Indians Earn Split in Baltimore

A series split? I'll take that. Before this series in Baltimore, I was a bit worried that the Orioles would destroy us, like they have with so many other teams this year. We've had a rough time of it against those boys from the AL East, the most stacked division in the league (every team is over .500, now the Jays have had a resurgence). So to take away two wins is fantastic in my book. It's too bad the Indians couldn't get the win last night (they lost 7-3) to take the series outright, but you can't have everything your way I suppose.

We did get to see Scott Kazmir pitch a gem, taking a no-hitter into the 7th inning on Wednesday, before the Indians nearly threw it away and lost the game. Thankfully they rallied in the 9th with 2 RBI groundouts to win it 4-3 and save their blushes. Kazmir was electric, allowing just a single hit. It was a superb performance and very comforting to see him string together back-to-back good games.

Anyway, let's look at some of the talking points from the series:

The People Versus Nick Swisher

Okay, I had the idea to do a piece on Swisher earlier this week. Then two of my fellow bloggers beat me to the punch, TD at Waiting For Next Year and Tom at Red Right 88. Both are excellent articles and deserve your attention, but I felt I could still share my thoughts on the Swisher situation.

We all know that Swisher was the marquee signing during the off-season and was immediately made the face of the franchise, the image of the Indians' new beginning behind Terry Francona. All the homecoming stuff was great and you could see Nick's enthusiasm was genuine; he actually wanted to play here and his energy and excitement helped restore some faith in the organisation. The 32 year-old switch hitter had never been "the star" during his career in the major leagues but he came to Cleveland hailed as one.  Unfortunately, Swisher hasn't produced like a star on the field and has yet to find his offensive groove in 2013.

As I type this, Swisher is batting .229 for the season with 7 home runs and 25 RBI. His OBP is .330 and his OPS is .713 (pretty far behind his career average of .822). He's having a really rough month, batting just .125 in June with 5 RBI and no home runs. In fact, the last time he hit a home run was May 26 at Fenway Park. Yes, that's over a month ago. To say Swisher is struggling is an understatement and he obviously hasn't delivered on the expectations we had before the start of the season.

He's been hampered by injuries this year, most recently a problem in his shoulder which must be hindering his play on the field and at the plate. So I can cut him a bit of slack there, it can't be easy playing hurt every day. Still, it's alarming to see how the fans have turned on him. His love of Ohio and being a nice guy around the club is surely holding back some of the fan's venom, but how long will it last? How much more sub-par play will the Tribe faithful put up with before they really turn on him?

Personally, I find it difficult to boo my own players and shower them with intense criticism. It's not a British thing, we boo our guys just like they do in the States and all over the world. Maybe I'm just a glass half full kind of guy? So that being said, I'm not going to start hating on Swisher and I'm not going to jump on the "trade Swish bandwagon", not that that's a realistic option anyway. I drafted him on my fantasy team for pete's sake, I'm not going to give up on that investment just yet. And neither should Tribe fans (in real life, not fantasy. Do what you want in fantasy!). I have to believe that Swisher will turn things around in 2013. The Indians front-office are paying him a lot of money to do just that. If you thought the Indians were getting a powerful 30 HR+ 100 RBI+ first baseman in the winter, you were mistaken, he's not that player anymore and never has been (closest he got to those numbers was 2006). However, I can understand the fan's frustration because I know we all expected more than what we're getting. Nick Swisher of all people knows this and I'm pretty sure he's trying his damn best to correct it.

Player Of The Series

The complete opposite to Nick Swisher offensively at the moment? Why it's back-to-back Player of the Series winner Jason Kipnis of course. Kipnis has continued his blistering hot streak at the plate lately and torched Baltimore for 5 hits, one in each game to continue his 9 game hitting streak, 2 home runs and 4 RBI.

It's amazing how well Kipnis is playing at the moment, showing us his immense talent on a daily basis. He's hitting .398 in June, that's the best average in the league this month amongst players with over 80 at-bats (that's better than Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera). In his current form, Kipnis is outperforming both Robinson Cano and Dustin Pedroia in nearly every category. He has more RBI this month (Kipnis 19, Pedroia 17, Cano 10), more stolen bases (Kipnis 7, Pedroia 3, Cano 3), more home runs (Kipnis 3, Pedroia 2, Cano 2), more hits (Kipnis 33, Pedroia 26, Cano 18), and a far higher batting average (Kipnis .398, Pedroia .277, Cano .231). Is that not enough for people to realise that Kipnis deserves a spot at the All Star Game next month? I'll admit, overall he's probably not as good as Cano and Pedroia over a full season but right now, Kipnis is the best second baseman in the league. Make it happen people, lets make Kipnis an All Star.

Thanks for reading.