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Indians @ Blue Jays
Sunday, July 3rd, 2016. 1:07pm, Rogers Center
TV: STO
Radio: WTAM
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The Cleveland Indians lost a baseball game yesterday. There's no one to blame. These things happen every once in awhile.
This is what a fool would say. This team is a sinking ship on fire in an ocean of gasoline and they need a win immediately to prevent an abhorrent 49-32 record.
Corey Kluber can captain the ship to a safe harbor with another good start today. The last couple of times out Kluber has been the Ace that fans occasionally doubt that he is. He tallied two earned runs, six hits, three walks, and sixteen strikeouts, all while gobbling 17 innings in those appearance. Still, these statistics mean nothing in the face of the adversity the team is facing. If Kluber can't deliver a win then I demand he wear an albatross around his neck until the team reverses what would then be a two-game losing streak.
Unacceptable.
The Blue Jays send J.A. Happ to the mound. While his name sounds like a department store or hack fantasy author*, Happ is a solid-but-unspectacular pitcher. He's bounced around five different teams during his career, and previously pitched for Toronto from 2012-2014. Despite having a 5.28 ERA in June, he went 4-1, just another reminder that pitcher wins are stupid and ought to die.
Rajai Davis goes for his second consecutive reverse-cycle this afternoon, with an eye on adding a walk to make it a reverse super-cycle. This may or may not be a figure skating move as well.
Note that Abraham Almonte earns the start in center today. He's hitting .000/.000/.000 in 0 AB but yet to commit an error in the field. He does that off of the field. Juan Uribe is a late scratch after being hit in the hand during yesterday's game.
*He sat in his chair and it squeaked like so many wooden joints suddenly bearing weight. He remembered the murder of his people: He shivered, ludicrously, under the dual suns of the the Androlean desert, watching as the horses marched in formation; a formation of tight, neat rows, each horse marching along with the other horses, stampeding the people of the town in which he grew up. Stampeding them to death. Vengeance...he would have a great deal of it, and soon. He stood up and made breakfast.