Game 103: Blue Jays 8, Indians 1

The Indians were blown out for the third straight game, and this particular one was not any different than the other two; the starting pitcher got smacked around, the offense was punchless, and garbage time was plentiful.

Justin Masterson is having one heck of a bi-polar season. He can be absolutely brilliant, but there are nights when his pitches break from side-to-side instead of sinking. Tonight was one of those nights, and the Indians were out of the game by the fourth inning. In that fourth inning, the Jays scored three runs one five singles, an un-Jays way of scoring runs. Then Jose Bautista absolutely obliterated a Masterson pitch off the facing the restaurant in center field to clear the bases, placing an appropriate cap on the inning. Justin would stick around into the sixth inning because the Indians really needed him to soak up as many innings as possible, but he had to be pulled because of his mounting pitch count. Thankfully Justin Germano finished the game, saving the rest of the bullpen for more needed battles.

Although I've spent most of the time detailing the bad pitching recently, the spluttering offense deserves its share of attention. Although most teams would have lost three straight giving up 9, 11, and 8 runs respectively, there's a problem no matter what the pitching is doing when you score 19 runs in the last 9 games, and average of just over 2 runs a game. Carlos Santana and Matt LaPorta have cooled off, the Indians have traded two of their better offensive players (note I'm referring to relative, not absolute prowess) and a third might have to go on the DL with more shoulder problems. Left are the young, some promising, some not.

via www.fangraphs.com