Player of the Game
Asdrubal Cabrera won his 4th Player of the Game of 2012 with a solo home run, single and a walk. Cabrera also had a decent play at short to get the lead runner at second late in the game. For his effort Asdrubal scored 3.72 Player of the Game points.
Feathers Up
Nick Hagadone struck out Alex Presley in the 9th after giving up three consecutive walks after he had already given up 4 runs on three hits and a walk. This is actually a really big Feathers Down, but I dare you to find a positive in losing a game to the Pirates by 7 runs.
Feathers Down
Tony Sipp seems to have lost all effectiveness as a relief pitcher. In general this season he has been good enough against left handers and terrible against righties, but today he couldn’t do his job as he allowed a solo home run to left hander Alex Presley. Before today’s game he had allowed a .178 BAA against left handers with a .366 against righties. In the past he never had this dichotomy as he was almost equally efficient against batters from both sides of the plate. At this point any use of Sipp will have to be individual matchups or the Indians will risk the continuation of this trend. Even that is no guarantee as today showed when he gave up a home run to a batter hitting .228 with just 4 home runs on the season.
The Indians offense has been sputtering of late as they can’t seem to get any hits with runners in scoring position. It isn’t a matter of not get any chances as Shin-Soo Choo, Jason Kipnis, Carlos Santana, Michael Brantley, Johnny Damon and Shelley Duncan all had chances with a runner in scoring position today that they failed to come through on. The worst situation on the day was when Asdrubal Cabrera and Kipnis singled to begin the 6th. The Indians were unable to move the runners over until Damon walked with two outs and were not able to score a single run out of the situation.
Hitting Streak Update: There will be no more hitting streak updates for awhile as Michael Brantley has gone 0-3 with a walk. The segment shall come back when someone gets another streak around 15 games. The longest current streak is held by Lonnie Chisenhall at two games, so it could be awhile.
Play of the Game
Asdrubal Cabrera hit a solo home run back in the first inning, when the game was still close.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 2 – Pittsburgh Pirates 9
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