I think I hear a chicken. Luke Hochevar sure did. Perfect for the first five innings, Hochevar pulled his best Jeremy Sowers impression and imploded in the sixth. After retiring 31 straight over two starts, the former #1 overall pick balked twice among five 6th inning hits (we can add balking in a run from third to list of baseball plays that I have seen for the first time this season), helping the Tribe to score four runs and take a lead that they would not relinquish.
Justin Masterson (4-0, 1.71 ERA) didn't bring his A game either. Battling for command all night, Masterson walked two in the first and gave up three hits, but escaped allowing just two runs. Justin continued to gut it out through six innings, eventually walking five and striking out 3, but did not allow another run. His ability to compete despite the absence of the pinpoint control that showed in his first three starts is the most telling of anything the big righty has accomplished this season. Assuming that the erraticness is not a regression, it is tremendous to know that Bat Masterson can keep the Indians in the game even when he has an off night.
The lineup produced up and down tonight, so I'm going to give my gold star to my boy Jack Hannahan. Hannahan (.240) stroked a two run double in the 7th that provided key insurance as Tony Sipp decided to forget how to get people out in the 9th. Jack is 7-for-12 with both of his home runs off of left handers this season. He's as confused as the rest of us, but I'll take it. After the production tonight, the Tribe features seven players with 9 RBI or more. That's what I call a team effort.
Also, Vinnie Pestano is nasty.
Coming off of another quality start we need to put Jeanmar Gomez's performance last night into better perspective. Let us compare to a man with whom he was in direct competition with during spring camp. Through three starts (all wins), Josh Tomlin has surrendered six runs and 15 hits in just shy of 20 innings. Yesterday, Gomez gave up nine hits and four runs in four innings. Jaysus. Tomlin refined a cutter during the off-season that some credit with his success thus far. To reiterate, this is the sort of repertoire addition that Gomez would need to be successful at the MLB level.
Lastly, let's talk about defense. Everyone has their favorite defensive statistic and I an no different. My stat du jour is called Total Defense, abbreviated Rtot by BaseballRefernce.com (explanation here). Basically the metric compiles data to estimate the average fielder at each position and then compares each individual thereto. The value can be positive or negative depending on whether the defense is above or below average. Thus, the league average is always zero. Given all of that, just understand that big positive numbers are good, big negative numbers are bad, and numbers close to zero are average. The Indians' total defense in 2011 is 24. The number itself is irrelevant, but the fact that it is nearly double their closest competition (the Brewers at 13), speaks to the stellar level of play that Tribe has exhibited while in the field.
Despite the glowing review above, opponents are now 8-for-8 in stolen bases against the Indians. After Tuesday night's five swipe explosion from the Royals, it is high time for Sandy Alomar to give the young guns some serious direction. It is unacceptable to give the bad guys extra runners in scoring position, especially since the rest of this team is so darn productive.
Cheers.
