Edwin Jackson has been a great reclamation project for the Tigers, and he's been very good all season, but the Indians just aren't having good at-bats. The offense was shut down for the second game in a row, and like last night, again wasted a very good start by their starting pitcher.
Fausto Carmona is getting a bit better with every start. When he pitched in the strike zone, he got consistent easy outs. The problem was he that wasn't always in the strike zone, and that was his eventual downfall. He walked the first two batters of the seventh inning, and after Brandon Inge sacrificed the runners over, the Tigers scored their first run of the game on a groundout to shortstop. The Tigers would tack on another run with a single back up through the box, and Carmona never regained his rhythm again.
I really have no opinion on whether the Indians should have bunted in the bottom of the seventh, but if Eric Wedge wanted to bunt the runners over, he should have put in someone who could have done it. Sacrificing one future David Dellucci at-bat is not much of a downside if you're bunting anyway, and there happens to be a promising young hitter on the bench that could have DHed the rest of the game if it came to that. Did that play make a difference in the outcome of the game? Perhaps, or perhaps not. But when a season's going poorly, these execution errors tend to get magnified. A single botched at-bat isn't going to decide the fate of a manager, but a consistent stream of them might.
Next Up: Reyes vs. Porcello, 1:05 PM
| Highest WPA | Lowest WPA | ||
| Shin-Soo Choo | .131 | David Dellucci | -.318 |
| Fausto Carmona | .057 | Grady Sizemore | -.117 |
| Mark DeRosa | .052 | Ryan Garko | -.110 |