Tribe offense is what we thought it was ... terrible

Silly us. Through their first 13 games of the season the Indians' offense wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. It's been worse. It's hard to say anything positive about Cleveland's hitters, other than the fact that they've only been no-hit once. So that's a plus. But then again, it's still early. Their team batting average of .206 is the worst in the American League, 10 points below any other team in the league. The Indians are last in the league in batting average, runs, hits, runs per game, and RBI. Their catchers are batting .158, second basemen .184, shortstops .182, and center fielders .119. The outfielders overall are batting .221, the infielders .192. The Indians are hitting .145 with runners in scoring position and .143 with two outs and runners in scoring position. Their leadoff hitters are batting .157. If you eliminate the Indians' 9-3 and 11-3 wins over the hapless Tigers, in their other 11 games they are averaging 2.6 runs per game. The Indians are hitting .202 against right-handed pitchers, which wouldn't be a big deal if 75 percent of all pitchers weren't right-handers. A 3-1 count is a great hitter's count. In 3-1 counts the Indians are hitting .143. In 0-2 counts? Forget it: .114. My favorite Indians hitting stat, however, is this: in their first 13 games they are hitting .026 (1-for-39) in the fifth inning. So if you're home watching the game on TV and feel like it would be a great time to make a sandwich, then head for the kitchen in the fifth inning. You won't miss a thing. All kidding and swinging and missing aside, the intent in presenting the above statistics is not to make light of the Indians' light hitting. The intent is to remind everyone that this is exactly what everyone feared when the season began. Offensively, the Indians are, well, offensive. In four of their seven wins they have scored below the league average of runs per-game (4.5). Small sample size you say? Yes, it is. But that's cancelled out by the fact that over half their games were played against Detroit and Kansas City, the two worst teams in the league last year. The small sample size argument is further countered by the impotence of Cleveland's lineups. Gone are the glory days of Mike Napoli, Michael Brantley, Jason Kipnis, Edwin Encarnacion, Carlos Santana, Francisco Lindor and others. Instead, the Indians have played all their games this year with lineups populated by what's left. So far, what's left is not enough, but we expected that, also. The question is: can not enough still be enough? The 2021 season, it seems fair to say, is a referendum on what's up with what's left of what once was a powerful Indians lineup, but has since been reduced to a lineup whose description produces the Jeopardy punchline/answer, "What is, 'is that all you got?'" That's all they've got. And, as most of us also expected when the season began, offensively, the Indians are going to need a bigger boat. This one's taking on water, and it hasn't even cleared the pier yet. In his masterpiece in Chicago, Cy Young winner Shane Bieber had to pitch like Cy Young — nine scoreless and nearly hitless innings just to get the team to extra innings in a scoreless tie — in order for the Indians, and the magnificent Bieber, to eventually win. The Indians only had five hits in 10 innings in that game, and NO hits in the next game. Winning is hard, but it shouldn't be THAT hard. It is, however, for the lumber-challenged Indians. Pity poor Terry Francona, for whom creating a lineup each day is cruel and unusual punishment. There is no "best" Indians lineup right now. There are only degrees of bad ones. When Francona sits down to create his lineup each day it should be done to a soundtrack of loud, haunting organ music. At the risk of being guilty of overreaction to two-plus weeks of lineup trauma, it says here that all that stands between this team and a borderline 100-loss season is its pitching staff. That might be an exaggeration, but it might not. To this point it's a very pitchable, gruesome grab bag of a lineup that may or may not improve as the season progresses. Among the current roster's position players, who are long-term fits for the future? I see two. Franmil Reyes and perhaps Andres Gimenez. (Jose Ramirez will be gone in two years). When does the countdown to Nolan Jones, Bobby Bradley, Daniel Johnson, maybe Tyler Freeman, perhaps George Valera, etc. begin? When does the team too proud to rebuild accelerate some time lines so it doesn't waste the best of the remaining Bieber years, before that inevitable trade? In the meantime, buckle up for a lot of 2-1, 3-2 games. Maybe even another no-hitter. Contact Jim Ingraham at 329-7135 or jingraham4@gmail.com.