A Bad, Bad Start to a Road Trip

Photo from brianpenzone of Flickr

If you're an Indians fan, I'm sure you've heard of the "What if?" campaign. Really, it's a bit odd because it harkens back to the 90s teams, saying "What if it never happened?"

What a silly hypothetical. I mean, obviously it did happen and those teams were great, despite never winning a World Series. But why keep talking about those teams when (besides bench coach Sandy Alomar) they have nothing to do with the current one?

So here's a "What If?" for this current Indians team:

What if the team could manage to score more than four runs in a series against the freaking Houston Astros?

Here's another—What if the Indians could find a way to, say, score some runs off of a left handed starter?

And yet another—What if the Indians could find an effective arm in the bullpen that didn't have the last name of Smith, Pestano, or Perez?

And one more for good measure—What if this team could just play good, consistent baseball?

People keep wondering why the Indians are dead last in attendance, and this series is a perfect illustration of why. The Tribe only managed to score four measly runs against a team rated 27th overall in MLB in ERA. There are only three pitching staffs worse than the Astros in all of baseball, and the Indians only scored four runs in three games!

Everybody keeps talking about how great Justin Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez have been lately—well it won't matter if the bats can't score any runs to pick them up. You can't expect Masterson and Ubaldo to go out and throw 1-run ballgames, or shutouts every time. That's just not going to happen in the AL.

I want a big right-handed bat as much as the next guy to combat the team's struggles against lefties, but the Indians are going to have to start doing better with what they have. This weekend, the Indians were shut down by one lefty making his second career start, and another that entered the game with a 5.15 ERA. In a combined 16.0 innings against both, the Indians managed just two runs, 10 hits, and worked just three walks.

On the weekend, the Tribe scored four runs on 15 hits, which comes out to a horrid .167 batting average.

So uhh...yeah, one bat just isn't magically going to bring that average up to a respectable .260.

If there's one player that really needs to get his head out of his backside it's Carlos Santana. I don't know about you but I'm really sick of seeing Jose Lopez in the #4 hole. Unfortunately, as long as Santana keeps driving the struggle bus and Hafner is on the DL, Lopez will probably stay there.

In June, Santana is batting a very bad .175 (10/57) with no homers, five RBI, and four doubles. He's struck out 16 times, but walked eight to have a fairly remarkable .304 OBP for the month. If the Indians are going to be a contending team—and I mean contending in the sense that they could do something in the playoffs, not just win this horrid AL Central—he has to get going at the plate.

But honestly, the guy needs to get his head out of the clouds in general. A passed ball on a 94mph fastball that was just off the plate? C'mon, that's absolutely ridiculous.

As for Lopez batting cleanup, he's batting .222 (10/45) with just one extra base hit (a double) and six RBI. And by the by, he's also got a .182 average in June, and is batting just .256 against lefties on the year. With Michael Brantley hitting .295 over May and June, it's time to put him at cleanup. I know he has little power and it would make three of the first four hitters in the lineup lefties, but Brantley's hitting .291 against southpaws and is batting .324 with runners in scoring position. It's out of the box, but it could work.

Obviously, these are basic changes and probably won't affect the big picture too much, but losing two of three to the Astros was not the way to start this road trip. The Indians mercifully won't have to face CC Sabathia in New York with the white hot Yankees, but will go up against Andy Pettitte on Wednesday afternoon. And Baltimore isn't any joke either this season.

In our bad division you can't call it a "make or break" road trip, but man oh man did it start off on the wrong foot.

~MAS