Record Report:
Actual Record: 47-60, Last Place—13.0 Games Back
Weekly Gain/Loss in division: No change with a 3-4 record
Pythagorean Record: 54-53, Fourth Place—7.0 Games Back
What’s Happening
Manager Eric Wedge stated Tuesday that injured catcher Victor Martinez will not return as a full-time catcher this season. He and Shoppach will split time, with Martinez getting some playing time at both first and DH.
I hadn’t thought about it until I saw this, but it is the right thing to do. The Indians may as well find out what they have in Shoppach while Martinez returns from elbow surgery.
Also on the inactive front, don’t expect Travis Hafner to return anytime soon. A scheduled strength test on his shoulder (that was last reported to be 65 percent) was delayed due to a family emergency.
It turns out that Hafer’s father, Terry, passed away from a battle with cancer. It surely has been a trying season for Pronk. Now with Martinez likely to get some DH time, Hafner may be out until the spring.
Back to Kelly Shoppach. He is certainly playing terrific baseball while filling in for the injured Martinez. It’s no wonder that the Indians want him to keep playing. Wednesday night, Shoppach had a game for the ages, and became the first American League player since Indians legend Lou Boudreau in 1946 to have five extra-base hits in a single game.
Shoppach went five for six (raising his batting average 17 points), with two home runs and three doubles. Since taking over for Victor nearly seven weeks ago, Shoppach is hitting .303 with nine home runs, 13 doubles, and 25 RBI in 35 games. Can we maybe say that Shoppach will be at catcher next season with Victor at first base? It is worth a thought.
Why did Franklin Gutierrez bat second in the lineup against a tough right-handed pitcher in Justin Verlander on Thursday? Please tell me. We all know that he cannot hit a right-handed pitcher to save himself, let alone an elite one.
I understand getting Grady a day off in the field and playing Gurierrez, but second in the lineup? He’s a career .237 hitter, with a terrible .281 OBP against right-handers. I will puke if I see that again. Although, to the benefit of the team and its future, it was not Dellucci, as usual, in that spot.
Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air...I mean Ben Francisco, broke out of his first real slump of the season with a four-for-seven performance against the Tigers, with two home runs. It was his first multi-home run game of his young career.
What were the odds? In back-to-back days, pitchers with ERAs above five would be doing their best Cliff Lee impersonations. Jeremy Sowers had a perfect game through five innings before the Twins broke through for two runs on three hits in eight innings on Sunday.
And Paul Byrd, on Monday night, threw 7.2 innings of shutout baseball, giving up just four hits. Nobody could have projected that to happen.
The return of Jensen Lewis has been less than impressive. Since his recall on July 4, Lewis has pitched 10.1 innings. He has given up eight runs, 15 hits, and five walks, giving him an ERA of 6.97 since his return. It is certainly tough to pitch when allowing two base runners per inning pitched.
The Indians passed 1.5 million in attendance for the season this week. Enough to place them 21st in the major leagues with an average of 27,292 (63 percent capacity) nightly at “The Jake”…oops, I mean Progressive Field. Man, I’ve got to stop that.
What to Look For
Continued improvement by the young Asdrubal Cabrera. Jamey Carroll will likely not get much playing time, due to his recent slump and hamstring injury, giving Cabrera the chance to play nearly every day at second base.
Plus, why play Carroll at this point over the kid? Since Cabrera’s promotion, he has hit .282 with a homer and three RBI, raising his batting average above .200 for the first time since May 13.
Increased playing time for Franklin Gutierrez. With Blake now gone, opening up first base full-time to Garko, and assuming the Indians smarten up and sit Dellucci; Gutierrez is primed to receive his share of at-bats for the foreseeable future.
It may not be every day, but five to six days a week should be sufficient. Mostly around favorable pitching matchups and not in the second spot in the lineup, please. It is time to see what “Frank the Tank” is made of.
Can Fausto Carmona build upon his positive outing against the Tigers on Thursday? He will face a struggling Rays lineup next Tuesday. Tampa Bay is hitting just .236 in the month of July, the worst in the league. Their team OPS for July is merely .682, next to last in the league. Carmona has one career start versus Tampa. He won that start, going six innings, giving up one run on four hits.
Possible re-demotion or designation for assignment of Juan Rincon. To quote Baseball Prospectus before the season, “It’d be more encouraging if he was hurt; now, he just looks like a pitcher on his way out of the league.” I know it won’t happen, but I can dream can’t I?
He was worth a flyer as the season was over, but washed-up relievers are a dime a dozen. Rincon is 0-1 with a 7.27 ERA in seven appearances spanning 8.2 innings with the Tribe. His ERA in Minnesota wasn’t much better: 6.11 in 28 innings.
Unfortunately for the Tribe, they will run into a couple of contending teams on the road over the next week. First, the Indians will face the Twins, whom they are just 4-8 against this season (including 1-5 at the Metrodome).
Then it is off to Tampa, where the Rays have a major-league best 40 wins at home. They will undoubtedly be looking for revenge after the Indians swept four games from them entering the break. This could be a very tough week for the Indians.
Down on the Farm
Recent acquisition from the Sabathia deal, Rob Bryson, was found to have a partial tear in his labrum and rotator cuff. He will likely miss the remainder of this season, but will be ready to go come 2009. Let's hope that this is not a sign of things to come, and that the Indians caught it before the damage was too bad.
Newly acquired catcher Carlos Santana was sent to begin his Indians' career in Class-A Kinston. This creates a logjam of catchers there' where currently the K-Tribe has four catchers on the roster, including another prospect, Matt McBride, who has been playing as the DH of late.
Anthony Reyes had a so-so first outing in Buffalo. He threw five innings, giving up three runs on five hits while walking four. He also served up two gopher balls. It was one start.
I wouldn’t read too much into this first start after the whirlwind of a trade. I would expect a better start next time out. He will be on the Indians' roster before the end of the season.
Another addition to the Buffalo club, pitcher John Meloan, has in fact been moved back into the bullpen. In his first two appearances, covering two innings, he has no runs allowed with two strikeouts.
In a non-acquiree news, Kinston slugger, and former first-round pick, Beau Mills, is tearing the cover off of the ball in the Carolina League. Subtracting his poor April, Mills has hit .304 with 14 home runs and 56 RBI. His slugging percentage is .529 over this time frame. He will undoubtedly be starting in Akron next season.
Quotes of the Week
Rafael Betancourt on his season-long slump: “I don't want to kill anybody or do anything crazy."
One can only laugh at this quote, knowing how bad he has been. Also, that we never hear much from the struggling right-hander. He is usually as even as a person can get.
Ryan Garko on his season-long slump: “I've just got to stop worrying about my swing and just get back to competing and grinding out at-bats...That's the kind of player I was when I first got called up and I just need to get back to it."
The surprising thing to me is that it has taken this long for Garko to finally admit that he has been doing something wrong. From what I have read all season, he said that he needed to stay consistent in his approach and that things would turn around, kind of talking like main-man Wedge.
Hopefully, this will be the first step to right himself mechanically to allow his line-drive stroke to come back.
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