The last couple games weren't exactly works of art, but they're wins.
- Justin Masterson struggled with his command most of the game, but somehow kept things together through seven innings. He obviously kept the Indians in the game with only two runs allowed, but just as importantly he went seven innings; that will lighten the workload of the bullpen with rain in the forecast tomorrow and a scheduled off-day on Thursday.
- The at-bat before Asdrubal Cabrera's big RBI hit, he struck out but had a lengthy at-bat. I guess you could say that that foreshadowed his success in the eighth inning, but then again, he swung at the first pitch off Matt Thornton.
- I'm confident that Cabrera will get things back together, though not that confident with Kipnis. Jason doesn't have much of a track record, and struggled in the second half last season.
- If Drew Stubbs could ever get a semblance of an offensive game, he can be a very valuable player.
- Vinnie Pestano looked very sharp in his second outing after the long high-leverage drought. Perez was just OK, and thankfully Alexei Ramirez got out in front of that inside pitch.
Update:
No full recap today because of time considerations (you'll understand why later today), so some quick additional thoughts on last night's game:
- Dylan Axelrod mystified the Indians with his method of pitching backwards; he threw a lot of off-speed pitches, even when behind in the count, and many hitters couldn't hold back in traditional fastball counts.
- As mentioned above, Masterson was all over the place in the early innings, but unlike in outings last year, Justin didn't give up the big inning.
- In the second inning the Indians scored via two bloop hits. Jason Giambi dumped a single into shallow left field that normally would be a double had practically any other hitter hit it, and Lonnie Chisenhall hit a bloop single that turned into a double when it took a bad hop past left fielder Alejandro De Aza. The White Sox outfielders play deep, and those two hits really burned them.
Source: FanGraphs
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