Good series clinching win tonight. I loved the Indians held on. I loved the way they fought back from being 1-4 to start this trip to ending 3-4. I love the way Josh Naylor thrust himself into the spotlight with clutch plays.
Here are some thoughts:
1. Jose Ramirez is leading by example. Compare what he is doing in Cleveland to what Francisco Lindor is not doing in New York. Yes, Lindor will end up being Lindor as the season continues but right now Ramirez appears to be the leader.
2. I know the Angels have injuries but with Trout, Rendon, Upton, Shotani and, until rcently, Pujols this team had invested a lot of money with not much return. I am not saying that the Indians are doing everything right but they are at least competing. Look at the last 4 years for the Angels and the Indians and tell me you would rather be an Angels fan right now.
3. Jake Bauers just pisses me off. All we need for him to do is hit .250 with a HR rate of 4% and some clutch hitting and, with his defense, we could live with that with our pitching. But he teases us with moments like his recent ones and his sub-.200 average. He hits a HR and has a walk tonight but it doesn't look real. Unfortunately he is doing just enough that we can't DFA him which means he will oscillate between pathetic and is-there-really-something-there and no one will have the guts to pull the trigger on DFAing a career .213 average and a guy with a -0.3 WAR this year (-0.7 WAR for his career). BTW, in his one stint in the majors Bobby Bradley in 2019 had a -0.3 WAR.
4. We are, starting Friday, scheduled to play 14 games in 13 days. We need to make some pitching reinforcements from the minors soon. Here is what we have to work with on the 40 man roster:
Jean Carlos Mejia, (just promoted)
Logan Allen
Eli Morgan
Scott Moss
Kyle Nelson
On the 40 man that is it. Allen and Morgan are not currently options. Nelson should be back up soon. Moss left Thursday's game with some sort of injury so now he is out which leaves Mejia as the wildcard. On Columbus we have Kirk McCarty but we would have to dump someone from the 40-man to promote him. Frankly, there is not much help in the minors right now to help us in the rotation. As I said before this leads me to think about using an opener. I think both Moss and Mejia will pitch for Cleveland sometime in the next two weeks.
I hope they don't bring up AAAA guys like Parke, Dowdy, DJ Johnson or Danny Young who will cost us to DFA someone. I wish they would take a shot with guys like Robert Broom and, from AA, Nick Mikolajchak if they wanted to add a reliever not on the 40-man. Maybe later this year Cam Hill and Dakody Clemmer will be options. I fear, however, that they will play it safe if they need a reliever and take some AAAA guy just because he has pitched in the majors before.
5. I am really hoping we see Owen Miller on the roster this Friday with Yu Chang being sent down. I don't currently see a fit for Miller unless it is at first base and it looks like he may not have played much, if any first base. Although he is the hitter I want to see up here he is the one player who I don't see a fit for. Rosario looks comfortable at SS and Hernandez and Ramirez are fixtures. Would they really put Rosario in CF again just to give Miller a shot? That would be a tough one the way Rosario is looking right now and we have no idea if Miller can even handle SS as well as Rosario can. Plus making Miller the DH and putting Reyes in RF is a defensive deficit. It might work if Naylor moves to 1B but you are really making your defense weaker by that.
I still think Chang goes down to the minors and Miller comes up. We need his bat and we need to find a way to get it to the majors.
6. Finally, I am hoping Lavarnway comes up tomorrow. Rivera has basic catching problems that make him a huge liability.
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