Royal Disappointment

Since last we spoke, the Tribe has gone down to KC... twice.  That's right, after handing the Royals their 12th consecutive loss on Tuesday, the Indians dropped last night's game and today's matinee by identical 4-2 scores.  Wouldn't you know it, I repressed those 4 runs that Jairo Asencio gave up in the 9th yesterday, dagnabbit.  That means that they actually lost 8-2.

Do you see those forlorn faces above this text?  Well, that triad has reason to be glum.   On the far left, that's Casey Kotchman.  CK is batting .140 with a .498 OPS this season.  If you remove the 3 game set at Kansas City, Kotchman is 3-for-46.  That translates to an .065 batting average.  In those games, he has 3 walks, 1 RBI and 1 extra base hit (a doubles).  Crunch the numbers... his OPS is an almost unfathomably low .210.  In the middle is Shelley Duncan.  Through April 17, Duncan was leading the AL with a .514 OBP, batting .333 and holding an 1.106 OPS.  Since, Shelley is 3-for-24 (.125), all singles.  He has also struck out 13 times (all 3 AB's today) and walked just thrice, while watching his season average dip to .235.  And we all know the man on the right, he's Captain Jack Hannahan, who had, maybe, been hitting a touch over his head.  Jack was 0-for-8 in the two losses.

The twin defeats also featured disturbingly similar poor outings by the starting pitchers.  Ubaldo Jimenez was, once again, completely out of control, needing 113 pitches (just 64 strikes) to get through six innings, allowing 4 earned in the process.  The organization has given up on reworking his delivery and has seemingly resigned itself to whatever minimal production Ubaldo can provide.  Should Drew Pomeranz (and Alex White?) develop into front-line pitchers, the Jimenez trade could conceivably go down as one of the worst in history.  Josh Tomlin would stop the bleeding, right?  Wrong.  Tomlin couldn't even get out of the 5th inning.  Ugh.  These are the Royals!  The Royals on a 12 game skid!  If we can't beat them, we can't beat anyone.

Now, despite a 9-8 record and standing just 2 days out of first place, all of the fire alarms have been pulled.  Rafael Perez's velocity is waaaayyyyy down (78 MPH on his slider last night) and many believe that he is hiding some sort of injury.  There have been calls for Matt LaPorta, Trevor Crowe and Jeremy Accardo.  There has been talk of Tony Sipp and Josh Tomlin getting booted back to AAA.  Asencio has imploded.  Out of all of that clamoring, the most that we are likely to see is Raffy raking a stint on the DL.  What will most definitely occur is a great deal of discussion on which outfielder will be DFAed when Johnny Damon is ready.  Assuming that the Indians are being truthful about the mild nature of Shin Soo Choo's hamstring issue (which is a coin-flip at best), either Duncan or Aaron Cunningham will have to be sent down and neither has a minor league option remaining.  A week ago, this would have been a no-brainer, with Cunningham receiving the axe.  Now, with Duncan struggling as indicated above, the brain-trust will have decide between Shelley's raw power and leadership versus Cunningham's versatility and plus defense.  If I know woManny Acta, it's pretty clear that Duncan loses.  Above and beyond the characteristics noted, woManny will point to things like Cunningham providing the Indians' only RBI hit today.  Get ready to bid a fond farewell to Duncan, who I doubt will clear waivers.

The Indians are a lot more fun when they're winning.  Duh.

Cheers.