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2021 Series #20 | Mariners @ Indians | June 11-13, 2021

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Bieber against Logan Gilbert today. This will be Gilbert's sixth start. In his first four he threw 71-80 pitches, but in his last start they let him throw 105 so it looks like he'll go as long as he can. His last start was five innings against the Angels allowing two hits and one run. But he averaged nearly five pitches per batter and could only go five innings due to the high pitch count.

I'd like to see the Indians run up his count again today and get to their bullpen fairly early even if they don't score much against Gilbert.
 
Wham with the Right Hand said:
McKenzie said he was overwhelmed by the crowd, the first large gathering he’s pitched in front of as a big leaguer.

“I let the game speed up on me,” said McKenzie.

Overwelmed by the crowd? Are you kidding me? The "crowd" numbered 20,116. It was a regular season game against a non-division team ranked 12th in the A.L. in scoring and it's not even halfway through the season. This wasn't a game against the White Sox in the last week of September with a playoff spot on the line in front of a packed house of fired up hostile fans in Chicago. This was a laid back, happy group of Tribe fans on a sunny day in early June.

McKenzie is light years away from being able to succeed at the major league level from a psychological standpoint. But I question whether that was the real problem. He said he let the game "speed up" on him but in fact he was working extremely slowly. There were runners on base after the first four pitches.

Last year he averaged one walk every 3.5 innings. This year it's a walk an inning, almost. What happened? My guess is it's the new mechanics he's learning, according to Bimbo. When you've thrown a ball one way your entire life and now you're throwing from a different arm slot it's going to take some time. Sometimes he gets locked in, like last week when he struck out eight White Sox in a row. Other times he'll walk four batters in the first inning and look like Nuke Laloosh in his first start for the Durham Bulls.

If McKenzie could have just gotten that third out with the bases loaded he might have come out in the second inning and been dominant for the next three innings. His last two major league starts he went five innings each. He either got spooked by the "crowd" or his mechanics are just going to flutter in and out for a while until he builds up enough muscle memory.

It was nice to see Hentges pitch two scoreless innings, striking out four. He threw 33 pitches, 23 for strikes. Very nice. Those last spots in the rotation may end up being some combination of Mejia, McKenzie, Quantrill, and Hentges. If the starter gets knocked out early one of the others comes in and hopefully gives you several decent innings. The rotation might end up being Bieber, Civale, Plesac, Mejia/Hentges, and McKenzie/Quantrill and hope those last two combinations give you 5-6 solid innings between them.
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Tmac is young. He had a horrible day. Every pitcher has. I do not think the Indians are doing him a favor by sending him down. Bringing him up etc. send him to Cbus for at least a month
 
Amed Rosario is batting .373 with a wRC+ of 163 over the last 30 days. His BABiP is .433 which is unsustainable, or is it? As long as he's hitting line drives to right field his BABIP should be pretty high and because of his tremendous speed any high choppers or ground balls in the hole at shortstop will be infield singles. Also any ground balls up the middle that the second baseman has to field behind the bag with momentum away from first base.

He's hitting like Yandy Diaz - lots of hard hit balls and line drives to the opposite field.

Yandy in 2018: BA .312, BABIP .371, speed 4.0, wRC+ 116, hard hit 44.4%, avg exit velo 92.1, launch angle 4.4, oppo 32%
AR last 30 days: BA .373, BABIP .433, speed 8.1, wRC+ 161, hard hit 43.5%, exit velo 89.0, launch angle 7.5, oppo 31%

Amed hits to center or right 79% of the time, allowing him to wait longer on pitches and make better contact than if he tries to get out in front and pull. He's much faster down the line than Yandy although not quite as strong (lower exit velo). He has a better launch angle.

Obviously he won't hit .373 over the next month and I expect pitchers to start jamming him and defenses to shift more to right field, but I love to watch the way he handles the bat.
 
DickyLeftridge said:
What was wrong with Hentges in the first place? He was solid for a bit in the rotation then blew up in one outing and has been relegated to the bullpen since. It seemed his leash was considerably shorter than the others.
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He had four starts (plus an extended outing where we used an opener) and was only effective in one of them, and didn't really throw the ball well in any of them.

He has just 150 IP above A-ball and has been mostly ineffective.

I think they should either focus on him being a 1-2 inning guy out of the pen, or send him down to Columbus to start. I'd lean toward the pen, and he could still remain relatively stretched out by going 2-3 innings any time we use an opener.
 
I still would like another starting pitcher for the stretch run... Not because we don't have arm talent, but because I want to make the playoffs and we had too many young pitchers effected by the 2020 season with no minors... We had guys like Allen, McKenzie etc all changing mechanics and other guys who are on strict inning/pitch limits this season... I just think too many factors in there that say, we are gonna have a lot of struggles so have another veteran, who has been through the ringer and go to pitch in 20 for a full season, is who we need.

I don't want Gray, his numbers at home and on the road are actually scary... He has been better at Coors than on the road for his entire career. It makes no sense to me so I'd rather not gamble on him that way. Marquez though has a split that says Cy Young on the road and average at home. By that stat, I'd rather get Marquez, but he would cost a lot...
 
Eddie Rosario's ISO this season is .107 after putting up .224 and .219 his last two seasons. His career number is .194. His power is down over 50% from the last two years. He's 29 years old. WTF?

His batting average is .238, well under his career average of .274, so it's not like he's sacrificing power for a higher BA. He's way down in both areas. His slugging percentage is down 130 points from last year and a whopping 154 points from his last full season in 2019.

His exit velo is right on his career average, suggesting his bat speed has not diminished. His max exit velo of 108.4 is just 0.2 mph off his career high. The bat speed is totally there. His hard hit percentage is actually 1.1% higher than his career average. His launch angle is the lowest it's been in five years and his barrel percentage is tied for the lowest of his career. He's not getting the ball in the air enough.

His line drive percentage is the highest of his career by a full 3.2% at 23.6%. His fly ball percentage has declined sharply - it's down over 11% from last year and 5% off his career average. His home run to fly ball percentage is less than half his career average and down from nearly 16% last year to just over 6% this year. He's still hitting the ball hard just as much, but he's not getting it in the air where he can do some real damage.

His chase percentage is about 38%, below his career average of 42%. He's chasing fewer bad pitches than normal. He's taking more strikes and swinging at fewer pitches in the zone than normal - about 5% less.

I don't know what's going on with him but it would be nice if he started getting some balls in the air now that the weather is getting hot.
 
Just wanted to point out what a really incredible comeback that was last night. Think about it. There were two outs in the bottom of the 9th with the bases empty and Seattle up by three runs. The batter was Bradley Zimmer, a .226 career hitter with less than 500 major league at-bats who is only playing because of his defense. After Zimmer the 7-8-9 hitters were due up.

What are the chances the Indians put three runs on the board and go to extras in that situation?

The pitcher, Montero, was throwing 96-97 mph and got ahead 1-2 throwing fastballs, and the game is one strike from being over. Zimmer takes a ball, then barely gets a piece of a slider to stay alive. With the count 2-2 Montero threw two sliders that missed, putting Zimmer on first.

Naylor is up and Montero throws him four breaking balls - all outside the strike zone. Naylor chases one and fouls it off, but gets ahead 3-1. Montero finally throws him a fastball that misses and Naylor draws the walk.

Bradley pinch hits and Montero jams him with fastballs, breaking his bat and forcing a weak blooper than drops in. It's now a 4-2 game with the tying runs on base, but fortunately for Montero the next hitter is Rene Rivera, a 37-year-old third string catcher with a career .221 average. Tito has nobody to pinch hit except Hedges, who is recovering from getting beaned.

Rivera got three fastballs. He took a strike, missed the next one, and fouled another off. With the count 0-2 Montero went with an 86 mph slider which Rivera hit off the left field wall, tying the game.

With Hernandez having a chance to win the game Montero got ahead 0-2 on 96-97 mph fastballs, wasted a change-up, then got him out with another fastball.

Why this guy kept going back to his breaking stuff I have no idea, but it really helped the Indians. Nobody could hit his fastball but he kept going back to the sliders and change-ups and gave up two walks and a double off those pitches.
 
DickyLeftridge said:
What was wrong with Hentges in the first place? He was solid for a bit in the rotation then blew up in one outing and has been relegated to the bullpen since. It seemed his leash was considerably shorter than the others.

TMac will get it figured it out and great insight from Bimbo. But quit with the yo-yo nonsense and send him down to Columbus for a solid month to 6 weeks. Let him get it figured out.

Just go with this and see how it goes until Plesac comes back.

BieGOAT
Civale
Hentges
Quantrill (I like this guy. Let him figure it out).
Mejia
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Huh? before yday Hentges had gotten the snot kicked out of him in his previous four appearances

the starting five suggestions have been pretty fluid - seems like yday until 4p Tristan was the guy who had to be in that 5 - by 415 he was relegated
 
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Wham with the Right Hand said:
Just wanted to point out what a really incredible comeback that was last night. Think about it. There were two outs in the bottom of the 9th with the bases empty and Seattle up by three runs. The batter was Bradley Zimmer, a .226 career hitter with less than 500 major league at-bats who is only playing because of his defense. After Zimmer the 7-8-9 hitters were due up.

What are the chances the Indians put three runs on the board and go to extras in that situation?

The pitcher, Montero, was throwing 96-97 mph and got ahead 1-2 throwing fastballs, and the game is one strike from being over. Zimmer takes a ball, then barely gets a piece of a slider to stay alive. With the count 2-2 Montero threw two sliders that missed, putting Zimmer on first.

Naylor is up and Montero throws him four breaking balls - all outside the strike zone. Naylor chases one and fouls it off, but gets ahead 3-1. Montero finally throws him a fastball that misses and Naylor draws the walk.

Bradley pinch hits and Montero jams him with fastballs, breaking his bat and forcing a weak blooper than drops in. It's now a 4-2 game with the tying runs on base, but fortunately for Montero the next hitter is Rene Rivera, a 37-year-old third string catcher with a career .221 average. Tito has nobody to pinch hit except Hedges, who is recovering from getting beaned.

Rivera got three fastballs. He took a strike, missed the next one, and fouled another off. With the count 0-2 Montero went with an 86 mph slider which Rivera hit off the left field wall, tying the game.

With Hernandez having a chance to win the game Montero got ahead 0-2 on 96-97 mph fastballs, wasted a change-up, then got him out with another fastball.

Why this guy kept going back to his breaking stuff I have no idea, but it really helped the Indians. Nobody could hit his fastball but he kept going back to the sliders and change-ups and gave up two walks and a double off those pitches.
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wham - I've been meaning to post on zimmer's at bat in the 9th - it was to be a nothing ab - down 3, 2 out, no one on - go ahead and strike out and get ready for tomorrow - but he worked a walk! - and son of a gun if all hell didn't break lose for the next 10 minutes
 
Indeed a great comeback win. So happy that I was there and able to celebrate with tribe fans. Still pissed off at Hernandez and his boneheaded base running blunder in the tenth though.
 
If you look at career numbers, there is some good news and bad news offensively.

We don't have many batters with significant PAs over a long term.

Jose is Jose. He hits.

Hernandez is somewhat of a second half hitters. His best two months have been August and September.

Amed has been a second half hitter, and the numbers are significant, although he's only played a first half in two seasons.

But Eddie's best months have been May and June.

******************

When considering the chances of contending for the division, you have to ask yourself some questions, and none of the answers will be definitive. They all come with odds, just like drawing cards in poker. With an ace showing, what are the odds that you will draw the one you need, and if you do will you have the winning hand? How much are you willing to spend to find out?

If the Chisox rotation stays healthy and pitches as it has, we will not win the division...period.

But what are the odds that both will happen? And if they don't, what are the odds that their replacement bats will adequately cover all the losses in their lineup over the entire season?

The answers to those questions are totally out of our control, but they have to be added to the equations that go into any decisions the FO has to make.

Its very possible that our 26 man roster could be just as good as theirs on August 1st, after Plesac, Franmil, and Luplow return. But there is no way of knowing now.
 
In an oddity that we may not have seen yet this year, over half our lineup has an above average batting average.

The average AL BA is .240 at the moment. Six of our guys are over that mark, and Eddie is close at .238.

The average OPS is .717. We have four above that in today's lineup.
 
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