Here are 19 Walk-Off Thoughts after the Indians’ 5-1 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Sunday.
1. Two-out hits are great, but less-so when they aren’t converted into runs. The Indians had seven hits and a walk with two outs but didn’t do any damage.
2. Indians manager Terry Francona has perviously talked about how he’d rather get the scoring chances and not convert than not getting those chances at all. The frustration level is still pretty high in both scenarios, though.
3. Said Francona, “Early, I thought we squared up a couple real good. Carlos and Nap, I thought both were probably home runs on normal days, but they (hit them) kind of right into that wind, knocked them both down. I thought after that, it seemed like we got frustrated and got a little big. On a day like today, you’re going to have to string some hits together, unless you hit the ball like Kip did down into right field, and we weren’t able to do that. … We weren’t able to get guys on early in innings and we didn’t get any two out hits.”
4. The Indians fell behind 2-0 in the second inning when the Twins did take advantage of a two-out rally. From there, it was a skipping record of extending innings but not making Twins starter Danny Duffey pay for it.
5. “We couldn't just get that one. I felt like we just needed that one hit. I came up a couple times with runners on,” said Chris Gimenez. “ I think, too, I feel like offensively, if we can just get that one hit, I think it's going to snowball off of that. The last couple of games, unfortunately, we just haven't been able to put that timely hit together. I think, too, we still put nine or 10 hits on the board today. We'll take our chances with that.”
6. Specifically, the Indians couldn’t handle Duffey’s knuckle-curve. Per MLB.com, he threw a season-high 49, with the Indians going 2-for-10 against it. Gimenez knew it was coming and was pretty much helpless.
7. Said Gimenez, “He could've told you his curveball was coming and everybody knew in the ballpark it was coming, but he did a good job. He's very deceptive, because he's got kind of a long arm and he's a slinger. It's kind of tough to pick up a little bit. My second at-bat, I went up there looking for a curveball. First pitch, he threw it right down the middle and it was still [tough to hit].”
8. Bauer threw 6 2/3 innings, gave up three runs on five hits—including a seventh-inning home run to Jorge Polanco, his first career home run—walked two and struck out eight. He’s now 3-1 this season with a 3.89 ERA and has been pretty solid since being re-inserted into the starting rotation after Carlos Carrasco strained his hamstring.
9. When asked if he thought he was building something in the right direction, Bauer noted that he felt good as a starter this spring, before he was moved to the bullpen in favor of Cody Anderson.
10. Said Bauer, “Yeah. I thought I had a really good spring as a starter and I've continued that this season.”
11. An interesting element to Bauer is that Gimenez has acted as his primary catcher every fifth day. Francona said recently those two will continue to work together as long as it makes sense with regard to Gomes’ schedule. It might allow those two to zero in on the next start and craft a better plan of attack.
12. Said Bauer on the tandem, “Yeah. We talk about it, watch other guys attack teams and come up with a game plan. So, it's beneficial.”
13. Joba Chamberlain worked 1 1/3 scoreless innings on Sunday, striking out four, and quietly has a 0.79 ERA this season.
14. On what’s been working for Chamberlain, he said, “Just trying to get early strikes. I think that’s the biggest key, is trying to get strike one and expanding the zone from there. Obviously, coming into it, getting the leadoff hitter in Mauer was a big deal, just kind of building off of there. This game, when you’ve been around a long time, you know what they want to do and they have an idea of what you want to do so it’s just a game of adjustments and trying to make the adjustments throughout the at-bat and obviously it went well, but this one’s over and get back out there tomorrow and get after it.”
15. Tyler Naquin defensive numbers don’t look good, though it’s in part due to sample size. You really need a 2-3 year sample, and he’s got one month. That being said, Francona has, on multiple occasions now, cited Naquin’s work going back on balls and his route running as things he needs to work on. Then came the two-run double off his glove just before he crashed into the wall on Sunday. It easily could have been ruled an error.
16. Naquin is still learning on the go, and it includes his defense in center field.
17. Said Francona, “It hit his glove. He’s still learning. We’ve talked about it. Sometimes, you see a veteran outfielder, they’ll see the ball and they’ll kind of run to the spot. He’s not able yet to do that. He has to watch the ball the whole way or he gets a little bit messed up on his route, so it’s hard to run at full-tilt doing that. It’s not like he’s loafing, but it just takes a little bit away.”
18. After building some positive momentum last week with a 5-1 home stand all in the division, the Indians are now 17-17 and have dropped two series to last-place teams in their respective divisions. They’re also without Carrasco and Michael Brantley for the time being.
19. Said Chamberlain, “It’s a season. You play 162 for a reason. As we’ve all seen the last few years, every game counts. There have been playoffs the last few years and it just proves you can’t take a pitch off or an inning off because it could dictate your season, whether you’re in or whether you’re out. So we’ve just got to figure out a way to combat that and ride it out and just continue to grind and battle. We’ve got a lot of guys in here who have been around and know what it takes to be successful. At no point are we going to get down on ourselves. We gotta get back out there. That’s the greatest part of this game, too, we get out there and get a chance to do it tomorrow.”