Thoughts for a Wednesday morning

 (1) Starting pitching the last two games

Two games against the Astros, two managerial mistakes.  In both games the starters struggled through 4 innings and had high pitch counts although they had given up only runs.   

So what does Francona do?   He allows them to go to the 5th inning and they get blown out, taking a positive outing and turning it to crap.   

In neither game should the starter have gone out for the 5th inning.   I am sorry it doesn't match with Francona's blueprint of how many innings his starter has to pitch to save his bullpen.   I am sorry if these guys are not developing as fast as they need to.  

But this is just crap.  Francona has done this a number of times this season and in past seasons.  He is going to bury these young pitchers mentally.

He should have started the 5th inning with a relief pitcher.   It's not rocket science.  These were both dumb mistakes.  Stop making dumb, undefendable mistakes.

(2) Akron

Cody Morris looked very good today.  Yes, a day game after a night game but I liked what I saw especially when this is really Morris' early May due to being on the DL for so long.   I think he has a chance to pitch in Cleveland next year.

Richie Palacios is interesting.  His swing is crazy as he ends up off balance almost every time he is putting so much into each swing.   But, somehow, he gets it done as he did today with two hits, a walk and a SB so far

With Tyler Freeman and Jose Fermin not playing and Oscar Gonzalez being promoted it is really a boring lineup to watch hit.   Palacios and Benson are the only guys worth watching hit.  The rest of the guys are organizational players.  Not that that is unusual but, man, it is boring.

Regarding Benson, he went 0-4 today but hit every ball hard.  No strikouts, no wasted ABs.  Just not any success.   I am really encouraged with his progress this year and he went from being someone who would be leaving as a 6-year free agent or in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 to a guy I think, unless the bottom falls out in the rest of the season, they have to roster this winter. 

I have to wonder if guys like Clemmer and Arias at Akron have any chance of making it.  They both have good numbers this year but, again, just at AA so who knows?!?  Neither has shown anything special to me when I saw them, just good, solid pitching.  

(3) Draft nuggets

McGreevy, the guy I hoped the Indians would draft signed an underslot deal with the Cardinals, which makes not getting him even hurt a little more.   The key for him will be if he can get more velo on his fastball.  Without it he looks more like Mason Hickman than Shane Bieber.  Time will tell.

It will be interesting to see the Indians top 10 rounds play out, bonus-wise.   They are so good at using all their budget dollars that announcing a bunch of signings this weekend will really give us a picture of how they are allotting bonus dollars.  August 1st signing deadline after a July 11th draft has really changed how the Indians are handling their draft signing process.  I like them bringing a bunch of guys out to Arizona at one time.   Really starts to build camaraderie.   It will be interesting to see if any of those guys make their way to Lynchburg or Lake County this year.   Remember the minor league season started late this year so there may be more chances for this to happen.