Will The Indians Ever Win Another Game?
Well, that's 8 losses in a row folks. Three straight to the Royals, a nice weekend trip to Minnesota to lose to the Twins, and then a quick two game sweep to the Cubs. And now the National Baseball Writers of the internet are asking:
Well, Jared, it mostly comes down to the fact that Indians simply cannot hit the baseball. We have the 26th best batting average, have scored the 27th most runs, and have the 28th highest slugging in the entire league. And when there's only 30 teams in the league, it's nothing short of incredible that the Indians even have a winning record. Everyone (including me) was all hung up on our starting pitching, but if they're not absolutely perfect, we lose the game. We still have the 2nd best ERA in all of Major League Baseball, but when you get shut out by the Royals on Wednesday, score 1 vs. the Royals on Thursday, and then 1 vs. the Twins on Friday, you just can't win. It's not possible. Even last night, Civale threw 6 innings of two run baseball. Our bullpen held them right there for the next 3 innings. And then we gave up 1 with the runner starting on 2nd in the 10th. Our pitching is clearly keeping us in games, but our hitting is flat out atrocious. We don't even score when you put a runner on 2nd with no outs. The ONLY positive I see out of any of this is that Lindor is hitting so poorly that maybe he's driving his price down to an area where the Indians can afford to keep him........?
Actually, I was wrong. There is one more positive out of this situation. The Indians still have NINETY EIGHT PERCENT (98%) chance of making the playoffs.
How??? The season was shortened by 100 games. We've lost 8 in a row. This new playoff structure is wild. We should have no business being in the postseason with this team, but we're a damn near lock. I mean, not only are we a lock, but my concern level of playing the #1 seed is at an all time low as well. We've played the White Sox 6 times and won 4 of them. That's our punishment for losing 8 straight? Having to play the White Sox? I'm not saying we win, but my goodness it could be much worse than this. Gosh I almost like this scenario better than playing well all year and being a higher seed. Save up all of our runs until the postseason. Beat the White Sox, and then overtake the #1 seed and their path.
All jokes aside though, I think this team needs Tito Francona back. Seems more and more like he'll be gone for the rest of the year, but we need some sort of magic back in that clubhouse if possible. Either that or some bats. IF ONLY we had a certified Ace to trade at the deadline and bring back some hitters to help this ball club. Oh wait, we did. And we picked up the vaunted, feared, always dangerous Josh Naylor (.077 average in the last 7 games). What a pickup for the Tribe.