News & Notes: Indians shouldn’t have snubbed Yandy Diaz

OMG THE SKY IS FALLING. Oh no wait - the Indians are still up six games in the Central and dropped their magic number down to 11. So even though they just finished a 3-4 road trip, things are gonna be just fine. You all should chill and enjoy the ride.

White Sox 2, Indians 1

The Tribe inexplicably got shut down by Big Game James Shields, accruing just four hits (!) and one run (!!). The game was tied 1-1 heading into the bottom of the 9th, and Bryan Shaw yielded a run to allow the Sox to take the game and the series.

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Tribe news & notes

Yandy Diaz snub indefensible by Tribe | Burning River Baseball - The Indians are heading into the post-season with a bit of a dog’s breakfast as far as the outfield goes. There’s not a single everyday player in the mix and without Abraham Almonte available, the situation against lefty pitching is especially dire. There’s pretty much no justification, then, for the Tribe not giving Yandy a look after the excellent year he’s been having.

Cleveland Indians deserve attention this weekend | Cleveland.com - It seems absurd that you’d have to beg people to come out and watch a first place team in a city that just won its first championship in over 50 years, but here we are. Terry Pluto explains why you should make time to watch the Tribe in between Browns three-and-out possessions.

Low-cut Cowboy: Bode Plots | Waiting For Next Year - Josh Tomlin started the year off pretty well, but his predicatble return to failure seems to correlate pretty well with an over-reliance on his cutter. In Wednesday’s start, he finally started to trust his four-seamer and rely less on his cutter again, leading to great success.

News from around the league

• Padres GM AJ Preller was suspended 30 days for his role in concealing medical records during the Drew Pomeranz trade
• Fangraphs has a fascinating piece on how difficult it is for a batter to pick up what type of pitch is being thrown
• Dayn Perry looks back on how everything, including the uniforms, was terrible for Arizona this year
• There’s no reason to believe Rogned Odor won’t sustain his success
• Here’s another article about Tim Tebow