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At 1-6, the Cleveland Indians are one of baseball's biggest disappointments through the first week of the season. Their pitching has been an absolute disaster thus far as they rank dead last in the majors with a 8.24 team ERA. After witnessing those stats, it should come as no surprise that the Indians have struggled so far. In addition, the offense has not been terrible, but there is still lots of room for improvements as they rank 13th in team batting average (.241) and 11th in hits (58).The question remains: can they pull out of it?
Conventional wisdom says, hell yes. There are still so many games left to play (155 to be exact) that is is simply far too early to count any team out of it, even with a bad start. And we cannot forget, this team still has tons of talent, especially on offense, and will win some games simply based on their talented roster.
However, if this is a sign of things to come for the Indians, then there is no doubt that they are in trouble. We all remember the 2008 Detroit Tigers, who were picked by many baseball people to win the AL Central, started the 2008 season 0-7. The Tigers never recovered from their terrible start and actually finished the season in last place in the AL Central. Simply put, the Tigers could not put all the pieces together (especially the pitching) even with their talented roster.
The 2009 Cleveland Indians were picked by some to win the AL Central. Obviously, their terrible start is quite concerning, but it's impossible to count the Indians out already. I still subscribe to the belief that if the Indians get quality production from Lee and Carmona that they will be OK.
With that said, I have my doubts that Carl Pavano is the answer for the Indians. But can you blame me?
3 comments:
I think its more like "2009 Indians=2008 Indians"
Aside from Cliff Lee (who personally kept them out of last place), the Indians were terrible last year. No real change this year except Lee is struggling.
Oh, and the Tigers did recover from their bad start. At the end of April they were almost .500 (within two games I think), but it was May that damned them. 2 wins in three weeks? And the Tigers bounced back from THAT too, even gaining a winning record for a little bit before the all star break. But they couldn't regain momentum, and their pitching was exposed day in and day out.
The Tigers did recover, but they were never able to get over the hump. A combination of injuries and a terrible pitching staff killed the 2008 Tigers. The Indians are relying heavily on Pavano, Reyes, Lewis (when healthy), and Laffey; they better hope that they get results from that group, or else it could get ugly.
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