Recap
Box Score
Win Probability Added @ Fangraphs
Highest WPA:
CC Sabathia .258
Grady Sizemore .111
Travis Hafner .080
Lowest WPA:
Josh Barfield -.040
David Dellucci -.037
Jhonny Peralta -.029
In watching a baseball team, it's always tough separating one game from the entire season. You watch tonight's 7-1 victory and you think that this team's one of the best in baseball. Of course, you'd have the opposite thought after watching Sunday's debacle. But you somehow have to distill 37 impressions into one neat little mind's-eye view. Tonight that compilation looks really good.
The most consistent positive of the 2007 Indians has been patience. There's only a couple players in the lineup who are free-swingers, and more importantly, there are several hitters who know what exactly to swing at. Tonight's lineup drew three walks from a pitcher whose calling card is control. Carlos Silva was done after six innings, and the offense went to work on his replacements. Before you knew it, there was a six-run lead. There were no huge power displays (the Indians had just two extra-base hits), and lots of boring walks and run-scoring outs.
When the umpires started to warn benches quicker, the directive was to allow teams to police themselves, but also stop any gratuitous beanings. The pendulum's swung past the point of common sense, as tonight's quick trigger indicates. CC Sabathia hit Justin Morneau in the shoulder with a fastball early in the game, and notwithstanding the dearth of recent controversy, home plate umpire Jim Reynolds warned both benches. This put both pitchers at a disadvantage, particularly Silva, since he didn't even have the opportunity to think about retaliation. The correct way to go about things would be to allow the Twins to hit a batter, then warn both benches with both sets of honor intact and the incident over. Now we'll probably see something start back up later in the season.
Next Up: Getaway Day for the Twins. Carmona vs. Santana, high noon.