The Indians were the sleeper picks of so many before the season that they hardly even counted as a sleeper anymore, even garnering a World Series Champs prediction from Sports Illustrated. After an offseason in which they lost virtually no one after an impressive 85-77 finish in 2014, the prediction was somewhat surprising, but not necessarily far-fetched.
Most of the more optimistic projections of the Cleveland Indians’ 2015 season depended on a repeat of the starting rotation’s performance through the second half of the 2014 season.
A month into the year, however, that performance has not returned, and it’s part of the reason the Indians sit at 11-19, the second-worst record in the American League, and the worst mark in the AL Central division.
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Cleveland has followed the same path into last place as the Boston Red Sox have, with an ERA of 5.46 out of its starters that sits at second-worst in baseball. Unlike Boston, however, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that this Indians staff can still lead them out of the cellar.
It’s difficult for a team to gain any kind of momentum if its ace is struggling, and Corey Kluber (0-5, 5.04 ERA) has been the definition of an ace struggling in 2015. Performance-wise, Kluber’s season picked up right where his Cy Young-winning 2014 season left off, as he allowed just two runs in each of his first three starts, pitched a total of 21 ⅔ innings, and struck out 25 batters while walking just four.
A lack of run support, however, led to an 0-2 record in those first three starts for Kluber, and since then, he’s been a disaster. Back-to-back six-run outings rounded out his month of April, and he’s begun May with back-to-back five-run outings.
The Indians have yet to win a game started by Kluber this season, but that shouldn’t last much longer. The rest of Kluber’s scheduled May starts come against the 8th, 19th, 25th and 29th-ranked scoring offenses in the majors, including games against Seattle and Cincinnati, whom Kluber has dominated in recent years. The fact that he began the year as strong as he did suggests that his struggles are not related to any mental pressure he’s facing coming off his Cy Young season, and could be a mechanical issue he can work out one start at a time.
After Kluber’s breakout season last year, many expected it to be either Trevor Bauer or Carlos Carrasco’s turn in 2015. Carrasco finished 2014 by allowing two runs or fewer in nine of ten starts to close out the year, and Bauer has been a top prospect of two different organizations and entered this season at just 24 years old.
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The current numbers don’t reflect any dominance from either pitcher in 2015, but both have still been mostly effective. Bauer (2-1, 4.19) began the year by not allowing a hit in six innings of work, and with just one exception, his walk numbers have dropped in every game he’s pitched this year. His ERA has been inflated by a rough month of May, in which he’s allowed 11 runs in 9 ⅓ innings pitched after allowing just five runs in 25 innings in April.
Carrasco (4-2, 4.71), meanwhile, has been underwhelming in comparison to his late season effort last year, but fairly average in comparison to most of baseball’s third and fourth starters. His four wins are tied for most on the team, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio was an absurd 23-to-3 in April.
Opponents have been able to capitalize on a lot of the opportunities they’ve been given by Carrasco, hitting .326 with runners on base with an OPS of .899, compared with a .262 average and .678 OPS from 2012-2014. As his numbers dip down toward his career average, runs should once again start to come at a premium against the 28-year old righty.
The brightest spot on the starting staff has been Danny Salazar (4-1, 3.27), whose seven-inning, one-run effort on Sunday against Minnesota not only helped Cleveland avoid a sweep, but was also the first time that an Indians starter had given up fewer than three runs since April 24th -- another seven inning, one run effort by Salazar.
The fifth spot in the rotation still seems to be up for grabs. The grand T.J. House experiment turned into a dumpster fire in just four starts, Zach McAllister has proven himself more capable out of the bullpen, and 37-year old Bruce Chen didn’t provide much reason for optimism after getting shelled by Minnesota in his first start of the year on Saturday.
Cleveland fans shouldn’t be too concerned yet, however. The Indians had the same hole in the rotation going into the final third of the 2014 season, and that led to the aforementioned 10-game stretch by Carrasco. The numbers seem to indicate that the starters have been plagued by stretches of rough luck and three or four different guys going cold at the same time, both of which will turn around in due time.
What fans should be concerned about is whether this cold stretch will return at a much worse time, in the final month or so of the season. Out of Carrasco, Bauer and Salazar, Bauer is the only one who has ever thrown more than 150 innings in a season, and that was the 153 innings he pitched for this team last season.
With five months left in this season, there is enough time for this rotation to turn things around and get back to competing in their division. Unfortunately, there may actually be too much time.
@_tonywolfe_
aw987712@ohio.edu
