Luke Hochevar has had a rather consistent season. By consistent, I mean that his ERA at any point this season has not been higher than 5.50 or lower than 4.50. Note that consistent means only that you do something with regularity, not necessarily something good with regularity. So Luke Hochevar has been a consistently poor starting pitcher; he makes his starts, throws his 90-100 pitches, and gives up his 3-4 runs in 6-7 innings.
Tonight he threw off consistency, and stymied the Cleveland lineup for eight innings, allowing just four base runners and striking out eight batters. Or perhaps it was the opposing lineup that overcame Hochevar's consistency; the Indians were without Asdrubal Cabrera, further reducing the number of potent bats in a lineup that's already fielding 3-4 replacement-level hitters a night. You can't really blame the ineffective lineup on anybody, since injuries have mostly been responsible for it, but it's still frustrating when fielding a decent lineup in July and August was all that was needed to keep the Indians in control of the division race. Now they're 6.5 games back, and if they don't sweep the Tigers this coming week, they'll be essentially eliminated from playoff contention.
David Huff gave up five runs (four earned) in six innings of work. That's not a good outing, though it should have been good enough for the Indians to at least be in the game given who they facing.
| Highest WPA | Lowest WPA | ||
| Carrera | .024 | Huff | -.215 |
| Judy | .007 | Thome | -.063 |
| Durbin | .003 | Phelps | -.060 |