It was amusing, that after all the arguing and discussion over the Indians ALDS roster, they needed barely more than the starting line-up to complete the sweep. They used a total of 12 position players and seven pitchers, leaving six men on the roster who didn’t get into a game, Yan Gomes, Chris Gimenez, Zach McAllister, Cody Anderson, Jeff Manship and Mike Clevinger.
With the option to adjust their roster heading into the ALCS, Mike Chernoff and Terry Francona took note of that and, along with the realization that they will almost certainly be making game four a “bullpen game,” exchanged one of those unused position players, Gimenez, for another pitcher, Ryan Merritt.
Merritt pitched in just four games this year (and thus so far in his Major League career), but had some great appearances. In his MLB debut, he pitched in relief and shut out the AL West winning Rangers for 4.1 innings, striking out two and allowing just one hit with no walks. His next two appearances were short ones, but in his final game of the season, he threw five innings against Kansas City, striking out four and allowing just one run on three hits with no walks.
While that appearance wasn’t against a team the quality of Toronto, it was as near as the Indians were going to get to a play-off atmosphere in late September this year as they needed to win to get home field advantage against Boston and the rookie left hander did what he needed to do to get the Indians there.
The other half of this equation is not Gimenez and not even Gomes, but Perez. The Indians had a right to be worried about the play of their starting catcher in the postseason considering his .183/.285/.294 regular season line in 61 games, but much of that had to do with being brought back prematurely from injury as he ended the season hitting .263/.313/.408 from August 26th on. He then caught fire in the first two games of the ALDS, batting .222/.364/.583 in all three games with a home run, three runs scored and two walks.
This is important to this roster decision because it allowed the Indians to play Perez in every inning of every game so far. He (most likely) won’t be able to do that again in the ALCS, but they also don’t need to pinch hit for him every game. If Gomes is not quite ready to play, they can always put him back on the DL and bring back Gimenez, but as long as they don’t have to pinch hit for their primary catcher in the fifth inning, they don’t need three and can carry an extra reliever.
As mentioned before, they will likely need those extra relievers that weren’t used in the ALDS. While the sweep of Boston was nice and Francona used Andrew Miller, Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen to their limits to get it, you can’t assume a sweep of Toronto. Francona is likely to play the long game this time, using McAllister, Dan Otero and possibly even Manship in situations he would prefer to use the big three for. He simply won’t be able to use them all for multiple innings in every game, so he will have to be more judicious with his use of his big guns.
On a final note, Kyle Crockett is still missing from the roster. He injured his back at some point during the final weeks of the season and was considered too hurt to pitch in the ALDS. That must still be the situation as he was as dominant as any reliever during the second half and was deserving of a roster spot. With three former starters in the bullpen in Anderson, Clevinger and Merritt, the Indians have plenty of innings eaters. With Michael Saunders and Ezequiel Carrera as their only full time left handers, a match up man isn’t that important and Merritt could likely take over that role, but it’s still fair to miss Crockett a little.
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