Michael Bourn's blunder in the first inning set the stage for another rough night defensively for the Indians. (Photo: AP)
Second Thoughts Game #26: Indians 3, Angels 6
By Kevin Dean
April 29, 2014
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After being swept in San Francisco, the Indians traveled down the California coast and turned to their number one in game number one of three against the Angels. If you have paid even mild interest to the team's first 25 games, what unfolded in this one should come as no surprise.
The Indians' defense is so bad that this doesn't even deserve a real subtitle.
The Indians' defense is going to bury them.
Poor defense is not strictly about committing errors. It can also be about (and has been about) the ability to make routine plays difficult, the inability to not get to baseballs that many counterparts would, and making the wrong decisions. It has gotten so dreadful for this team that I just focus most of my energy during any given game on identifying not-so-obvious plays that less helpless defenders would make. Last night, like most nights, there were plenty of those, and far more glaring ones.
...It started right out of the gate.
Michael Bourn misplayed an in-between line drive that should have been a single into a triple. That run scored on the next play.
...A routine groundout that would have scored Mike Trout from third either way, but
Jason Kipnis' throw still pulled Nick Swisher off the bag.
...In the second inning, David Freese, of average speed, was gifted a hit by
Mike Aviles, as lackadaisical effort on the most routine of groundballs turned into an infield hit.
...In the fifth, a seeing-eye single that would have been a double-play ball for a certain shortstop currently residing in Akron eludes
Asdrubal Cabrera's limited range.
...Now, we get to
Nick Swisher, who has perhaps been the worst of the worst so far this season. For the second game in a row, to my utter amazement, he was unable to even get leather on a ball that was hit within two to three feet of his starting point. At the very least, most first basemen deflect it a few feet away instead of letting it get down into the right field corner, if not completing the play for an out. He did neither, and it resulted in two runs to tie the game.
...Three innings later, his hurrying to flip a ball that he didn't quite secure puts the leadoff man aboard, the inning snowballs, and the Angels go on to win.
This game was not an outlier.
These mistakes are happening on a daily basis. Indians starters have the fifth-worst earned run average (4.69), but the fifth-best fielding independent pitching (3.27), a variation of the former statistic that shows what it would look like if not for things outside of a pitcher's control, such as abysmal defense.
From a Fangraphs article by Mike Petriello last week: "...
but they're being saddled with a .331 BABIP [batting average on balls in play] that is not only the highest in baseball, but would be tied for the second-highest in the last century." While reminding you that it is still April, and it will very likely not sustain, the number is now .340, just for the record.
Of course, this is nothing new. If you read Second Thoughts last Monday, I wrote that the Indians have been one of the five worst defenses in baseball over the last three, five and 10 years, often being the absolute worst. From a sheer probability perspective, it would be difficult for me to say that this is one of the worst defenses in baseball history. Being "one of the worst" at anything over nearly 150 years is really hard to do. But, the evidence is there that they are perhaps the worst right now and the worst for quite awhile, and without numerous major personnel changes, defense is going to kill this team.
