The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
HR chase might have doomed Ramirez
Jose Ramirez struggled in the last six weeks of the regular season and into the ALDS. Also, the Browns will recognize Joe Thomas’ number of consecutive snaps streak by adding it to the Ring of Honor.
The disappearance of Jose Ramirez over the last six weeks of the regular season and into the ALDS will remain the unsolved mystery of the Indians’ 2018 season.
How can a player, as consistently good was Ramirez was in 2016, 2017 and the first 4 ½ months of 2018, become clueless at home plate?
“He got himself into a predicament and he couldn’t get himself out of it,” Indians manager Terry Francona said at the wrap-up news conference, flanked by team president Chris Antonetti and General Manager Mike Chernoff. “It’s hard to figure out because a guy can be that good, that dominant and then he just couldn’t get ... he kept peeling off balls even when he got pitches to hit, he kind of peeled off and he knew it and he watched video and he just couldn’t get the feeling of staying through the ball.”
Ramirez was in the thick of a home run race with Khris Davis (48) of the A’s, J.D. Martinez (43) of the Red Sox, Mike Trout (39) of the Angels and Joey Gallo (40) of the Rangers when his numbers began to slide. He hit his 37th home run Aug. 17 and did not hit another until Sept. 12. He didn’t hit his last home run until Sept. 29.
Davis hit 13 home runs after Aug. 17 to win the race easily. Martinez homered on Aug. 17 and hit five more after that. Gallo hit homered eight times and Trout nine times after Aug. 17.
Ramirez hit .171 over the last 30 games of the regular season. He was 0-for11 in the three-game ALDS sweep by the Astros after going 2-for-20 in the five-game ALDS loss to the Yankees last year. That makes him 2-for-31 (.065) in his last eight postseason games.
Antonetti and Francona do not expect Ramirez’s struggles to carry into next season. Antonetti said a hitter going through a slump is not unusual. Ramirez, unfortunately for the Indians, slumped at the worst time possible.
“Think back to 2017, the beginning of the season with Corey Kluber,” Antonetti said. “Were people saying, ‘Oh my God, what’s wrong with the pitching coach?’ We went through a month and a half where I think his ERA was over five and he went on to win the Cy Young.
“Jose struggled for a similar amount of time, just at a different point in the season. But when you look at the body of work, he’s going to finish in the top-five in the MVP voting. So yeah, did he go through unfortunate timing with when he struggled? Of course, and he worked really hard to get out of it. He just wasn’t able to by the end of the season.”
Ramirez hit .270 in 2018 after batting .312 in 2016 and .318 in 2017. He hit 39 home runs in 2018, 10 more than in any previous season.
• Here are the injury updates on ailing Indians:
Center fielder Bradley Zimmer, who had shoulder surgery in July, is rehabbing in Arizona, Indians president Antonetti said. Zimmer will begin throwing next month and start a hitting progression in December.
“Too early to say a precise timeline, but we do expect him to be able to play for the majority of next year,” Antonetti said. “Exactly when that will be will be determined by how he reaches each of those checkpoints, but he’s still on track.”
Pitcher Danny Salazar will resume throwing next month. He had shoulder surgery in July.
Pitcher Cody Anderson is recovering from Tommy John surgery in March. The Indians expect him to be full-go by spring training.
Pitcher Nick Goody had elbow surgery in late August. He is “a few weeks” from starting any kind of throwing, Antonetti said.
Streak honored
Joe Thomas, the greatest player to wear a Browns uniform since the franchise was reborn as an expansion team in 1999, will have the number of his consecutive snaps streak – 10,633 — added to the Ring of Honor inside FirstEnergy Stadium on Oct. 17 when the Browns host the Chargers.
The number will be unveiled during a break in the first quarter when Thomas serves as the honorary Dawg Pound captain.
The special day comes four days short of the dark one-year anniversary of the last game Thomas played. He started at left tackle on the first play of his first game as a rookie in 2007 and never missed a snap until a triceps muscle was torn while blocking on a routine play against the Titans on Oct. 21, 2017.
At the time of the injury, the mood was like, “It’s Joe Thomas. He’ll be OK. He’s only shaken up.”
And then when the seriousness of the injury was revealed, the mood was, “It’s Joe Thomas. He’ll be back for 2018. He isn’t going to let an injury end his career. He wants to go out on his own terms.”
But that isn’t what happened. Thomas chose retirement, and made the announcement official on March 14 — the first day of free agency in 2018. He has lost so much weight in the last year he no longer looks like a football player. He walks without a limp, something not many players who played 10 ½ seasons can say.
Thomas never stopped playing his best in the bleakest years in Browns history — 38-118 after they were 10-6 his rookie year of 2007.
“I think it’s unbelievable,” Browns coach Hue Jackson said. “My time here with one of the greatest players, to me, that has ever played the game at left tackle here in Cleveland was special to me.
“Watching him as a player and watching a guy who would not take a play off — I don’t care what the aches were or what the situation was — until he could not physically do it anymore. I will never forget walking on that field when he was down there and him not being able to get up, understanding that this might be it. To watch and look back on his career and see what he has done, man, that is amazing to me.”
Thomas some day will have his name added to the Ring of Honor, probably after he is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. All 16 names currently in the Ring of Honor are in the Hall of Fame.
I didn’t know that
… Until I reads my Snapple bottle cap.
Hawaii is the only state with one school district. … Among North Atlantic lobsters, about one in 5,000 is born bright blue. … Astronauts cannot burp in outer space because there is no gravity to separate liquids from gas in their stomachs. … Maine is the closest state to Africa. … Forty is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order. … Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are all always of the same sex.