Raising Some Reds Flags

The Indians completed their first four game sweep this season (or their first two two game sweeps, depending on your point of view) against the Reds this week. Not only did the Indians get four wins, moving to within 2.5 games of the first place White Sox after the finale on Thursday night, but they had three blow outs in the four game set and an uncharacteristically impressive offensive output.

Before going any further, it’s important to point out that winning these games was a huge thing for the Tribe. Cincinnati is one of the two worst teams in baseball and the Indians are lucky to be the only American League Central team to face them this year. This essentially gives them a four game advantage over their adversaries, something that rarely happens in baseball. Even so, we shouldn’t take too much form the four game set as it had a large effect on the Indians numbers for the year, but was a situation that won’t happen again all year.

The numbers above show how much things can change in a few days. A .500 team that scored just over four runs per game became in just four days a .550+ team that scores almost five. There was also an extreme increase in walks, hits and offense in general as the Indians took advantage of a poor Reds starting staff and what is possibly the worst bullpen in baseball. While their 15-26 record is significantly better than the Braves and Twins, Cincinnati has allowed far more runs than any other team in baseball at 246 or six per game. While this was the first time the Reds allowed multiple double digit run games in a series, they have regularly given up huge scores to good teams including a four game series against the Cubs that saw Chicago bring home 38 runs. At 43, the Indians slightly outpaced that, but the point is, such an outpouring doesn’t come as a huge surprise to those who follow the Reds.

That being said, the Indians offense wasn’t as bad as it looked before the series against Cincy. Multiple players were playing well below their expectations, particularly Rajai Davis, Yan Gomes and Juan Uribe. While this series didn’t fix all, it went a long way to pushing a couple of those guys much closer to their pre-season expectations.

No one expected Davis to bat near .200 for the season and no one expected him to go 9 for 16 with six walks against Cincinnati after going 0 for his previous 18 with no walks. Like the team as a whole and pretty much anything in life, his reality is somewhere between the two extremes. Last year, Davis batted .258/.306/.440 with the Tigers and his ZIPS projection for this year was a similar .258/.306/.409.  This year, he has bounced around hitting a high on April 25th with a .286/.333/.482 before dropping to the low point listed on the chart above. Of course his .563/.682/1.125 was unexpected, but it may have been one of those statistical oddities as much as it was the poor pitching by the Reds staff.

In the end, Davis probably will hit somewhere around where he is right now for the year (his numbers are near his career rates, those from 2015 and his ZIPS with a slightly higher OBP and SLG) while Gomes still has quite a bit to climb to return to his norms. Over the long term, it will be interesting to see how significant this set of four games will be. While the Reds and their 5.58 team ERA are the worst in baseball, the Twins, who the Indians struggled to score against, aren’t far behind at 4.90, third worst in baseball.

In the Indians six games with Minnesota, they have averaged just 4.17 runs per game while going 2-4 against the worst team in the AL. Whether it was luck or adjustments, it’s hard to believe that the Twins pitching staff is six runs per game different than the Reds when their ERA’s for the season are within one run. Assuming either, there is a decent chance that the Indians fate against below average teams (the Red Sox and Rangers are 19th and 20th in runs allowed this year) will improve in the future.

Without taking too much from the series, we can consider this as a minor course correction. It only counts as four wins, but those wins count the same and they pushed the Indians to four games over .500 for the first time since the end of the 2014 season. The Indians are headed into a tough stretch against some of the best teams in the AL right now, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore and Texas who are all in first or second in their division and their play against these leaders will show a lot more about this team, whether they have turned the corner offensively or if Cincinnati deserves all the credit for their 43 runs allowed in four games.