(Un)Stuck In The Middle
Arizona's success in this series largely came from their ability to feast on Indians pitching in the middle innings, consistently putting Cleveland in a hole each night that they were unable to crawl out of. The first game of the series saw the hosts unload on Josh Tomlin, despite the Tribe gifting the Texan an early 3-0 lead. Tomlin was pitching well until the fourth inning, when the D-Backs capitalised on seeing Tomlin's stuff for the third and fateful time. The right-hander got pounded for 6 runs on 7 hits and never made it out of the fifth. Cleveland couldn't recover and dropped game one, their first loss of the year.
Trevor Bauer experienced much of the same in game two. Cleveland took an early lead in the fourth inning but Arizona replied in the fifth, then took the lead in the next inning thanks to a David Peralta solo home run. Up to that point Bauer was actually holding his own in his duel with Zack Greinke but soon the D-Backs broke the game open. When Bauer departed, Bryan Shaw entered the game but could only surrender stinging extra-base hits to push Arizona's lead to 5-1. In the eighth inning reliever Shawn Armstrong was absolutely torn apart in his 1 inning of work: 5 hits and 2 walks for 5 earned runs. The Tribe lost 11-2.
Corey Kluber was the Indians' last hope to salvage something from the series but even he couldn't halt this rampaging Arizona lineup. Kluber battled, giving up 2 runs in the fourth inning, but he lasted 6 frames before departing, giving up a total of 6 hits, 3 runs (2 earned), 1 walk and he struck out 4. The Indians tried to rally late on, scoring a single run in seventh and ninth inning but couldn't come back all the way, eventually losing 3-2.
Leaving Runners On Base Is Bad
The Indians' pitching wasn't great in this series but the offense didn't offer them much support either. Over the course of the three game series the Indians left a total of 48 runners on base.
48!
15 in the first game, 12 in the second, and a whopping 21 in last night's close loss. Every game was relatively close until Arizona broke them open in the middle innings, but then we enter a game of what-if: what if just one or two Indians' hits evaded the D-Backs' gloves or found their way out of the infield? It's completely pointless to pull on this thread now and I'm not going to do it. The Indians didn't get their key hits and they lost - it's time to move on to the next one.
Player Of The Series
Last week I had so many candidates to choose from but this time I'm having difficulty choosing just one. I'm going to opt for Yandy Diaz and his improving defense at the hot corner. The club had questions about whether Diaz could handle third base and this was partly why the Cuban was left off the expanded roster last September. There were still questions being asked this spring but Diaz has done everything possible to prove himself at the position and is looking more and more comfortable each game. He made a sharp play in Texas last week and pulled off a beautiful bare-handed play in this series, a real highlight. So far Yandy's bat hasn't been quite as hot as it was in spring training, not yet anyway, but I've enjoyed seeing his progress defensively so he gets the award for this series.
The Indians have an off-day today before their home opener tomorrow against the Chicago White Sox at 4:10pm ET. The Sox will send James Shields to the mound and Carlos Carrasco will go for the Indians. There's a possibility Lonnie Chisenhall could be activated off the disabled list and return for the Tribe as well. Hopefully the Indians can channel the positivity of the home opener into results on the field and get back to winning ways against our division rivals.
Thanks for reading.
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