Game 28: Indians 9, Red Sox 2
by APV on May 6, 2009 10:26 PM EDT
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PrintThe day was filled with signs of near organizational panic. The sudden and unexpected promotion of the best performing starter at Columbus (Jeremy Sowers) and transition of one of the best performing starters in Cleveland (Aaron Laffey) to the bullpen. Rafael Perez and his wayward slider were shipped off to Columbus, with 35-year old major league veteran Matt Herges taking his spot. During the game, GM Mark Shapiro came as close as he probably ever will to saying that, short of players playing better, the organization does not have any solutions. And the game? The 10-17 Indians were facing the 17-10 Red Sox in Fenway. Hope was not at an all-time high.
And what proceeded was one of the most pleasantly unremarkable games of the season. The Indians offense was led by its core, as the 2 (Cabrera)-3 (Victor)-4 (Choo)-5 (DeRosa) hitters combined for 12 hits and 8 runs before Ben Francisco knocked in the 9th and final run with a single in the 9th. For Victor, it extended his hit streak to 15 games with his second consecutive 3-hit night. For Asdrubal, his 3 hits made it eight straight games reaching safely, the last three with multiple hits. DeRosa, coming off a slow beginning to the season, has now hit in 8 of his past 9, a stretch in which he is 15-40 with 3 HRs and 5 2Bs. On the down side, Grady and Jhonny continue to scuffle, but tonight that didn’t matter.
On the pitching side, after giving up two runs in the 2nd, Pavano battled off a fluctuating strike zone and kept the Red Sox comfortably at bay for 6 innings. For his fourth straight outing, Pavano showed the ability to induce groundball outs, recording 10 of them tonight. Pavano’s quality start left the Indians with a 4-2 lead after the 6th. But with a pitch count over 100, it was time for Eric Wedge to once again put a call into the dreaded bullpen. And, given the events of the day, it wasn’t surprising the name Wedge called for was new bullpen member Aaron Laffey. And Aaron Laffey was decidedly and delightfully boring. A couple of hits, a strikeout, and a typical game-ending double play – good enough to give the rest of the beleaguered bullpen crew a night off.
And so for a night, the Indians looked, at least in result, like the team we have been expecting for the first five weeks of the season.
| Highest | WPA | Lowest | WPA |
| V. Martinez | .249 | D. Dellucii | -.135 |
| A. Cabrera | .161 | G. Sizemore | -.129 |
| C. Pavano | .133 | J. Peralta | -.087 |
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Great outing from Pavano tonight. For all the talk about how bad the bullpen has been, nobody is talking about how solid he has been since his first start. Taking away that game, he’s got a 4.19 ERA with only 5 walks in 30.1 innings. I think that’s got to be better than Shapiro or anyone else expected. If he can keep this up he’ll be well worth whatever he’s getting paid.
Even if you include his first horrible outing, he’s only got 8 walks in those 6 starts. That’s very good. He’s definately been one of the few pleasant surprises.
by Buckeye Brad on May 6, 2009 10:40 PM EDT up reply actions
Didn’t I just write about this on the front page yesterday?
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
by Jay on May 7, 2009 8:01 AM EDT up reply actions
A thoroughly satisfying win. Our wins and losses seem to have nothing to do with the quality of the opponent.
About 8 seats or so towards the corner. Not too far away.
by jakesinger777 on May 6, 2009 11:37 PM EDT up reply actions
What is like in those seats? I’ve never been to Fenway, though I’d love to go, but it seems like that’d be a weird vantage point.
Il faut d'abord durer.
I actually really enjoyed it, I thought the view was fantastic. The only weird thing is that you have to peer over the wall for any deep fly balls to left or center – like Victors double – but it kinda adds to the excitement. All in all, great seats.
by jakesinger777 on May 6, 2009 11:38 PM EDT up reply actions
I have no idea, I sorta snuck into the section and got the seats for free!
by jakesinger777 on May 6, 2009 11:38 PM EDT up reply actions
Well, not exactly. I got into the section fair and square. Most of the seats, however, weren’t being used by their regular occupants so we floaters sorta had our choice. It was pretty great.
by jakesinger777 on May 6, 2009 11:47 PM EDT up reply actions
This win was soooo huge. I don’t want to jinx, but if we can take the series, I think it has big implications. I know its dumb to put a lot on a single series early in the season, but as long as the Indians can just survive the first 2-2.5 months of baseball, I think we’re poised to be a dangerous playoff threat (assuming sudden bullpen stability, otherwise no chance).
There was a lot to like about tonight’s game. Unfortunately I’ve been so conditioned to expect the worst lately that I kept expecting some kind of disaster to insert itself. It didn’t happen and now that the game is over and safely in the win column I am beginning to appreciate the good things that happened this evening.
Gotta’ feel for the Aeros. They were rained out for the fourth game in a row.
I’ll bet there is some deep, deep Gears of War-ing going on in that clubhouse right now.
by fleerdon on May 6, 2009 11:29 PM EDT up reply actions
So essentially we have traded Laffey (starter) for Laffey (reliever), and the cost of the transaction is the difference between Laffey (starter) and Sowers/Lewis. The more I think about it, the more I think I would have done the same thing. We have starters, albeit only The Dubious Few. We have no relievers. None. Not in any non-sarcastic sense of the term.
Aaron Laffey kind of is the season right now. If we can’t tread water til a few more arms fall into place in that bullpen …
Well. I’ll let you finish that sentence for yourself.
by fleerdon on May 6, 2009 11:28 PM EDT reply actions
Aaron Laffey kind of is the season right now
Don’t forget Fausto. Fausto has to start getting it together.
Don’t forget Fausto.
Crap! /runs to Hallmark
Seriously, though, I’ve been thinking on Fausto, too. I wonder if he’s just got a new body to adapt to. He’s chubbier, true, but I also have to imagine he’s considerably stronger than he’s been before. It looks to my untrained eye that Fausto’s just got too much on the ball, and when he tries to dial it back a bit, he ends up throwing the wounded duck sinker. Somewhere in between those two is an effective pitch. I also wonder if his 4-seamer doesn’t need a bit of tweaking, but I still hold to the idea that his 96-mph high heat could play very well off the 90-93 2-seamer.
by fleerdon on May 6, 2009 11:37 PM EDT up reply actions
Hell, maybe he should go to the bullpen, too. He was totally dominant as a setup man.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
by Jay on May 7, 2009 8:03 AM EDT up reply actions
Exactly. We had the depth in starters, and even though the depth wasn’t perfect, and even though we may need it, it was a luxury we couldn’t afford right now. Kind of like a football with two decent QBs and several gaping holes.
The starter depth is improving. Westbrook is a month closer than he was a month ago, and Scotty should be back soon. Everyone else is still in it, and Rondon is essentially our 10th man now.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
by Jay on May 7, 2009 8:04 AM EDT up reply actions
I think that’s a lot to put on Laffey, or if it’s accurate, then we’re screwed. Because I don’t think he can more than 2, maybe 3 nights a week, certainly not for a while. Adam’s right, Fausto is huge, too. Raffy-R at the VERY least needs to stay where he is, Tony Sipp needs to be the real deal, and Kerry Wood needs to knuckle up. And then I think we’ll need one more guy, and I don’t care who it is.
But if 1 more bullpen arm shows itself to be reliable, then we’d have a chance. What really stinks is even with those things going right, then we’d still only have a shot, because of the hole we’ve dug ourselves.
Il faut d'abord durer.
It’s a lot to put on him, but I’m standing by it. All the changes you suggest are accurate, but the fact that they haven’t happened yet suggests they’re not going to happen overnight. In the meantime, we need one guy back there who can keep us in a ballgame.
by fleerdon on May 6, 2009 11:48 PM EDT up reply actions
I’m very happy about tonight, but I’m not tremendously heartened by Laffey’s performance tonight, to be honest. His line looks way better than he did — he got really lucky with balls in play, and had a few too many fly balls for him.
But that’s enough negativity. Asdrubal and Victor continue to just rock at the plate, and I’m ecstatic about what we’ve gotten from Pavano the last few starts.
I have half a mind to take the games played so far, remove the bullpen performances but leave everything else as is, and simulate the PAs that were removed… It seems to me that even with somewhat below average bullpen performances, we’d be at least at .500 now, and probably a few games above. I’m not sure this is a useful enough thing to do given how much work it would be, but I’d be kind of curious to know, tangibly, how little better the bullpen would have to be for us to be right up near 1st right now.
by Logodaedalus on May 7, 2009 12:58 AM EDT up reply actions
kind of curious to know, tangibly, how little better the bullpen would have to be for us to be right up near 1st right now.
well, IMO… to be a game or two out of first we would have needed a normal Perez and 1 or both of JLew / Bentancourt to be above league-average.
Ben Francisco: An Outfielder only on baseball cards and roster sheets.
That certainly seems like it would do it, though I wonder if we’d even have needed that much. I mean, there have been some colossal implosions.
I see the following losses as games where, holding everything else constant, we should have been favored to win going into the last 3 innings, holding everything but the bullpen constant.
(1) 5/5 @ TOR, L 6-10 - bullpen combines for a 7-run 7th Betancourt gives up 3 in the 8th
(2) 5/2 @ DET, L 7-9 -
(3) 4/29 vs. BOS, L 5-6 — Betancourt gives up 3 in the 8th to tie, Lewis gives up losing run in 10th
(4) 4/19 @ NYY, L 3-7 — bullpen combines for 3 in the 7th, 3 in the 8th
(5) 4/17 @ NYY, L 5-6 — bullpen gives up 1 in 7th, 1 in 8th
(6) 4/10 vs. TOR, L 7-13 — bullpen combines for 8 runs in the 7th and 8th (and 1 in the 6th)
Now, we’re not going to win all of these, but let’s say that from the 7th to the 9th the bullpen typically gives up 2 runs. Assuming earned, that’s an average ERA of 6 for our back end relievers. Not an especially high bar, and presumably not as good as having a “normal” Perez and league average JLew/Raffy B. If they just give up 2 runs over the last 3 innings every time no matter what, we still lose 2 (2 and 5), we win 2 (3 and 6), and 2 become toss-ups (1 and 4). So we pick up 2-3 games. We’re now tied or one game up on MIN for third, 1 or 2 games behind DET. (Personally, I’m not quite ready yet to look at KC as a principal rival). And that’s not even counting games that were tied or within a run that were put out of reach by the bullpen, in which the offense could have played for 1 or 2 runs late in the game had it still been closer, or the game against Boston in which Lee went 8 scoreless only to have Wood give up 3 in the 9th.
I dunno. I’m being a little selective, obviously, but also trying to be pretty conservative in my assumptions.
Here’s what struck me in looking at the season so far. There have been 8 games this year in which the Indians had a win probability above 50% in the 7th inning or later yet still lost. That’s bad enough. But 5 of the 8 have been in the last 9 games, and those 5 represent all of the losses in a 4-5 stretch.
We needed like 11 relievers to get through three innings just two nights ago. Laffey not only pitched well, he spared the other six guys from even having to get up.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
by Jay on May 7, 2009 8:05 AM EDT up reply actions
But it’s gonna be awesome when he ends the year hitting .401.
Imagine the controversy on BBTN when Wedge rests him on the last day of the season to get him ready for the playoffs!
by still ill on May 7, 2009 12:53 AM EDT up reply actions 5 recs
In the last 20 years, there have only been 22 three-inning saves in which the pitcher threw 27 pitches or fewer (out of 857 such saves). Prior to Laffey, the last was Craig Breslow. Last night was the first three-inning save of the Wedge era, and the first since Steve Karsay in 2001.
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