Tribe Drop Series To KC But Ubaldo Shines

After the Tribe took a 4-3 win to open this series against the visiting Royals on Monday, I thought they might kick on and put a marker down, show they mean business in this race for October baseball. Instead they dropped the next two games, losing the series overall, whilst looking totally anemic in the process. I'm not going to focus on the negatives today though. No sir, I'm going to shine a little light on the one Tribe player who did us proud during this series.

A Summertime Miracle

After a disastrous 2012 season, 99% of Tribe fans and the rest of major league baseball were ready to write off Ubaldo Jimenez's hopes of being an effective pitcher again. Especially after a league-leading 17 losses and a 5.40 ERA that ranked as the 3rd worst in the entire league (he was 3rd worst in walks too, with 95 in 176.2 innings). To put it simply, Jimenez was one of, if not the worst starting pitcher in baseball last year. Coming into the 2013 season, our expectations for him couldn't have been much lower. Hell, some people expected him to be released during Spring Training.

However, 2013 has proven to be a revelation for Ubaldo, a resurrection if you will, albeit with a few bumps in the road along the way (nothing is ever easy where Ubaldo is concerned). He got off to a slow start, highlighted by an awful 1.2 inning shellacking against Boston on April 16th, when he was hammered for 7 runs in that short space of time. People were calling for his head soon afterwards. But as the year has gone on, Ubaldo has gotten better and better. It's been a bit of a slow process, as he often struggled to get past 5 innings even when he was pitching pretty well. To his credit, Ubaldo has been nothing if not resilient. Whilst some pitchers get tired and worn down once September rolls around, Jimenez has been the complete opposite, looking stronger now than he's looked at any other point in the campaign. Gone are his velocity problems that plagued him early in the season (Adam Burke coined the phrase: Ubaldogate). Watching him pitch now is actually fun for once, something rarely said since he joined the club from Colorado in a mid-season trade in 2011.

After Monday's dominant outing against the Royals (7 innings, 7 hits, 1 unearned run, 0 walks and 10 strikeouts), Jimenez's season looks like this: 154.1 innings pitched with a 3.62 ERA that was as high as 11.25 in April and 5.03 in June. His ERA has only gotten lower and lower ever since, sitting at a very respectable level now. At the time of writing he is 32nd in the league in strikeouts with 157, ahead of guys like Toronto's R.A. Dickey, KC's Ervin Santana, the Yankees' Hiroki Kuroda, Tampa Bay's David Price, and Atlanta's Kris Medlen and Julio Teheran. That ain't too shabby for Ubaldo.

Yeah, he still walks too many guys (he did this even in his glory days with the Rockies), with 75 walks so far, good enough for the 3rd highest total in the league (joint 3rd with Justin Masterson actually). But Jimenez has been much better lately and seems to have harnessed the majority of his control problems. Let's play a small sample size game for a minute: In his last 4 starts Ubaldo has only given up 5 walks in 26 innings, twice pitching games where he didn't walk anybody. Did you hear what I said? UBALDO DIDN'T WALK ANYBODY. Some people probably didn't think that was possible. Within this span, Jimenez struck out 34 batters, reaching 10 K's in 3 out of those 4 games, all to the tune of a mesmerising 1.73 ERA with batters hitting just .235 off him. To say Ubaldo has turned a corner in 2013 would be an understatement. He's like a new man out there, especially since the All Star Break: 1.94 ERA, 63 strikeouts in 55.2 innings, only 3 HR's surrendered in nearly 2 months, and a measly .220 batting average against him. If the season started in mid-July, he'd be considered one of the best pitchers in the game this year, one of the elite. Yeah, your very own Ubaldo Jimenez. Go figure.

So what was the point of this gushing piece about Ubaldo and his recent hot streak? Well, if the tall right-hander can keep this up until the end of the month, and God forbid maybe into the post-season, I think he deserves a place on this ballclub in 2014. He has a team option for $8 million next year and despite turning 30 years old in January, I think Jimenez has earned another season in the Cleveland rotation. I never thought I'd say those words just a few short months ago but now I'd be quite sad to see Ubaldo depart if the Indians front office decided against keeping him around for another year. Which is why it is of the utmost importance he remains focused for just a few more weeks and continues to pitch exactly the way he has done recently. I pray he can achieve this and prove I haven't just wasted my time singing his praises. Nonetheless, the big guy has made a fan out of me.

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Tribe Enter Break In Royal Fashion

What a fantastic way to cap off the first half of the season, sweeping the Royals in three games as the All Star Game draws near this Tuesday. The Indians have been in fine form of late and had everything working for them in this series, shutting out KC 3-0 on Friday, beating them 5-3 on Saturday, before sweeping them with a fine 6-4 victory today, Sunday. This afternoon's win leaves the Indians with a 51-44 record, remarkable given how streaky the team have been at times, and the club are just 1.5 games behind the Tigers in the race for AL Central. As Wayne Campbell so nicely put it: Game on!

Kluber Continues To Impress

Corey Kluber is having a hell of a season for the Indians in 2013. His first half numbers don't initially dazzle the eye, and that's partly due to him feeling his way into the season, but for a guy who wasn't even supposed to be part of this club's rotation this year,he ain't doing too badly if I say so myself. At the break he has a 3.88 ERA, with 94 strikeouts in 95 innings and just 22 walks. Kluber appears to be getting better every time he takes the mound and his latest outing ranks amongst his best so far.

Kluber kicked off the series against Kansas City on Friday with a dominating pitching performance. He lasted 7 2/3 innings, surrendering only 3 hits and 3 walks, to go along with 8 strikeouts, whilst all the while keeping the Royals off the scoreboard. He was damn near untouchable, like he has been so often since the start of June. With Zach McAllister missing from the rotation due to injury, Kluber has picked up the torch and has cemented himself as the number 2 starter in McAllister's absence. If he can continue to pitch like this in the second half of the season, and McAllister can return to full health and be effective like he was before he got hurt, our rotation will immediately look a lot better. In fact, it would be so much better that I'm almost willing to admit that the Indians wouldn't need to trade for a new starter before July's deadline ends. A rotation led by Masterson, McAllister and Kluber inspires a lot of confidence in me, and if all three guys can continue to pitch into September like they have done so far, well I reckon the team can only prosper.

Player Of The Series

There are a number of worthy candidates for the award this series, Kluber amongst them for the reasons I have just mentioned. But my pick for this series goes to our young third baseman Lonnie Chisenhall, for his efforts at the plate and in the field over the last couple of days. Lonnie smashed the first grand slam of his MLB career on Saturday, his 4 RBI bomb fuelling the Tribe to the 5-3 win. His grand slam ultimately proved to be the difference, supporting Scott Kazmir's sterling effort on the mound (6 1/3 innings, 4 hits, 2 runs, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts for his 5th win of the season). Not only was Lonnie impressive at the plate against KC, he was also confident and impressive with the glove, making all the routine plays at third, showing none of the nerves he displayed earlier on in the year. Chiz made a superb catch during today's game, catching a towering pop-up over the camera-man's railing by the third base dugout, pulling it off with ease. It's just so refreshing to see him playing with this level of confidence, looking like he finally belongs on a major league field. He's really starting to progress nicely now and just needs to maintain this level throughout the second half of the season. Keep it up Lonnie and congrats.

So now we can all look forward to seeing Masterson and Kipnis in New York on Tuesday at the All Star Game. I hope both guys manage to get into the game for a bit, and I'll be making the effort to stay up late here in the UK to watch the game. Keep your eyes peeled here to the blog over the next couple of days, I'll have a first half season review coming up shortly. Until then...

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Sloppy Tribe Drop Series In KC

Yesterday's 10-7 loss in Kansas City was agonising. As we all know, baseball can be a cruel mistress; it doesn't get any worse than being on the receiving end of a blown save, followed by a walk-off winner. But the Indians got pretty close to that feeling yesterday, surrendering a 5-0 lead and then a 7-5 lead to lose the game 10-7. At the time it felt worse than a blown save. It was frustrating, embarrassing, and worst of all, inevitable. You could see it coming a mile away. Why you ask? Because our bullpen is terrible and delivered a perfect example of that yesterday.

The loss was Cleveland's second in a row, resulting in the first series loss for the Tribe since we got swept by the Tigers just under a month ago. The series started well for the Indians, winning on Tuesday 6-5, but they couldn't come through in another close game on Wednesday, losing 6-5 instead. Then disaster struck on Thursday.

It started off pretty well. The Indians had a 3-0 lead after 2 innings, thanks to a Michael Brantley RBI single in the 1st and a 2 run homer from Drew Stubbs in the 2nd. The Tribe did a good job of working the count on Royals ace James Shields, who only lasted 5 1/3 innings. But Ubaldo Jimenez, despite keeping the Royals off the board for 5 innings, had control problems all afternoon and was struggling to keep his pitch count down. It was pretty clear by the 5th inning that Ubaldo wasn't going to last much longer. So it was no surprise that Ubaldo walked the first two batters he faced to begin the 6th inning.

By now the Indians were up 5-0 with a healthy lead to protect, thanks to Stubbs coming good again, plating 2 more runners to give him 4 RBI on the day. But Kansas City had got two runners on base with no outs and it was clear to everybody that Ubaldo was done. Clear to everyone but manager Terry Francona, who decided to leave Jimenez in a while longer. Big mistake. After Ubaldo induced a grounder to first base, Mark Reynolds and Ubaldo fudged the play and our pitcher ended up dropping the ball. All the runners safe, bases loaded, no outs. Surely Francona would come in now and get Ubaldo? Nope.

What happened next was so obvious, you had to laugh. Ubaldo got behind in the count again and on 3-1, grooved a pitch to Lorenzo Cain, who proceeded to send the ball over the centre field fence for a grand slam. We went from 5-0 to 5-4 just like that. Francona finally came to yank the crestfallen Ubaldo out of there, but the damage was done. I blame both men equally. Ubaldo has to do better, he cannot afford to keep walking so many guys and not have it come back to haunt him (like it did). And Francona should know better. What the hell was he doing leaving Jimenez in that long? Ubaldo should have been gone after he walked the first Royal, definitely after he walked the second.

However, we still had the lead. Naturally it didn't last for long. Cody Allen came in to relieve Ubaldo and proceeded to give up a home run to Royals backup catcher George Kottaras (who?). Tie ballgame. It was the second home run in as many days that Allen had given up, and it looked pretty clear he was being overworked. That's what happens when you have a crappy bullpen, your best guys have to work harder to pick up the slack for your awful guys.

The Tribe came back though and regained the lead instantly in the top of the 7th. Jason Kipnis and Brantley managed to get on base to start the inning before Carlos Santana ripped a huge double over KC centre-fielder Jarrod Dyson's head to score both guys. 7-5 Tribe and we were back in business. We just needed the bullpen to get through a couple of innings unscathed.

It didn't happen obviously. A combination of awful pitching from Joe Smith, Bryan Shaw, Rich Hill and Matt Albers let the Royals score 5 more runs, giving KC the win and overall series victory. It was a bullpen meltdown of the highest order. I've never seen such ineptitude from a collective group before. Each new pitcher looked as clueless as the one before, nobody could get the Royals out. Rich Hill came in, walked a batter on 4 straight pitches, then Francona came out and pulled him from the game. Honestly, what the hell was the point in bringing him in the first place?

It was a pretty miserable 4th of July for Indians fans, a real gut-punch of a loss. Thankfully the Tribe return home now and don't go back on the road until the 19th July, after the All Star break. They need to put this loss behind them quickly and focus on the massive task ahead; the Tigers come to town today to begin a four-game series. It's obviously a very important series and we have to earn a split at the very least. Until next time...

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Tribe Take Two, Split Series In KC

After dropping the first two games of the four-game series in Kansas City, the Indians rebounded to win the final two match-ups, the highlight being Ubaldo Jimenez rolling back the years and pitching an absolute beauty last night in a 9-0 Indians victory. That win ensured Cleveland returned home from this long road-trip on a positive note, with a 5-4 record on their travels, which actually isn't too bad given the way they've played sometimes. Let's look at what went down in KC:

Inconsistent Indians

The offense is already becoming a bit of a frustration for some of the Tribe faithful. How can the lineup produce nothing at all for our ace Masterson on Sunday but then explode for 10 runs later in the day to back Kluber to a win? How do they wait until the 9th inning to score any runs for the by-then-left-the-game Scott Kazmir on Saturday night but they'll happily gift Ubaldo 8 out of  a total 9 runs last night? The inconsistency in hitting is starting to become a bit of a grind for some. This is a team that can get shutout one night then destroy a team for double digit runs the next. Kazmir put in a good effort on Saturday night, going 5 innings and only surrendering 2 runs but he didn't get any run support to help him out, the Indians scoring their only runs in the 9th inning of a 3-2 loss. Masterson didn't get any runs at all on Sunday, and even though he didn't pitch great, he still gave the offense a chance to keep the score close early on in the game. Nothing. Nada. Zero.

Now I'm not one of the guys on Twitter calling for heads already. I don't think we need to worry too much about the lineup, they will start hitting with some regularity once we get into the meat of the season (the past two days should show a little glimpse of that). It's still only April after all so there's no need to throw TVs out the window or anything like that.

There are some positive signs that the offense are beginning to turn things around though. Santana is hot right now, batting .386 with 27 total hits, with a whopping 1.141 OPS, leading the team by a wide margin in all three of those categories. I love what our catcher has shown us so far in 2013. There's also signs of Asdrubal Cabrera coming out of his recent slump too. He had a really good week, batting .412 in 17 at-bats with 3 RBI. Hopefully our shortstop is beginning to get into his groove a bit and can carry this bit of form with him into May and beyond.

We're Missing Bourn Badly

Since Michael Bourn went on the DL after cutting his right hand against the White Sox a couple of weeks ago, the Tribe offense hasn't been the same. The dynamic centre fielder had gotten off to a good start in Cleveland and appeared to be hitting some form before his unfortunate injury in a close play sliding into first base. With our leadoff hitter out of the lineup, Francona has been forced to shake things up a bit and I don't think the team has responded as well as the skipper might have hoped. The natural choice to fill in at the leadoff spot was Michael Brantley but our left fielder just does not look comfortable up there when he's forced to leadoff. Francona originally had Brantley batting in the 5 or 6 spot to start the season and he looked great there, shoring up the bottom half of the lineup, but the adjustment has thrown Brantley slightly out of sorts. Since taking Bourn's spot in the lineup Brantley has hit for a .265 batting average with a .342 OBP, whereas he was batting .282 with a .378 OBP before being asked to fill in at leadoff. Now I know its not that big of a difference and yes it's a small sample in April but the change in the lineup is obviously having some effect on Brantley, particularly to his mental approach at the plate. The stats won't show it but you can see he isn't as comfortable up there.

The knock-on effect from Brantley hitting leadoff is we've also lost that spark he provided in the bottom half of the lineup. The sooner we get Bourn back the better but nobody knows yet when he'll be ready to play everyday. He can come off the DL on Tuesday but Francona doesn't think he'll be ready to go just yet. "I don't think he's as comfortable as he wanted to be," said the Tribe manager. The stitches in his finger are now out but it's a pretty sensitive area as everybody knows, so you don't want Bourn to be rushed and re-injure the wound. However, the sooner he gets back the better and maybe the lineup can finally get back to normal: Bourn at leadoff and Brantley back in charge of the bottom half of the lineup.

Player Of The Series (New!)

Now I'm writing this only 30 minutes since I woke up at 7am. Am I still dreaming? Did the Pitcher Formerly Known As Ubaldo Jimenez really shutout the Royals, the previously AL Central leading Royals, over 7 fantastic innings? I've rubbed the dust from my eyes about a million times but it appears that yes, he actually did. It's a brilliant outing for Ubaldo who should really take some heart and confidence from this. The struggling righty partied like it was 2010 and stranded 3 hits over 7 scoreless innings with 4 strikeouts on his way to his first win of the season. Amazing, I woke up and thought the MLB site on my phone had broken at first.

He was backed by Ryan Raburn of all people, doing his best "I belong in the major leagues" impression, who had an unreal 4-for-4 night at the plate with 2 home runs, his first big flies for the Tribe. More of that please Ryan. Jason Kipnis, also no stranger to struggle in 2013, got his first homer of the season too. Overall, the stars aligned for Ubaldo last night and he made it count, and in style too.

I think I like the idea of a Player Of The Series section here at England Tribe and for it's maiden choice, I'm gonna go with Ubaldo, simply because it was so unexpected and amazing. Congrats Mr Jimenez, you're the lucky winner.

So the Indians finally return home today to face the Phillies for a bit of inter-league action. First pitch is at 7.05pm as usual with Zach McAllister on the mound for us against Philadelphia's Roy Halladay, who looks to be turning things around a bit of late after struggling to start the year. We're now at home until the 10th May when we travel to Detroit, so I'd like to see us go on a run now and get back into the fight for the AL Central. Go Tribe!

Thanks for reading.