The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Kluber returning to form vital for Indians’ hopes
Corey Kluber returning and pitching well is as important to the Indians’ hopes as any player they received in a trade, Jeff Schudel writes. Plus, thoughts on the Browns’ special teams.
The most important player connected to the Trevor Bauer trade the Indians made July 30 isn’t any of the five players the Tribe got in return.
Two-time Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber is now the Xfactor in the Tribe’s playoff hopes.
Just getting to October isn’t good enough after falling in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series and then being eliminated in the ALDS in 2017 and 2018.
Yasiel Puig from the Reds and Franmil Reyes from the Padres, the two key players for this year acquired in the Bauer trade, should help the Indians get through the remainder of the regular season, but pitching is always at a premium in the playoffs, and Kluber failed the last two postseasons.
It could be another oneand-done October for the Indians if Mike Clevinger and Shane Bieber have to carry the pitching load by themselves.
Zach Plesac has pitched well enough to be the fourth starter in a playoff series, but how much the Indians miss or don’t miss having Bauer depends on how well Kluber pitches after recovering from a right forearm fracture sustained when he was hit by a line drive May 1.
Kluber was scheduled to pitch a simulated game Aug. 3. If that goes well he could be in the starting rotation by next week, Indians manager Terry Francona said.
Team president Chris Antonetti said the eventual return of Kluber factored into the willingness to part with Bauer.
“I think we had to look at the complete picture, not just what was in front of us in the moment, but what we expected to happen over the course of the next couple of months and one of those things is the return of Corey Kluber at some point in the next month,” Antonetti said. “I think the development of our pitchers we’ve had in our system at the major league level and guys who have come through our minor league system allows us to contemplate trades where we’re trading from pitching depth to be able to address other areas of our team. Without the development of those guys, we couldn’t consider deals like this.”
Before the season began, I wrote the Indians as they were constructed, despite the offseason selloff last winter, were good enough to make the playoffs, but once they get there the All-Stars have to perform like All-Stars. That was a reference to Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez and Kluber.
Ramirez and Kluber in particular have been disappointments in the last two postseasons. Kluber’s numbers in his last four playoff starts have been atrocious. He pitched four innings in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series and gave up six hits, two of them home runs, and four earned runs in four innings. He pitched two games against the Yankees in the 2017 ALDS and lasted a total of 6 1/3 innings. He gave up nine earned runs in those two games and four home runs. He pitched Game
1 of the ALDS last year against the Astros and gave up three more home runs in 4 2/3 innings.
Kluber pitched like his tank was empty in all four playoff games over the three years. A broken pitching arm can never be a good thing, obviously, but if Kluber can find a groove in the next eight weeks — or whenever he does return — his energy should be at mid-June level when the playoffs start. That should bode well for October.
• Kluber was not pitching well before he was injured. That has to be a concern for Francona. He was 2-3 in seven starts with a 5.80 ERA. He walked 15 batters and struck out 38 in 35 2/3 innings. Last year he struck out 34 batters all season while pitching an American League most 215 innings. The 215 innings pitched in 2018 reflect why his tank was empty last postseason.
Penalty problems
Problems on Browns special teams ran far deeper than missed field goals and missed extra points last season.
Rich Gosselin, who formerly covered the NFL for the Dallas Morning News before retiring in February, annually grades the special teams units of all 32 teams in 22 categories. The Browns ranked 30th.
The Browns were penalized 21 times on special teams last season. They ranked tied for 24th in that category.
Surprisingly, given the fact Coach Bill Belichick is such a perfectionist, the Patriots at 26 had the second most special teams penalties in the NFL last season. They won the Super Bowl despite that flaw. The NFC champion Rams also committed 26 special teams penalties.
The good news for the Browns is last year’s special teams coordinator, Amos Jones, was fired. Mike Priefer, who coached the Vikings special teams for eight seasons, replaced him. The Vikings at seven had the fewest special teams penalties in the league last season.
“Don’t give an official an excuse to throw the flag,” Priefer said after a recent practice. “I’ve said that 1,000 times since April when we started. Don’t give an official an excuse to throw a flag.
“If you feel like this (a block or holding penalty) is going to be close, don’t do it. We work on the finish part of our blocks on punt return and kickoff return all the time. All the drill work we work on in the walkthrough, just little stuff — on the footwork and the hand placement, making good decisions.
“I’ve been harping at it a lot and I hoping that we can turn the corner because the last two years (the Browns) were not. The last place I was, we weren’t penalized very often and that’s why we have to get to that mentality here because there were way too many penalties last year and that will kill a football team.”
The Browns committed 20 special teams penalties in 2017 when they finished 0-16. They were tied with the Bears at 27th in Gosselin’s special teams rankings two years ago.
• Jamie Gillan, aka “The Scottish Hammer,” is in an uphill battle to take the punting job away from incumbent Britton Colquitt.
“Britton is going to be the steady Eddy,” Priefer said. “He’s going to give you the 48 (yards), 4.8 (hang time), outside the numbers. We’re hoping that is a good punt for him. Jamie is going to wow you. Jamie is the guy that’s going to bomb the ball, and unfortunately, the next time he’s up there he doesn’t hit one quite as well. He needs to find consistency.
“Britton needs to do what he does. Jamie will win the job if he’s more consistent. Britton will win the job if he’s obviously the guy that he’s been the last several years here in Cleveland.”
Gillan played Rugby as a youth in the Scottish Highlands. He was 16 when his father, an officer in the Royal Air Force, was transferred from Scotland to Leonardtown, Md.
Jamie watched a Leonardtown High School football game one night and was confident he could kick better than the kicker and punter at the time. He won the job and eventually got a scholarship to University of Arkansas Pine Bluff.
Many NFL punters went undrafted — including Colquitt. Now Gillan is trying to unseat a 10-year veteran.
I didn’t know that
…Until I read my Snapple bottle cap
The properties in the game Monopoly are named after streets in Atlantic City. … A snail can grow back a new eye if it loses one. … In 1916, Jeanette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to Congress. … Fires spread faster uphill than downhill. … Remove all the space between its atoms and planet Earth would be about the size of a baseball. … New York City public school students represent about 188 countries. There are 197 countries in the world.