Keys to the game (5/5)

Keys to the game-

1.) Do not underestimate. The Royals have not done well so far this season. Their 9-18 record ranks second to last in all of the Majors, with just the Toronto Blue Jays (9-19) behind them. Jason Hammel takes the mound for the Royals tonight. He has struggled terribly recently with making quality starts and with any sort of consistency in his command. With a 0-3 record and a 6.65 ERA in 21 2/3 innings pitched, he looks like a completely different pitcher from the Jason Hammel we saw win 15 games with the Chicago Cubs last year. Despite all of these struggles, we cannot underestimate this team. We need to go into tonight’s game and simply outplay them. Don’t play down to their level. Dominate. Let’s jump on Hammel early and give Danny Boy an early lead to work with.

2.) Settle in early! Danny Salazar has really struggled with finding his command and control early on in ballgames. So far this season he has given up 3 home runs, all 3 coming in the first inning. He has given up 15 runs so far, 8 of those coming in the first inning. While his 13.03 strikeout ration per nine innings is the best in the league, he has a 4.34 ERA and a 2-2 record. The reason his ERA is so high is because of the runs given up in the very first inning of the game. The Kansas City Royals are not the offensive powerhouse that they use to be, but we don’t want to be the ones to give them any offensive confidence. So this would be the perfect time for Danny Boy to figure out how to work out those first inning jitters/kinks/mechanical issues during his pregame warm up and come out ready.

3.) Lock it down. So do you remember a couple of days ago when I said that our bullpen was ranked 2^nd in all of Major League baseball? Well, just within that short time… that has changed. We are now ranked 1^st. That’s right, we are the best. With a 1.91 combined ERA, our pen has only allowed 17 earned runs in 80 innings of work. They have also combined for 96 strikeouts. Just to put those numbers into perspective, the bullpen currently in 2^nd place is Boston (gag); they have a 2.20 combined ERA, have allowed 21 earned runs in 81 2/3 innings pitched, and have 92 strikeouts. Our bullpen not only maintains, they lock it down. Danny Salazar has had trouble getting to the 7^th inning, so chances are that we will need our bullpen to cover some innings today. We need them to keep dominating.

Keys to the Game (5/4)

Keys to the game-

1.) Settle in early! Danny Salazar has really struggled with finding his command and control early on in ballgames. So far this season he has given up 3 home runs, all 3 coming in the first inning. He has given up 15 runs so far, 8 of those coming in the first inning. While his 13.03 strikeout ration per nine innings is the best in the league, he has a 4.34 ERA and a 2-2 record. The reason his ERA is so high is because of the runs given up in the very first inning of the game! The Detroit Tigers have the ability to offensively flex, so we need Danny Boy to work out those first inning jitters/kinks/mechanical issues during his pregame warm up and come out ready.

2.) Lock it down. So do you remember a couple of days ago when I said that our bullpen was ranked 2^nd in all of Major League baseball? Well, just within that short time… that has changed. We are now ranked 1^st. That’s right, we are the best. With a 1.91 combined ERA, our pen has only allowed 17 earned runs in 80 innings of work. They have also combined for 96 strikeouts. Just to put those numbers into perspective, the bullpen currently in 2^nd place is Boston (gag); they have a 2.12 combined ERA, have allowed 19 earned runs in 80 innings pitched, and have 78 strikeouts. Our bullpen not only maintains, they lock it down. Danny Salazar has had trouble getting to the 7^th inning, so chances are that we will need our bullpen to cover some innings today. We need them to keep dominating.

3.) Don’t let Fulmer settle in. Michael Fulmer is 2-1 on the 2017 season, with a 3.19 ERA. He has been struggling with the same issue that Danny Salazar has been struggling with, settling in. Out of the 11 runs he has allowed so far this season, 9 of those have come within the first three innings of the game. Scoring on him early will be our best opportunity to do damage. So be aggressive, make him throw a lot of pitches, mess with his rhythm. He is going to be making adjustment as he goes through the line up… so we must do the same.  This will be our first time facing him this season, lets get to him early and rattle him. Let’s split the series!

Keys to the Game 5/3 Indians @ Tigers

Hannah's Three Keys

1.) Step away from the panic button!!! 
Tonight will be game 27 of the 2017 season. Game 27 out of 162 (Editor's note: this means the season is only 16.7 percent completed). Of course we want to see our team dominate each and every opponent, especially when the opponent is the Detroit Tigers. The last two games have been frustrating offensively. Too many missed opportunities, to many left stranded on the bases. We saw our pitching stumble, and our defense struggle. But we cannot press the panic button now, 27 games into the season, while we are 14-12 record. I am not saying that I don’t understand the temptation to panic. We are fans of Cleveland sports teams, panic is basically past down from generation to generation. It is not for the faint of heart… but I beg you, step away from the panic button. Keep perspective. It is going to be a long season, you throw in the towel now and you may miss out on another great season.

2.) Shut down their offense 
So far this season the Tigers have done very well against Indians pitching. They have scored 30 runs in 5 games against us. Eesh. That is no good. But perhaps the pitcher that has had the best results so far is Carlos Carrasco. He last faced the Detriot on April 16^th, where he allowed just 2 earned runs on 4 hits in 6 2/3 innings of work while walking 5. On the season, Hot Sauce is 2-2 with a 2.04 ERA. He has been our most consistent starter, despite slightly struggling with his command at times. He has got to keep the ball down! We look to him to quiet the Tigers bats, keep them off the board and give our offense a chance to score some runs. Speaking of that…

3.) Score some runs
At the end of the day, it does not matter how well our pitcher pitches. If our offense cannot score runs, we cannot win ballgames. Our offense has struggled to figure out Detroit so far, and it is time for that to change. Matthew Boyd takes the mound for the Tigers tonight. He has put together a nice start to the 2017 season, with a 2-1 record and a 3.86 ERA. He faced off against the Tribe once this season, giving up 1 run on 7 hits, walking 2 and striking out 3. His change up has been his bread and butter pitch. I would assume he is going to rely heavily on it tonight. If we can make adjustments so to avoid whiffing at those pitches, we will find success. Small ball is key… get back to the fundamentals and start scoring runs.

Keys of the game 5/2

Keys to the game-

1.) Limit the LOB’s. The 1 run on 7 hits, 9 left on base stat that came out of yesterday’s game causes a lot of frustration to Tribe fans for the sheer fact that we had the opportunity to score runs. We had the base runners, but were unable to capitalize. Tonight we face Justin Verlander. While the Detroit right-hander has the ability to be a Cy Young contender, the Indians offense has had a huge amount of success against him in the past. In our most recent battle on April 15^th, we were able to tattoo him for 9 runs on 11 hits in 4 innings pitched that day- bringing his career record to 19-22 with a 4.68 ERA when playing against the Tribe. It has been reported that Verlander has been ‘tweaking’ his mechanics to boost his velocity, and is all but ignoring completely his change up; so take note and make adjustments accordingly. At the end of the day, hits don’t win ballgames, runs do. So get on, get over and get home.

2.) Kkkkkluber. Detroit has an offense that can do a lot of damage really quickly. And with Miggy Moo Moo finding his way back to the line up after a brief stint on the DL, the threat is that much greater. Corey Kluber has been... average… when facing the Tigers historically, going 6-6 with a 4.31 ERA in 18 starts. “Average” is not a word associated with Kluber very often, because in all reality he is anything but average. Amazing. Rembrandt. Filthy. Those are the words we typically use to describe Corey Kluber. With 37 strikeouts in 34 1/3 innings pitched, we know he can rack up the K’s. We also know that he has the ability to keep his emotions in check, which is needed when pitching against a team like the Tigers in Detroit (yes… I am looking at you Trevor Bauer). He has got to make sure that he keeps the ball down and pounds the strike zone. He also needs to make sure not to give anything to Cabrera that he can do damage with.

3.) The game is not over till the last out is made. I do not care if we are down by 1 run or if we are down by 10. The game is not over till the 27^th out is recorded, especially when facing the Detroit Tigers. Their bullpen ranks dead last in the majors, with a 6.19 combined ERA. In other words, they are really, really bad. It is the chink in their armor. So we need to make sure we exploit their weakness. I don’t care what the score is; if we are winning or losing, don’t give up. Play hard. Play smart. Play to win.

(Our bullpen, by the way, is ranked 2^nd in the majors, with a 2.13 combined ERA. J)

Keys of the Game 5/1 Indians @ Tigers

Keys to the game-

1.) Beat the southpaw
While his stats so far this season are not all that impressive (1-2 with a 4.71 ERA, with 11 walks in 21 innings pitched), Daniel Norris has historically dominated the Cleveland Indians offense. In fact, we have never beaten him. He is 2-0 with a 1.69 ERA in four starts made against the Tribe. It is time to put all of that behind us, our offense is better than that. We need to make sure we are having productive at-bats. Norris is known for walking batters, again- he has walked 11 in 21 innings pitched so far this season. If Norris wants to give us a free pass, take it! Make him throw a lot of pitches, look for mistake pitches left over the plate, and get into their pen. For as much as we have struggled against Norris, we have had great success against the Tigers bullpen. The sooner we get Norris off the mound the better.

2.) No mistake pitches!
If you look at Trevor Bauer’s stats from his last outing against Houston, you would probably think he pitched poorly. He went 6 innings giving up 4 runs on 6 hits, walking 2 and striking out 8. Not stellar numbers. But in all reality, he pitched a pretty darn good game against a potentially lethal Houston Astros offense. All 4 runs came by way of the long ball. He made a few mistake pitches, and they made him pay. He has never pitched particularly well against Detroit, going 4-4 with a 7.24 ERA. We need him to come out tonight and avoid making mistake pitches, maintain control and keep his emotions in check.

3.) Stay focused 
We all know that Detroit Manager Brad Ausmus is sideshow distraction. And that is by design. He wants to mess with the pace of the game, get players distracted and make them lose focus. So expect Norris to make a lot of throws to first, the pitching coach to take a lot of walks to the mound, Ausmus to take a lot of needless complaints and conversations with the umps. More then likely this game will take well over 3 hours because that is how Detroit plays, with distractions. Our team needs to stay focused despite the sideshow that Ausmus will be putting on, especially if the Indians are winning. Keep all of that beneath you. Focus on making good plays, playing smart ball and winning series one game at a time.