In the past couple of season’s, we have seen major league baseball teams get very creative in how they are using starting pitching.
The “opener” became the new rage a year ago, after Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash, a protégé of Terry Francona, started using it.
Cash using Ryne Stanek as a starter 29 times, and for the season, he pitched a total of 66-1/3 innings. Similarly, Diego Castillo was the starter in 11 of the 43 appearance he made a year ago, and he pitched just 56 innings.
Milwaukee skipper Craig Counsell used the strategy in the playoff against the Dodgers, who heavily platoon.
While many of baseball’s new age people are celebrating this new use of a pitching staff, let’s make one thing very clear. Teams that have good starting pitching don’t use an “opener”.
And we see this everyday in Cleveland.
It’s very early in the season, but coming into the 2019 campaign, you can make a very good argument the Tribe has the best rotation in the major leagues.
Corey Kluber is a two time Cy Young Award winner and has pitched over 200 innings in each of the last five seasons. Since 2014, his ERA has been less than 3.14 four times, and he has fanned 200 or more hitters in five straight seasons.
Not only has Kluber won two Cy Youngs, he’s finished third twice.
Carlos Carrasco has won 35 games the past two seasons combined, and his ERA has been under 3.38 in each of the last three years. He has struck out over 200 batters in three of the last four years. He has a 4th place Cy Young finish.
Those two are the old hands, mainstays of the staff for several years.
Then you have the young guns, Trevor Bauer and Mike Clevinger, both 28 years old.
Since the All Star Game, Bauer has thrown 258 innings with a 2.46 ERA and 314 strikeouts. This season, he has pitched 14 innings and allowed just one hit. One run too, but amazingly, just one hit.
Clevinger went 13-8 with a 3.02 ERA last season, and fired seven innings of one hit ball in the Cleveland home opener. He came to the Tribe in a deal with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and no doubt if he were still there, he would be the ace of the staff.
The Indians’ fifth starter is another guy who would likely be a #2 or #3 starter on most teams, 24-year-old Shane Bieber. He struck out nine Toronto hitters in his first start on Friday night.
Many baseball people think Bieber will have a breakthrough season in 2019, similar to Kluber’s 2014 year.
We understand most hardcore Tribe fans know how good this quintet is, but as long as they stay healthy, the Indians have a chance to win every night they take the field. How many other teams can say that?
We aren’t reacting to the performances against a perhaps light-hitting Toronto team, or because it was very cold in Minneapolis. It’s how these guys have pitched over the last year and a half, or in Bieber’s case, since he arrived in Cleveland.
Dominating games aren’t unusual. Will they have some tough games? Of course, Kluber had one against the White Sox, and Carrasco didn’t pitch well in his first start.
All starting pitchers have a handful of games every year when they don’t have their best stuff, but when Terry Francona pencils in his starting pitcher, he knows he may see an incredible performance.
And he doesn’t need an “opener” to do it.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 