Tag: 2016 world series

Tribe Simply Ran Out Of Gas

Going into the playoffs, we felt it would be very difficult for the Cleveland Indians to succeed because of the loss of Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar.

However, Terry Francona did a masterful job of post-season managing, relying heavily on his excellent bullpen headed by Andrew Miller and Cody Allen, and ably backed up by Bryan Shaw.

That trio, along with ace starter Corey Kluber soaked up the majority of the innings in the playoffs, and they performed magnificently…until last night.

They will deny it, but it appears those four arms simply ran out of gas, and the Chicago Cubs big hitters got hot in the last two games, while the Indians’ big bats could never get it going.

We should never forget the performance of Kluber, Miller, and Allen in particular during this run.  Miller, in particular, showed every baseball fan that he might just be the best reliever in the game, and that Allen is damn good.

Dexter Fowler, Kyle Schwarber, Kris Bryant, and Anthony Rizzo wore Cleveland pitchers out in games six and seven, while Francisco Lindor and Mike Napoli hit some balls hard, but with no result.

As a result, the longest championship drought in major league baseball is over, and it has been replaced by the Tribe, who will enter next year having it be 69 years since the last time the franchise has won the World Series.

It didn’t help that the weather kind of conspired against the Indians too.  The unseasonably warm evening caused the jet stream going out to centerfield and right center which aided balls hit by the Cubs.

The Indians didn’t hit any fly balls in that direction.

To our eye, the home runs hit by Fowler (to lead off the game) and David Ross didn’t appear to be dingers off the bat, and Wilson Contreras’ double off the wall fooled Rajai Davis as well.

And the fly ball Davis caught in the tenth off the bat of Bryant looked like a routine fly ball at the time and that ball carried to the wall.

Perhaps, the result would have been different if the temperature was 20 degrees cooler.

The Tribe had a chance to win the game in the bottom of the ninth against an obviously tired Aroldis Chapman, but they couldn’t even get a man on base.

That doesn’t temper the tremendous comeback to tie the game after trailing 5-1 in the fifth.  Two runs scoring on a wild pitch by Jon Lester.

And then the epic 8th inning, with a big double by Brandon Guyer, and the tremendous two run homer by Rajai Davis, which rocked Progressive Field to its core.

While the Indians are a young team, and should be contenders for the next few years, you can’t count on a repeat berth in the World Series next year because of the three tiered playoff system.

There’s no guarantee they will be back, and all the organization can do is put the Tribe in a position to win the AL Central again in 2017.  That gets you back in the post-season tournament.

We will analyze what the Indians should do with the roster going forward at another time, when yesterday’s loss doesn’t sting so much.  We will say that post-season performance shouldn’t figure into those decisions.

There was no goat for the Cleveland Indians in this series.  The pitchers that they leaned on so much in October simply ran out of gas.  The injuries finally took their toll.

MW

 

 

 

Tonight Could Be The Night For Tribe

We have been fans of the Cleveland Indians as long as we can remember, which is 1965.  That means we’ve been waiting for 51 years for what may or may not happen tonight at Progressive Field.

The Tribe has a chance to be World Champions.

Think about that for a second.  It’s only happened twice before, once in 1920 and again in 1948.

And that’s it.

We have written about this before, but for a long time (from ’65 through 1994) the Cleveland Indians were for the most part a terrible, perhaps mediocre squad, where an above .500 record was celebrated, not expected.

But we still had our favorite players.  Sam McDowell, Chris Chambliss, Buddy Bell, Dennis Eckersley, Len Barker, Joe Carter, Mel Hall, and Tom Candiotti.  Many of those guys got to experience winning elsewhere.

We also had the great stars who came to Cleveland at the end of their illustrious careers, like Hawk Harrelson, Boog Powell, Frank Robinson, and of course everyone’s favorite, Keith Hernandez.

Contending for a division title?  That was a pipe dream, something other franchises thought about, not Tribe fans.

There were four 100 loss seasons in that time span, amazingly, the franchise bottomed out in the last 1980’s, losing more than 100 games three times in a six season span (1985, 1987, and 1991).

Right around then, Hank Peters was brought in to run the franchise and surrounded himself with two young executives, John Hart and Dan O’Dowd, and rebuilt the moribund Indians by a forgotten (at least around here), but tried and true method.

They developed a fruitful farm system.

Suddenly, the Indians developed into a powerful club, with the foundation being home grown players like Albert Belle, Jim Thome, and Manny Ramirez, with great trades bringing in Sandy Alomar Jr., Carlos Baerga, and Kenny Lofton.

Also, they sprinkled in some key veteran free agents like Eddie Murray, Dennis Martinez, and Orel Hershiser.

Sounds familiar, right?

This Tribe squad is centered around players originally signed and developed by Cleveland, like Jason Kipnis, Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Lonnie Chisenhall, and Roberto Perez.

President Chris Antonetti and GM Mike Chernoff traded for guys like Michael Brantley, Yan Gomes, Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and of course, Andrew Miller.

Add in free agents Mike Napoli and Rajai Davis, and you have a team on the brink of something not done in baseball here in 68 seasons.

This isn’t talking about a coronation, because there is still a game to win and the Cubs are throwing last year’s Cy Young Award winner in Jake Arrieta and a candidate for this year’s award in Game 7 starter Kyle Hendricks.

The Tribe pitching staff has been so outstanding this post-season, holding down the powerful offenses in Boston and Toronto, and what they have been able to do thus far to Chicago.

They may need two more games of that kind of pitching.

Having a 3-2 Series lead doesn’t abate our nervousness, our sense of anticipation, and even though the Cavaliers won a title just four months ago, our sense of upcoming doom.

Allowing ourselves to think about a fourth win against the Cubs gets the goosebumps going, and emotions flooding our senses.

We’ve waited 51 years for this night.  Yes, we had a Game 7 moment in 1997, but perhaps then we were just happy to be in a World Series twice in three years after so long without being in one.

Now the thirst needs to be quenched.  The Cavs, the Monsters, Stipe Miocic gave our town a taste of what a title is like, and now Indians’ fans want the same.

Tonight could be that night for the Cleveland Indians.

MW