The Indians blow it! Theeeeeeee Indians blow it!
They needed to at least split this series. Ideally they would have taken 3 of 4. But the Tigers are just better than they are. Their only hope now is to salvage a win tomorrow and hope to keep pace for the wild card, because I don’t see them catching Detroit. They’ve got three games left against them, on the road, and they’ve only beaten them twice this season. Not good.
Yeah. The Indians are a good team, but not a really good team.
I have to say in a bar full of Tigers fans, the Bonderman vs Raburn matchup was a lot of fun(ie.money bet, smartass comments)
The aggravating thing is that it was assumed that the bullpen would be a strength for them this season, but it’s been shaky. Pestano was sent down to work out his issues, and Chris Perez is Chris Perez. I think that’s why Francona left Salazar in to pitch to Cabrera with 2 outs in the 8th, since Salazar had struck him out 3 times. Cabrera sat on his fastball and crushed it first pitch. Which is too bad, because Salazar had pitched a nice game up to that point. But you’re not going to fool Cabrera four times in one game.
We just gave Raburn a new 2 year deal, so obviously he was going to strike out.
And yet they keep losing games they should win. Due to a lack of offensive production despite sparkling pitching.
Um…yes, really? His homerun numbers are down. Shouldn’t the guy you pay a quarter of a billion dollars to play first base hit lots of homers?
Good night for the BoSox - ninth inning 3 run homer from Drew to take the lead, and Rays and NYY blow late leads (NYY twice!). Only Baltimore won. The Sox now have more wins than last year and it’s Aug 8th. Nice turn around.
Pure delusion. Please point to any 21-game stretch where you believe the pitching has been “sparkling” yet the hitting has been “woeful” for the Reds. You are seeing something that is not there.
If you think the Reds are paying Votto to “hit lots of homers” your understanding of Votto’s skill set is lacking, as is seeing that what he does do (and got a giant contract for) is so much better than pretty much anyone else in the league.
I’d rather see him do 37 homers and 113 RBI for $525,000 like he did in 2010 as opposed to 17 homers and 52 RBI so far this season for $17,000,000.
Danny Salazar looked great for the Indians except for his last pitch to Miguel Cabrera.
And speaking of Cabrera, why is Astrubal the Indians clean-up hitter?
Sorry, you don’t get to massively underpay for your superstar forever. Personally, I want my star player to provide as much value as possible and I don’t care what form that value takes. Votto is one of the handful of most valuable players in the game, and a bargain even at 17 million. Complaining about what he isn’t is kind of silly.
Well, his RBIs are going to suck with Cozart in front of him (or rather, behind him, sitting on the bench after grounding out with a dribbler to second). As for the rest of it, Votto hits line drives. Wait, no - that sentence, while completely true, is a gross understatement. Joey Votto is a line drive hitting robot. He is to hitting line drives what Mariano Rivera is to throwing a cutter.
Joey Votto has 11 infield fly balls. In his career. He’s not the type of hitter that’s ever going to consistently hit 40 HRs.
The entire month of July?
I don’t think that and didn’t say that. Homers are a *part *of his skillset and they have been noticeably absent by and large since his injury last season.
Why homers? Homers are just one thing. They are not the only thing that matters. OPS doesn’t care how you get there.
The notion that Joey Votto is the problem (if there even is one) with the Reds offense is pretty funny. A more pressing concern should be that the Reds only have 2 hitters with OBP over .340 (3 if you count Corky Miller). The Cards, by contrast, have 7 in their starting lineup and 2 on the bench.
Votto is having his second-best offensive season (or at least tied for it). The only time he was significantly better was when he won the MVP.
I only mentioned it as part of a larger context of the Reds struggling to score runs recently, and that Votto hitting a few more homers would be helpful.
I am in no way blaming Votto for anything. He is having a great season in every respect other than home runs. Well, and RBI’s, but you can’t really blame him for that as he’s coming to bat with two outs and nobody on half the time.
Digging in a little more (here), his ISO is down, but it doesn’t seem to be because he’s doing anything particularly different. His K% and BB% are the same as they’ve always been. He’s hitting a few more ground balls, and quite a few more line drives than in 2010. Really the only big difference is his HR/FB rate, for which 2010 was a pretty big career outlier (25% vs. <20% all the other years). League average is more like 10%, I think.
I think at this point you should probably recalibrate how many home runs you expect from him. 37 is unlikely to ever happen again. 25-30 is more his expected range.
Perhaps you’re right. I did have expectations for him to hit nearly 40 homers every year because he has good power and plays in a small park 80 plus games a year. So yeah, I kinda based everything on his 2010 season, and he was hurt for a big chunk of last season so that expectation lingered.
During the month of July, the Reds scored 112 runs and allowed 71 for a 14-12 record. The Cardinals (the top scoring team in the NL) scored 104, allowed 91, and went 13-11.
Either your definition of “woeful” is completely off-base, or your confirmation bias is taking over your perception.
They were 14-13. You’re probably forgetting the doubleheader against the Giants.
Anyway, you’re missing my point: I’m not in love with their overall record but it isn’t horrible. But if you look at their team batting stats and then look at the individual scores of the losses from that month you will see what I am talking about. They are underperforming as an offense and wasting terrific pitching.
TWELVE of their thirteen losses had thew Reds scoring three runs or less, and almost all of them are TWO runs or less. And we aren’t talking blowouts here…these are 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 games that I feel the Reds SHOULD have won a much higher percentage of.
All I’m really saying is that it’s frustrating to continually lose games in that manner.