Early Weekend 6-pack (5/21/09)

I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but it is deliciously warm and sunny here.  This afternoon definitely calls for an early weekend six-pack (and grilling extravaganza).

1. Kerry, you are doing it wrong.

Tuesday night, Kerry Wood was a decidedly not good pitcher.  Courtesty of brooksbaseball.net, we can look at what his pitchers were doing.  And his stuff doesn’t look bad.  His release point was consistent as he mixed between three pitches, and there was nice separation in velocity and movement between them.  The only problem is that he was throwing the ball exactly where you don’t want to (see below).  Basically, he was either way out of the zone or high in the middle part of the plate.  All that empty space around the lower, inside and outside edges…that’s bad. 

via brooksbaseball.net

2. Jeanmar Gomez stole my thunder

I mentioned this in the comments last week, and I started writing this before his outing today, but Jeanmar Gomez is having an exceptional early season (53IP, 26H, 2HR, 6BB, 41K, 1.36ERA).  Gomez was something of a sleeper coming into this season in that he was young, has a nice tall frame, and showed some success at a relatively advanced level last season.  But his control wasn’t super and his strikeout rate wasn’t great, making him look like yet another ground-baller in our system.  This season he is off to a sensational start, though, having already gotten the promotion to Akron and making a strong pitch to jump all the way to Columbus.  His season is looking somewhat like Aaron Laffey’s 2007, which saw him suddenly step up his performance in Akron, get promoted and dominate in Buffalo, before making his debut in Cleveland.  And in case you did not already notice, he threw a perfect game today.

3.  I would like to think Rafael Perez is close to coming back to Cleveland.

And maybe Tony Sipp is not far behind.  Maybe I’m a pessimist, but I’m not terribly enthusiastic about Matt Herges being our (second) best option in the pen.  But Rafael Perez has back to back solid outings, going as follows:

May 17:

• Todd Linden lines out to third baseman Andy Marte.
• Shelley Duncan strikes out on foul tip.
• Justin Leone strikes out swinging.

May 14:

• John Mayberry flies out to right fielder Trevor Crowe.
• David Newhan flies out to left fielder George Lombard.
• Paul Hoover grounds out, third baseman Andy Marte to first baseman Michael Aubrey.

What’s lacking are any walks.  And all Tony Sipp did in his first appearance back in Columbus was strike out 5 of the 6 guys he faced.

4. Who knew May could be worse than April

April: 8-14 (-12 run differential).  May: 6-12 (-11 run differential).

5. If it weren’t for a few players doing great, it could actually be worse.

Here are the Indians as ranked by WAR (wins above replacement – fielding not considered), as of today.  It is not a pretty picture if you remove Victor and Lee…in case, you know, you wanted to trade them.  I’ll spare you the negative values.

6. The Captains lineup is getting a little more interesting

I previously lamented how boring Lake County’s offensive repertoire is.  It’s getting better though.  Delvi Cid is a guy to keep your eye on.  A product of Cleveland’s Dominican system, Delvi is a speedy CF off to a good start.  Abner Abreu still isn’t walking, but he has been hitting the ball solidly in May (.324/.338/.577) with 10 extra-base hits.  Bryce Stowell and Trey Haley also debuted this week for the pitching staff.