Game 34: Indians 5, Rays 4
by Ryan on May 11, 2011 1:59 AM EDT
in Game Recaps
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All the classic hallmarks of a frustrating loss were there: walks leading to runs, stranding a small village on second and third base, not putting the game away when opportunity presented itself. This, however, has not been a typical Indians season, so somehow the Indians, through no particular impetus of their own, walked away with a frustrating victory.
With Jeff Niemann on the Disabled List with a back injury, the Rays brought LGFNEO Andy Sonnanstine in from the bullpen to make his first start of the season. Sonnanstine has been Tampa's Justin Germano, making only six appearances despite spending the entire season on the 25-man roster. So you'd think that this would be a rare opportunity to blow a team out. And after the first couple of batters, it looked like the Indians would do just that. Grady Sizemore jumped on a hanger and somehow kept the ball fair for a leadoff home run. Asdrubal Cabrera followed with a line drive single up the middle, and then Shin-Soo Choo lined another high breaking pitch to the opposite field. But Carlos Santana grounded into a 3-6-1 double play, Sonnanstine got his pitches down, and the Rays stayed in the game.
Josh Tomlin was his usual self, fearlessly throwing strikes with his rather pedestrian stuff. He gave up another solo home run in the fourth, but the Indians gave him back the lead after Michael Brantley responded with a home run of his own in the bottom of the inning. Tomlin would give up a run in the sixth, and after giving up a leadoff double in the seventh, was quickly pulled. He had thrown only 93 pitches, and he wasn't visibly laboring, but with Tony Sipp ready and a left-hander coming to the plate, Acta made the move. Sipp retired Dan Johnson, but pinch-hitter and LGFT Kelly Shoppach drove the runner home with a single.
The Indians had taken the lead the previous inning with an unconventional rally. Michael Brantley singled with one out, stole second base, and the next two batters walked. Grady Sizemore then hit a line drive back to pitcher Juan Cruz, who knocked the ball down and got the force out at home. Asdrubal Cabrera bailed the team out with a two-out infield hit. The Indians scored a second run when Shoppach John Jaso allowed a pitch to get by him.
So after the top of the seventh, the Indians held a 4-3 lead. They had golden opportunities in the seventh and eighth to put Tampa Bay away. In the bottom of the seventh, Michael Brantley hit into a double play with runners on first and third. After Evan Longoria tied the game with a home run in the top of the eighth, the Indians got a runner to third with one out in the bottom of the inning but failed to get him home. These missed opportunities almost always, in baseball's cosmic reckonings, lead to a late loss. But not tonight.
The bottom of the ninth start just like those other incomplete rallies. Choo opened with a walk, and made it to third despite hesitating after Carlos Santana hit a single through the hole. This prompted Maddon to walk Hafner to load the bases, bring in an extra infielder, and bringing in Kyle Farnsworth(!) to get the Rays out of the mess. It almost worked. Orlando Cabrera hit a high-hopping grounder that was fielded by Reid Brignac (playing in the hole that's usually between shortstop and third base); he threw home for the force. Farnsworth then got ahead of Michael Brantley 0-2 with Adam Everett on deck, but then couldn't find the strike zone. After almost hitting Brantley on the 2-2 pitch, he bounced the payoff offering in front of the plate to end the game. It was a ugly, ugly, win. But it was a win nonetheless.
| Highest WPA | Lowest WPA | ||
| Brantley | .257 | Sizemore | -.251 |
| Hannahan | .202 | Pestano | -.154 |
| LaPorta | .166 | O.C. | -.150 |
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Comments
The Indians scored a second run when Shoppach allowed a pitch to get by him.
For some reason, I didn’t put 2 and 2 together to realize that that was Shoppach.
Makes sense.
Also! LGFNEO–awesome.
"I want to be playing at the end of October or the end of September -- not just at the beginning of April." —Grady
Thanks, again, for the recap. You know, I no longer live in the country and, despite having MLB.tv, I rarely get to watch anything but afternoon games, and these recaps are, without fail, the first thing I read about the Tribe every morning. I don’t even go to indians.com or cleveland.com until I’m bored at work hours later. I get the result and an incredibly insightful blow-by-blow from LGT at 7 a.m. and I’m good. My dad often e-mails me, “did you read Hoynes’ article about the game last night?” And the other day I finally had to just tell him, “Dad, I never do.” He responded (I’m not lying) “Then how do you know things like why Joe Smith shouldn’t have stayed in the game to face (the Angels lefty the other day?)” And I just sent him the link to this site.
These recaps are kind of like our parents – we probably don’t tell them we love them enough.
Thanks, guys.
My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts.
by Ockus_NYC on May 11, 2011 2:27 AM EDT reply actions 17 recs
Very special kind of sports site, agreed.
"Mixed emotions. Rather see him hit PEDroia [with that pitch]. I don’t care if he is in the dugout"
by Gradysmanldy on May 11, 2011 1:48 PM EDT up reply actions
I think Kyle Farnsworth(!) should sign his name from here on out with the exclamation point in parentheses.
"I’ll happily embrace elevated hopes if that is the price to pay." - APV
On Twitter at @grantgw - sports and Cleveland and Columbus stuff
The (!) just makes so much sense for Farnsworth. As a huge fan of the Metal Gear Solid game series, the ! over the head of the batter he’s coming into face seems right to me.
by painaxl on May 11, 2011 8:25 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I missed pr0FF3ss0r_F4rnsw0rth!!! Didn’t even know he was still in the beisbol.
"Mixed emotions. Rather see him hit PEDroia [with that pitch]. I don’t care if he is in the dugout"
by Gradysmanldy on May 11, 2011 11:00 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Also rec for Dugout references.
My watch is broken... it's stuck on Tribe Time
#suckitLaw
by Turkmenbashi on May 11, 2011 11:06 AM EDT up reply actions
Rec for Metal Gear reference. Love those games, and that was exactly what I was thinking, too.
My watch is broken... it's stuck on Tribe Time
#suckitLaw
by Turkmenbashi on May 11, 2011 11:05 AM EDT up reply actions
Wow, what a strange game. I thought Tomlin didn’t have much at all, and had trouble getting the ball down. And he still had a quality start!
This was yet another game where the opposing pitchers threw a TON of offspeed pitches. I don’t have time to check f/x, but I doubt he threw five fastballs. He threw a cutter 3-0. Farnsworth has really improved by featuring the cutter – last night excepted! Haren has thrown a ton of cutters to the Indians each of his start. Buster Olney had a blog update last week about the prevalence of the cutter. You’re not hip if you don’t feature a cutter nowadays…unless you have a devastating sinker.
Jered Weaver threw a ton of offspeed pitches against the Tribe, though I thought that was more a result of not having his fastball. And the Rays’ bullpen last night…it was like clockwork…they refused to throw fastballs in fastball counts. And they almost got away with it.
According to fangraphs classifications, the Indians are in the bottom third of the league in FB% thrown their way, and the top third in changeups.
I’d think that this would result in reducing the effectiveness of the change-up.
Using fangraphs “pitch values” i got this correlation:
-0.478539771
Moderate support there (the more change-ups thrown to a team the less effective they have been, somewhat anyways).
And running a regression:
Regression Statistics
Multiple R 0.478539771
R Square 0.229000312
Adjusted R Square 0.164750339
Standard Error 0.011236769
Observations 14
Coefficients—— Standard Error—— t Stat—— P-value
Intercept 0.108399278————— 0.00338727—— 32.0019578—— 5.47133E-13
X Variable 1-0.000904151————- 0.000478916—— -1.887911185—— 0.083450124
So nothing really there at least looking at it from the early part of the season. If I get more time I’d look at last years data or multiple years if possible to see if it changes anything.
Hammy was marvelling about this the other night in the Weaver game. Manning and Underwood talked about it too, and referred to it as “pitching backward” because the Indians were seeing fastballs early, if they saw them at all from Oakland pitchers, and were getting offspeed pitches late in the sequence (the reverse of what they were expecting).
It’s pretty obviously the commonly held belief that the Tribe have trouble with off-speed stuff and so it’s great that the league is doing this to us early on in the season. We are certainly getting by right now despite all the junk and our guys will learn to hit these pitches.
I keep seeing on twitter that the whole Rays staff has pitched backwards this season. Can’t find the articles via mobile but I believe the guys at the process report covered this earlier in the season.
by afh4 on May 11, 2011 1:56 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Really? I’m a big Charley Harper fan, at least of his illustrations. Have never read his children’s books. Just love his work for textbooks.
by afh4 on May 11, 2011 1:57 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
It’s a cool illustration style, but it’s so stylized that it’s just confusing for a small child. Here’s a page about an owl, but it looks absolutely nothing like an owl — not a cartoon owl, not a real owl, it’s just a weird Charley Harper owl. The 1-2-3 book in particular, somebody should get shot for creating it.
Charley Harper=Charlie Sheen=Wild Thing. Wahoo.
by kennesawmountainwahoo on May 11, 2011 1:05 PM EDT up reply actions
I need to remember games like last night’s and Sunday’s loss vs. the Minneheim Twingels should even out over the course of a season.
A win is a win is a win.
You are reading my signature.
And I wouldn’t argue with you. More of a comment that Sunday’s Fangraph could express better, in that at points it seemed like the game was in control and fell out of the Tribe’s grasp (twice), and resulted in a loss thanks to some hard infield dirt. Meanwhile (not as drastically), last night’s game had some lost opportunities, but in the end, it was four straight balls thrown by the opposing team’s closer (!) that sealed up the victory.
Not so much playing well/losing and playing poorly/winning, but just that continually playing well (which is why I’m not arguing with you), the bounces and the luck will shake itself out in the end.
You are reading my signature.
Last few games have been excruciating watching the offense. First three batters last night it seemed like a sea change, but then Carlos’ DP and back to the slog.
Can’t say enuf about our pitching. Waiting for the offense to give it some breathing room at some point during this home stretch.
Yes, please. The Indians have now won six games in which the score was tied at the start of the ninth inning. Last year they won seven.
Grady homers. Eyebrow raises.
Astrocab singles. “Hmm….”
Choo singles. “Sonnanstine doesn’t have it tonight…time for the baseball!”
Santana grounds into DP. “Oh, looks like it’s time for that baseball. Darn. Hope we manage to win this thing….”
by Seattle Tribe Fan on May 11, 2011 4:13 PM EDT up reply actions
We’re back to having sole possession of the “Best Record In Baseball” title.
I just want to believe.
Holla!
My watch is broken... it's stuck on Tribe Time
#suckitLaw
by Turkmenbashi on May 11, 2011 12:59 PM EDT up reply actions
It comes in handy any time I know someone is from Philly.
"Mixed emotions. Rather see him hit PEDroia [with that pitch]. I don’t care if he is in the dugout"
by Gradysmanldy on May 11, 2011 1:50 PM EDT up reply actions
In 1999, I was about to start my freshman year of high school and the Chicago Cubs came to Jacobs Field. A Cubs rookie named Kyle Farnsworth came out before the game and signed a bunch of autographs before the game. He was really nice, and really friendly, and my friend and I were instantly enamored of the young pitcher we had never heard of.
Over the years, we have been alternately bemused and delighted at the turns Kyle’s career has taken. When he beat up Paul Wilson, we simultaneously called each other’s cell phones. When he injured himself chasing Jeremy Affeldt, we laughed about it for hours. When he hurt his finger breaking up a fight between his dogs, we were proud that our favorite non-Indian was an animal lover. And when he was a surprisingly competent closer for a couple of years, we were as shocked as anybody.
Kyle has a career 1.59 ERA against the Indians, but the Tribe is 16-9 when he pitches against them. When he came into the game last night, we instantly exchanged “Farnsy!” texts. And when he walked in the winning run, well, that was just to be expected. Kyle Fansworth never stops giving.
by Chemo on May 11, 2011 3:09 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
That slide into second was ugly. Hope it’s a short-term problem.
by Seattle Tribe Fan on May 11, 2011 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions
my thoughts exactly. lineups posted and he’s got the day off (despite the day off monday). i hope it’s just to avoid david price …
here’s the replay of the play from last night. manning is immediately concerned.
we’ll know more tonight i guess. man would that be a blow
by Gradyforpresident on May 11, 2011 4:29 PM EDT up reply actions
He banged his left knee (the microfracture one) into the bag. He jammed his right one. According to twitter the MRI he is having is focused on the right one.
When it happened last night he looked uncomfortable for a bit, but when Manny Acta tried to come out Grady waived him off. Here’s to hoping it is a strictly precautionary thing.
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