage / avoidance of a sweep..

I'm in the weird place between "learn how to compete" and "tank every f'n game for a better pick". One could argue that each loss might carry more value than a win. I'm not sure I like the way the MLB draft order in its current state. I like losing even less.

1. Morgan was great; 5 scoreless innings on 3 hits. Earlier in the thread I pointed out that home runs have been his biggest problem; he has as many home runs as walks. I suggested he pitch around the most dangerous hitters when possible and be willing to walk an occasional hitter to reduce the home runs. He followed that advice to perfection tonight with four walks but NO home runs.

He also got 14 swing-and-misses on his fastball. It may be only 91-92 but the Red Sox could not hit it. Only one of their hits came off a fastball. Morgan got one swing-and-miss on a changeup and three on sliders. The fastball was very effective. If he had a good breaking ball to complement it he probably could have gone seven. As it was he struck out Devers and J.D. Martinez twice each, plus Verdugo and Dalbec. Just an outstanding outing similar to his 6-inning, 3 hit, 0 run performance against the Twins.

In his last four starts Eli has a 2.84 ERA.

2. Awesome to see Franmil go deep! I was watching the Red Sox telecast and with a 2-2 count and the Indians down to their last pitch they showed a graphic which said Ottavino has not allowed a home run this year and he's faced 237 batters. No Red Sox pitcher has done this since 1945. The next pitch Franmil showed him what "light tower power" means. The Red Sox announcers were about to celebrate a win and Franmil shut them up for about 60 seconds.

3. There was a huge difference in plate discipline between the teams, IMO. The Indians spent the entire game chasing pitches out of the zone while Red Sox hitters continually spit on pitches 2 inches off the plate. Schwarber, Devers, Verdugo - they all have great batting eyes. They almost never chase even on the close ones. Right before Devers' three-run blast he took two close pitches without even having to check his swing.

4. What was Parker thinking? With a 3-2 count on Devers and runners on first and third with two out in a scoreless game in the 7th, you can't give up a home run. Devers already had 32. You have to throw him something on the edge or off and hope he gets himself out hacking at a marginal pitch. If you walk him, fine, now you have a right-handed hitter in J.D. Martinez, which is a better matchup.

So Parker grooves a 3-2 fastball and of course Devers hits it out. And then Parker gets J.D. Martinez out on one pitch, after the damage has been done. Parker can't make a mistake like that to Devers and by this point in his career he knows that.

5. The bullpen gave up 3 runs in 4 innings and it would have been more but the game ended with runners on base. Verdugo was hitting .208 against lefties. Young got him down 0-2 and then couldn't put him away. The strategy was good, we just need a better lefty in the pen. Maybe Hale tries Hentges next time instead of Young, who was a disaster with Arizona and was DFA'd.

I think there's a good chance that none of the relief pitchers who pitched tonight will be back next year. That's Parker, Wittgren, Shaw, and Young. Maybe Shaw, who was pitching his third game in four days.

6. This was another game we could have won with a decent bullpen. Karinchak served up a three-run homer to a minor leaguer last Friday in a 4-3 loss. Tonight it was Parker giving up a three-run blast late in a tie game. And we didn't have a decent lefty to pitch to Schwarber, Devers, and Verdugo in the 9th.

@Wham with the Right Hand what do you think Morgan's future is with this organization? Clearly he is a good depth option, but might it be better to exploit any value he accumulates between now and the end of the season? Normally a SP with options remaining is exactly what a team needs for insurance, but damn if the SP depth doesn't make him look expendable. It's a good situation to be in for the organization. I say "situation" because it's certainly not a problem.

Morgan isn't going anywhere... For how many years did we have a Tomlin, Plutko etc... I think he's somewhere in this organization long term...

Plus it's already been kind of stated, Plesac isn't a long term piece cause of the relationship between him and the FO...

CDAV45 said:

@Wham with the Right Hand what do you think Morgan's future is with this organization? Clearly he is a good depth option, but might it be better to exploit any value he accumulates between now and the end of the season? Normally a SP with options remaining is exactly what a team needs for insurance, but damn if the SP depth doesn't make him look expendable. It's a good situation to be in for the organization. I say "situation" because it's certainly not a problem.

Click to expand...

Thanks for asking but I'm not qualified to answer that. I have no idea how the organization views him with respect to all the other starting pitching candidates.

On the one hand, he's 5'10". How many successful starting pitchers under 6 feet tall do you see? His fastball lives at 91-92. So right there he seems to be at a disadvantage. Plus, he's already 25 years old. I think he's pretty much what he's going to be - a five-inning, three-run BOR guy.

With the group we already have on the 25 and prospects like Morris, Espino, both Logan Allens, Hankins, and others in the pipeline it's hard for me to see Morgan as a future member of the rotation. I'd say he's in the wrong organization.

Looking at some of the starters we've been seeing opponents throw out there lately, not to mention teams having to do bullpen days, it seems like there would be a lot of teams where Eli would be an upgrade over what they have now at the 4 and 5 spots. I could definitely see him included in a package for an outfield bat, especially if he finishes this season strong. Most teams need more starting pitching. If you look at the injury lists it seems like every team has at least 5-6 pitchers out. A guy like Morgan who is making no money but can give you 5-6 innings every time out plus a decent chance to win has value, especially to a small market team that is low on money and starting pitching depth.

Last night's game was lost because Parker grooved a fastball to Devers and then Young grooved a 1-2 cutter to Verdugo. It was the fourth cutter Verdugo saw in five pitches. Those two pitches accounted for all four Boston runs.

The good news is that both pitchers were basically signed off the street. Parker was given a minor league deal in February and started the season in Columbus. Young was cut by Arizona when his ERA was 6.26.

We're not going to beat the Red Sox with relief pitchers we found on the unemployment line. But since the first half of the season Phil Maton was traded, Sandlin was injured, and Karinchak melted down and was sent to Columbus. So now we're down to throwing guys like Young out there against a team that's 20 games over .500 with the score tied in the bottom of the 9th and the heart of their batting order due up.

We would have won this game if we had Maton or Sandlin.

Next year I'm pretty confident the bullpen situation will have been addressed, probably both internally and externally.

By the way, when the Indians acquired Maton from San Diego for international bonus money, he had an ERA of 7.77. It took two years, but the Little Pitching Factory turned him around and we ended up using him as the key piece in the Myles Straw deal. I'm wondering if the Indians might have the same thing in mind for Alex Young. Or maybe they just signed him as a stopgap because they have no lefties in the pen.

Just to follow up on my criticism of Parker challenging Devers with a fastball down the middle on a 3-2 count, here's a blurb from Hoynes' game column:

This season Devers leads the big leagues in hits (47), extra-base hits (23), homers (14) and RBI (76) with runners in scoring position.

Devers has worn out Indians pitching in his short career. He has three homers and five RBI in five games against them this year. For his career, he’s hitting .333 (31-for-93) with eight homers and 17 RBI...

So Devers has been the best hitter in baseball this year with RISP, he hits the crap out of the Indians both this year and in his career, and he was 2-for-4 against Parker prior to this at-bat. Worst possible hitter to face, right? So why did they decide to challenge him instead of walking him and pitching to J.D. Martinez, also dangerous but at least he's right-handed?

The answer is that Parker has been better against lefties (.208) than righties (.269). Hale specifically mentioned that Parker has had success against lefties. And Martinez actually hits righties better than lefties. So I guess they were playing the percentages. Still, I would have made sure that pitch was on the edge of the zone or just off. If he takes the walk then go after Martinez.

Plesac goes against RHP Nick Pavetta (9-7, 4.67) today as the Indians try to avoid a sweep in their last game ever in Fenway. The Sox have been playing there since 1912; the Indians since they adopted the name in 1915.

The first major league game I saw in person was the Indians against the Red Sox in Fenway, so I hate to see this end. I just tell myself that next year it will be the same players, the same colors, and the only thing changing is the "IN" becomes a "GUAR". Red Sox fans probably won't even notice the name was changed until they look closely.

Pavetta is 28 years old with a career mark of 30-37, 5.22. His home ERA this year is 5.60 against 3.82 on the road. He has not pitched particularly well in Fenway.

Pavetta had a solid April but since May 1 has an ERA of 5.10. In his last six starts it's 5.27. And in his last three starts he's allowed 12 earned runs in 10.2 innings. In his most recent start Tampa worked him for 6 hits, 5 walks, and 4 runs in 5 innings in which he threw 108 pitches. In his previous start the Twins scored 4 runs in 4 innings, making him throw 87 pitches. He's been having to throw tons of pitches to get through 4-5 innings while giving up a lot of hits and walks.

Plesac is coming off two good starts where he allowed a total of two runs in 12.2 innings. However, those starts were against KC and Texas. The Red Sox batting order will be a bigger challenge. It would be nice to get a win to avoid the sweep, stay above .500, and walk out a winner the last time the Cleveland Indians play in this iconic ball park.