Anemic Indians fall to White Sox, Carrasco leaves with injury

White Sox 4, Indians 1

Box Score

Tribe falls to 2-5

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Carrasco injury

First things first. Nothing - good or bad - that happens in the seventh game of the season is even remotely as important as your #2 starter leaving with a potentially serious injury. Carlos Carrasco gave up a leadoff single to Adam Eaton to start the game. The next batter smashed a line drive into Carrasco's face.

Carlos got his glove up and deflected the ball slightly, but barely dampened the impact. After several minutes on the ground in pain, he was taken off the field on the medical cart. He was later diagnosed with what is being called a "jaw contusion," and fortunately did not exhibit any signs of a concussion. Another positive sign is that x-rays came back negative:

The X-rays performed on Carrasco at Lutheran Hospital came back negative, per the Indians.

— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) April 15, 2015

So though it isn't as bad as it could have been, it is far worse than *not* being hit in the jaw. There's no word yet on how long Carrasco will miss as a result of the injury.

What else happened?

The rest of the game was only slightly better than getting hit in the face with a line drive. The Indians were once again completely baffled by a left-handed pitcher, despite the fact that Sox starter Jose Quintana averaged about 55 feet per pitch tonight. Quintana pitched six innings giving up just one unearned run on three hits, while striking out six.

Speaking of strikeouts, this may have been the most anemic performance the Indians have given so far. Mike Aviles, Ryan Raburn, and Jerry Sands "led" the team with one hit apiece. Raburn even managed extra bases and an RBI! Brandon Moss won the golden sombrero tonight, which may well be the only hardware this team takes home this year. The rest of the team, not wanting the new guy to feel left out, struck out ten times, bringing the collective total to 14 K's on the evening. Sands, Moss, and David Murphy punctuated the pathetic performance by striking out on like, 10 pitches to end the game.

Meanwhile, the White Sox offense did what the White Sox offense does. They scratched out three runs in annoying fashion - RBI groundout and two RBI singles - and then capped their scoring with a laser shot of a homer from Jose Abreu in the 5th inning. Along with Miguel Cabrera, Jose Abreu continues his path to becoming a comic book villain-type rival to the Indians.

But because I feel like I'm being incessantly negative here, I want to highlight the positive contributions of the bullpen tonight. Because the first two runs of the game were technically charged to Carrasco, and he didn't record an out, the bullpen was credit with nine innings pitched and just two earned runs. Zach McAllister admirably filled in for Carrasco in long relief, throwing three and two thirds innings and giving up one earned run. Austin Adams and Anthony Swarzak three two shutout innings apiece, and Nick Hagadone's lone earned run came off of Abreu's homer, which hardly counts against him.

A personal note

I want to go back a second to the idea of incessant negativity. Yes, this was the first time the Indians have lost four in a row at home to start the season since 1987. Yes, the team has looked pretty terrible so far in nearly every way except starting pitching. Yes, a lot of frustrating stuff happened during this game. But the GameThreads... yeesh. I think we need to take a collective deep breath and remind ourselves that we are still just *seven games* into the season. Seven games isn't just a small sample, it's a minute sample.

Look, I get being worried about the injuries. But it's far too early to be seriously concerned about the play of the entire roster. Constant complaining about umpiring, bringing up the SI "curse," declaring players bums/idiots/failures - it's all just a bit overboard. Chin up, all. We've got a loooooong season left.

LGT.

Win Expectancy Chart:

Source: FanGraphs

Roll Call:

GameThread

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