Upcoming 7 game homestand

[caulfield12]

We're definitely not going to see Carrasco, he pitched a complete game (8 IP, 5 ER) on Sunday. The moral of the story with the Indians this week is not letting the red-hot Kipnis, Murphy and Brantley (I'd add Santana to that list, unless he's on the DL) beat you.

 

 

MON Kluber vs. Sale

TUES Bauer vs. TBA (probably Q)

WED TBA vs. Rodon/Noesi/Carroll

THUR Salazar vs. Danks

 

Twins have a huge (bullpen rest) advantage, two off-days this week, Monday and Thursday, with two game trip to PITT inbetween. We won't face Nolasco and Pelfrey.

 

FRI Hughes vs. Samardzija

SAT May vs. Sale

SUN Gibson vs. Quintana

 

 

 

 

What's next?

 

Corey Kluber (1-5, 4.27), fresh off his 18-strikeout performance against the Cardinals, will face White Sox left-hander Chris Sale (3-1, 5.09) Monday night at 8:10 p.m. ET at U.S. Cellular Field as the two teams open a four-game series.

 

Kluber, who allowed one hit in eight innings against St. Louis, is 0-1 against the White Sox this year. He's 4-3 in his career against Chicago.

 

Sale will be making his second start since serving a five-game suspension for his part in a brawl with Kansas City. In his last start, he struck out 11 in eight innings against the Brewers.

 

He is 3-4 with a 4.29 ERA in his career against the Indians.

 

 

some fun reading from cleveland.com

 

 

No passion to win. No passion on this team. The fans are beat tired in this town....

 

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Rich Haney

Rich Haney 34 minutes ago

The Indians first three hitters in the batting order today had 4 hits and finished with batting averages of .340 for Kipnis, .315 for Murphy, and .348 for Brantley. After those three, the 4 and 5 hitters -- Chisenhall and Moss -- were 0-8 and couldn't even muster a weak grounder to score runs from 3rd with less than two outs. Chisenhall is now hitting .228 and Moss .229 and both are leaving a ton of runners on base. The highest batting average for the last six in the batting order was Swisher's .237. Perez at .164 and Ramirez at .168 are pathetic. To continue playing the hitters that were #4 through #9 today frustrates Cleveland fans because other teams are making moves and trying to win. Chisenhall and Moss should be traded or released. I am amazed how inept Moss is; he seems totally incapable most of the time to get a runner in from 3rd with a simple ground ball. Chisenhall has simply proven unworthy of his new contract. Lindor had three more hits today and his speed, glove, and bat are badly needed but he stays in Columbus at least till mid-June so as not to cost the Tribe a year on his arbitration rights. Big deal. The Indians should worry about five years from now right years from now. Tossing out 2015 is ridiculous.

 

 

Wow...look at Hoynsie trying to spin Carrasco for his bosses. It isn't bad enough that the local media were trying to claim him as an ace. Zack was even going around trying to claim he had 10 dominant starts to end last season, which was inaccurate spin. This organization and their media goons are desperate to try to justify that Cliff Lee trade to this day...

 

He did NOT deserve better, Hoynsie. He gave up 5 runs in 8 innings. He was inconsistent. Mediocre. He had a 5.62 ERA for that game. How does his performance deserve anything?

Edited May 18, 2015 by caulfield12

[bmags]

Glad we are gathering great intelligence from Cleveland.com comments.

[Buehrle>Wood]

Hopefully Kluber isn't truly back.

[caulfield12]

Glad we are gathering great intelligence from Cleveland.com comments.

 

 

I just thought it was funny...that many of the posters there believe there's a conspiracy in the local media to force fans to like the team and/or support it.

 

We give Rongey a hard time, Merkin and Boyer...but I've never heard of a local writer being accused of trying to influence fans via bias in his writing to see Sox players more favorably. It's usually the likes of Mariotti and Cowley trying to turn you against the team/front office/ownership group.

Edited May 18, 2015 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Hopefully Kluber isn't truly back.

 

 

Stupid Francona, he should have sent him out for the 9th to set the strikeout record!!!

 

There's always wishful thinking...

[BigHurt3515]

Hope to go 5-2 or 4-3 at the worst. Would love 6-1

[Jerksticks]

You know we could pretty much end Cleveland's season with a 4 game sweep. Wouldn't that be tasty.

[macsandz]

You know we could pretty much end Cleveland's season with a 4 game sweep. Wouldn't that be tasty.

 

Hate to sound negative, but nothing on the recent Sox road trip inspired much confidence. Winning streak is fool's gold IMO. I just see far too many flaws on the field and in the dugout.

[Southwest Sider]

Hate to sound negative, but nothing on the recent Sox road trip inspired much confidence. Winning streak is fool's gold IMO. I just see far too many flaws on the field and in the dugout.

 

I'll defend your right to have your opinion, but I disagree immensely. The Sox of a couple weeks ago would have found ways to lose against Oakland. Whatever you may think, the Sox were able to take advantage of them. I mean, 5 game win streak aside, we're talking about the first sweep of Oakland in Oakland since 1997. That fact right there should draw a little more positivity for the Sox moving forward.

 

You have your negative reasons to feel the way you do, but here are a few positives for you.

 

Danks pitched well

Rodon is in the rotation

Samardzija pitched well

The bullpen pitched well

Sanchez is much better defensively then Johnson

Hitters look like they are starting to find their groove. Abreu/Alexei with long hit streaks, Laroche with a couple big hits, but especially impressive are Eaton and Garcia. This one is huge, because if your hitters can't hit then your team will go nowhere. I don't think anyone can argue against our team hitting looking better. Sure, they didn't hit a grand slam or a bases clearing double during every bases loaded opportunity, but they still cashed in a little. And had timely hitting. And continuation hitting. And GREAT at bats. If the flaws you see on the field can overshadow how much better the Sox hitters are looking, then I argue you should return those turd colored glasses you are wearing to wherever you got them.

 

 

This team isn't close to perfect. The coaches could still be a detriment. Team defense is still lacking. Still some baserunning mistakes. But at the same time, they're being aggressive, and I like it. Hustle doubles are always a good thing. I think this team is trending upwards and getting back to .500 so quickly is a VERY good thing. Now they need to keep that momentum going and take advantage of another team that is not playing well. Hopefully they get some nice crowds, they deserve it.

[caulfield12]

Let's just see how they do against teams with very solid pitching (CLE) and a team some are ranking as high as 6th or 7th in their power ratings/rankings.

 

Oakland's in such a terrible funk that it's very hard to draw any conclusions from that series....any more than you could draw them from KC and Minnesota sweeping us when we were playing terrible baseball.

 

Statistically, we're only ahead of the Red Sox in the RS/RA allowed index. Oakland's still at -5. Statistically, the White Sox SHOULD be 14-20 and the A's 19-20. Obviously, that's why they play the games...and it matters more when you play a team, and also how you're playing at the time, than anything else.

 

The main positive right now is the entire AL playoff picture is wide open. The Royals are having major difficulties with Ventura and Duffy, two of their rotation strengths entering the season. With both Shields AND Volquez, they'd be running away with the division...and Detroit just has a tremendously balanced offensive attack (but no lockdown starters like in years past). If not for the Kinsler/Fielder and Soria deals, the Rangers might actually have prevented the Tigers from being anything but a wild card contender.

[OmarComing25]

Stupid Francona, he should have sent him out for the 9th to set the strikeout record!!!

 

There's always wishful thinking...

Francona was ejected earlier in the game, he wasn't the one who took out Kluber.

[Brian]

Sale has to put up some 0's. No homers to hacks like Raburn.

[Dunt]

Hate to sound negative, but nothing on the recent Sox road trip inspired much confidence. Winning streak is fool's gold IMO. I just see far too many flaws on the field and in the dugout.

 

Care to elaborate? I still think Ventura makes some awful decisions (handling bullpen and bringing Duke in) and there are still mental errors, but they seemed to clean things up a bit during that road trip. Everybody seems to be hitting now, starting to see some power again, the SPs are coming around...Im much more optimistic now than I was 2 weeks ago. It's nice to actually see them have a clean game or two.

[SCCWS]

You know we could pretty much end Cleveland's season with a 4 game sweep. Wouldn't that be tasty.

 

We are 4 games ahead of them. If they sweep us, would that pretty much end our season????

 

[Balta1701]

Sale has to put up some 0's. No homers to hacks like Raburn.

Oh god that's right we have to face Raburn this week.

[Dick Allen]

Oh god that's right we have to face Raburn this week.

We are probably the only fan base in baseball who knows who Raburn is, including the fan bases of the teams for which he has played.

[Balta1701]

We are probably the only fan base in baseball who knows who Raburn is, including the fan bases of the teams for which he has played.

Have you seen his career against-team RBI numbers? It is probably the most insane stat line I've ever seen.

[southsider2k5]

We are 4 games ahead of them. If they sweep us, would that pretty much end our season????

 

End our season? In May?

[shysocks]

Oakland's in such a terrible funk that it's very hard to draw any conclusions from that series....any more than you could draw them from KC and Minnesota sweeping us when we were playing terrible baseball.

I agree with this. I'm super excited that we're back to .500, but Oakland did everything they could to give us those games. The good news is that we were happy to take them, and that perhaps the monkey of that putrid road record is off our back.

 

There were also some strong individual performances from that series, which others have done a good job noting. Let's keep it rolling!

[pettie4sox]

The SOX beat the teams they should. Right now Milwaukee and Oakland are struggling. 4-2 was expected if the SOX consider themselves a good ball club.

[Jerksticks]

We are 4 games ahead of them. If they sweep us, would that pretty much end our season????

?????? No, we wouldn't be 12 games under .500, we'd be 4. What a comment, thanks, may God have mercy on your soul.

[caulfield12]

Rodon's officially going to start WED.

 

Indians will counter with former Blue Jay Shaun Marcum (this would have been Bruce Chen's slot....haha....speaking of Chen, seems he would make an excellent coaching candidate for some team, and since he's had so much success against the White Sox, it makes TOO much sense!)

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2...t_story_package

 

"In our meetings with every player that got sent down at the end of spring training we asked them what they'd learned," said Antonetti. "Everyone of them said they learned so much from Bruce Chen." The Indians were so impressed with how Chen carried himself when he was on the mound and on the bench during games that they filmed him. "We filmed the way he interacted with his fielders after they made a good play," said Antonetti. "How he acted on the mound and engaged the other players on the bench. Instead of just saying, "We want you to be a good teammate,', now we can show them what we're talking about."

 

 

Quintana versus Bauer tmrw.

 

 

What's next?

 

Trevor Bauer (2-1, 3.67) will face Chicago lefty Jose Quintana (2-3, 4.39) on Wednesday night at 8:10 p.m. at U.S. Cellular Field. SportsTime Ohio, WTAM AM/1100 and WMMS FM/100.7 will carry the game.

 

Bauer is 1-0 against the White Sox this season and has not allowed a run on the road this year.

 

Quintana is 1-0 against the Indians this season. In his career, he's 4-0 with a 2.94 ERA against the Tribe.

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2...tml#incart_2box

 

 

Something's gotta give, Quintana's perfect record against CLE and/or Bauer not giving up a run on the road yet.

Edited May 19, 2015 by caulfield12

[reiks12]

Quintana winning tonight would be huge considering Rodon is going tomorrow and the mysterious Danks on Thursday.

[OmarComing25]

Some of the radio guys last night kept pointing out that this streak has come against cellar dwellers, and while true, the Brewers just beat the Tigers in Detroit and the A's just beat the Astros in Houston. Kluber and the Indians also dominated the best team in the NL last week on the road as well. Also, in 2012 we really struggled against the bad teams, which was a big contributor along with our bad record against Detroit to losing the division.

[caulfield12]

Some of the radio guys last night kept pointing out that this streak has come against cellar dwellers, and while true, the Brewers just beat the Tigers in Detroit and the A's just beat the Astros in Houston. Kluber and the Indians also dominated the best team in the NL last week on the road as well. Also, in 2012 we really struggled against the bad teams, which was a big contributor along with our bad record against Detroit to losing the division.

 

 

When all is said and done....they're not only going to have to go .500 against KC and Detroit, they're going to have to record an 11-8 or 12-7 record (against DET/KC/Minnesota, 2 of those 3) to offset starting 2-4 against KC, 2-5 against Minnesota and Baltimore (0-2).

 

Most of us still believe the Twins aren't a real contender...I also think that's fair to say. But we're probably going to have to sweep them to serve notice to the rest of the baseball world that we have a real pulse (where we start getting mentioned as a Top Ten MLB club). That said, 3-1 versus CLE and 2-1 versus MIN would still put us at a solid 3 games over .500 and right back in the thick of things.

 

There's going to be about 7-9 teams fighting for that final Wild Card spot. (Astros, Mariners, Angels, Tigers or Royals and 2-3 teams from the AL East). At this point, not ready to call TB or the Twins contenders.

Edited May 19, 2015 by caulfield12