Can Tito Afford To Keep Handing It To Hand?

It is hard to come up with any criticism of the Cleveland Indians’ pitching staff. They lead the American League in ERA at 2.56.

They also lead the AL in strikeouts, least walks, and shutouts. The only category they are struggling a bit in is allowing the long ball. They’ve allowed the fifth most in the league, but that is really a product of being around the strike zone so much.

Most of the home runs are of the solo variety, and throughout the history of baseball, some of the game’s best hurlers have allowed tons of homers. The career leader is Jamie Moyer, and the next four pitchers are all in the Hall of Fame: Robin Roberts, Ferguson Jenkins, Phil Niekro, and Don Sutton.

However, there is one thing that should be a concern for Terry Francona and his pitching coaching staff of Carl Willis, Ruben Niebla, and Brian Sweeney. And it may be the most important pitching spot for a contending team. It’s the status of closer Brad Hand.

Last night, Hand picked up his 5th save, but it certainly wasn’t pretty. Coming in with a 3-0 lead handed to him by Shane Bieber and Nick Wittgren, Hand walked the lead off hitter on five pitches.

He then got Miguel Cabrera to lineout to LF, while the next hitter, Jonathan Schoop reached on catchers’ interference, which wasn’t Hand’s doing.

Another line drive to left was followed by an RBI double, so suddenly, the Tigers had the tying runs in scoring position. Cameron Maybin bounced to the mound, and the Tribe won the game.

In Hand’s 5-2/3 innings this season, he’s allowed five hits and four walks, along with seven runs, four of them earned.

He’s made seven appearances on the season, and has produced just one clean inning, that on August 4th. And he’s yet to protect a one run lead heading to the ninth.

He did come into a scoreless tie vs. the White Sox on July 29th, but proceeded to allow four runs (three earned) facing five hitters, retiring just one.

If the rest of the bullpen were struggling, we could understand Francona’s reticence to move away from Hand as the closer, but that is not the case. In fact, the skipper has started to use rookie James Karinchak in high leverage situations, aka the “Andrew Miller” role.

Nick Wittgren, who closed some a year ago when Hand was down with a tired arm, has pitched eight times (8 IP) to a 2.25 ERA and striking out 10. He’s prone to giving up the long ball, he gave up 10 gopher balls in 2019, but just one this season.

Another rookie, Cam Hill, has also earned a save, and outside of an outing against the Cubs last week, has also been very effective.

The questions are these for Tito, does he feel confident using Hand in a one run save opportunity? Would he use Karinchak in that spot, if he hadn’t already use him earlier? Would he go to Hill or Wittgren?

Again, it would be one thing if the veteran lefty, and three time All Star struggled once or twice, but he’s been shaky in six of his seven outings, and his velocity seems down, and he’s had command issues with his slider.

If Francona isn’t nervous, everyone else is.

This isn’t a normal 162 game season. The Indians are a little over a third of the way through the season, so patience is in short supply.

Perhaps Willis and his guys see something to indicate Hand is close to regaining his usual form. If they aren’t, it will be interesting to see what course of action is.

Well, At Least The Pitching Has Been Great

The Cleveland Indians have played 11 baseball games. The league earned run average coming into play on Monday was 4.57, meaning the average American League team gives up about four and a half runs per game.

If the Tribe offense had done what the average AL team could do every game, Cleveland’s record would be 11-0. That’s right, the Indians’ pitching staff has not allowed more than four runs in any game this season.

Quite frankly, that’s remarkable.

Friday night, Mike Clevinger didn’t have it. He allowed four runs to the Twins in the first two innings. After the game, fans were saying it was bound to happen, the great pitching couldn’t continue.

Minnesota won the game 4-1, so again an average offensive night would have resulted in a win.

This is not another piece designed to bury the currently anemic Tribe hitting attack, but rather to praise the remarkable job the pitching staff has done.

Cleveland pitchers lead the league in ERA at 2.35, strikeouts (113), and least walks allowed (15). Yes, it does mean that Tribe pitchers are collectively walking less than two batters per game.

Imagine how good the staff would be if they could face the Tribe hitters?

We know that comes off as snarky, but the Minnesota staff leads the AL in hits per nine innings, in part because they held Indians’ hitters to just two hits in back to back contests over the weekend.

The Tribe’s hurlers have a strikeout to walk ratio of 7.53. The next best rate in the AL? That would be Baltimore and New York at 3.29, so the Indians’ ratio is almost double the second best rate.

About the only negative thing you can save about the pitching is it has allowed the long ball at a league average rate, giving up 11 gopher balls. Minnesota scored all its runs by homers on Saturday vs. Carlos Carrasco, and last night, the Reds scored all three of their tallies on dingers.

The starters are getting the bulk of the credit, and rightly so. Shane Bieber has been unreal in his two starts, and Clevinger’s second outing was the only one where the first pitcher on the hill for the Tribe didn’t see the sixth inning.

However the bullpen, figured to be a weakness, has pitched admirably too. Only two of the eight members of the ‘pen have allowed opponents to score earned runs (Brad Hand, Dominic Leone), while the other six guys have pitched 23-2/3 frames without allowing an earned run.

Two rookies, James Karinchak and Cam Hill, have already earned saves, each the first of their respective careers. And to date, the former has lived up to expectations by allowing just an unearned run (due to the new extra inning rule) and striking out eight in five innings.

That means in 10-1/3 big league innings, he has struck out 16 batters.

The whole staff specializes in the strikeout. Adam Cimber has just one in 3-2/3 innings, Adam Plutko fanned just four in six innings in his lone start, and Nick Wittgren has whiffed three in four frames.

Otherwise, every other man who has pitched for Cleveland this season has at least as many strikeouts as innings pitched.

What’s scary is how long can this continue? When the offense starts to perk up, will the pitching staff show signs of being mortal? You would think both parts of the team will regress to the mean eventually.

That doesn’t take away from the remarkable job by this staff. Appreciate what you are seeing. It’s unbelievable.