The major league baseball season is a week old, and already the roster of the Cleveland Indians is in flux.
Even though the Tribe were swept in their first home series of the year by the Detroit Tigers, the biggest loss was that of Yan Gomes, who suffered sprained knee ligaments in a home plate collision on Saturday and will be out 6-8 weeks.
GM Chris Antonetti was forced to do some roster shuffling because of Gomes’ injury, as well as a back problem for Michael Brantley that has kept him out of the lineup for all but two games.
If he isn’t ready to play Tuesday night against Chicago, after three days off, he may join Gomes on the DL.
Brantley’s problem along with other teams throwing southpaws at the Tribe, forced the team to bring up OF/1B Jerry Sands, a right-handed bat to help in this regard.
Then after the home opener and Saturday’s debacle for the relief corps, Antonetti and skipper Terry Francona were forced to bring back Austin Adams, set back to active Sands, and also to bring up Shawn Marcum to provide innings in case T.J. House couldn’t provide innings on Sunday, which he couldn’t.
It just goes to show that major league teams really don’t have a 25 man roster, it is more like 30 guys, with all of the player movement between the big club and their AAA affiliate.
However, it’s still way to early to panic and worry, after there are still 156 games remaining.
This series against the Tigers reminded us of a weekend at home against Oakland last May, when the Tribe lost three games by scores of 11-2, 6-2, and 13-3. Everything the A’s hit that weekend either hit a hole or sailed over a fence, much like the Tigers this weekend.
How did the Indians respond last year? They won 5 of their next 6, including a three game sweep of? You guessed it, the Detroit Tigers.
And as for folks saying this year is the same as last, and Cleveland can’t beat the Motor City Kitties, let us remind you that the Tribe beat the Tigers in four of the first five games they played a year ago, and wound up the season at 8-11 against them.
Again, there is a long, long way to go.
Detroit is hitting .364 as a team, and we are fairly confident that won’t continue for the balance of the year. Also, if you want to have success against them, you have to get their first two hitter and the bottom of their order out.
Right now, Anthony Gose has a .450 OBP, Ian Kinsler’s is .480, and Jose Iglesias’ is .625. Lifetime, their figures are .306 (Gose), .344 (Kinsler), and .335 (Iglesias).
To summarize…the Tigers are red-hot and the Indians caught them at the right time.
Also, the Tigers only saw one of the Indians’ top three pitchers, Corey Kluber, and Saturday’s game featured a meltdown by the bullpen, which isn’t normal for Francona’s team.
Many baseball people say you can’t judge a team until the 40 game mark, but we disagree slightly, saying that at the 1/6th point of the season, 27 games, you can start to get a feel for what is going on.
So, relax. This week the Indians have two with the White Sox and three in Minnesota with the Twins.
Just think, a week from now, the optimism felt by everyone going into the season could very well be back.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 