Game #10 Observations: Offense Still Searching, Civale's Outing Means Little as Indians Fall to 5-5 After 3-1 Loss to Twins

The Indians four-game set with the Minnesota Twins started with a bang with the efforts of starting pitcher Shane Bieber, but ended with a whimper, as the club over the last three games of the series scored a whole two runs.

Things got so frustrating on Sunday that manager Terry Francona missed the game with what was called a "minor gastrointestinal condition," probably from watching this team hit.

Team president Chris Antonetti said after the game that Francona will get checked out at the Cleveland Clinic Monday, and that it's reasonable to believe he'll miss the games Monday and Tuesday in Cincinnati.

The club now sitting at 5-5 will head to Cincinnati for a pair of games, and then come home for two more games with the Reds.

The Reds, who went out and spent a lot of money to be competitive in 2020, are off to a 3-5 start entering play on Sunday.

Back to the Tribe, the team needs to figure out where and why exactly this offense has been so lackluster, and what they can do to find it.

Here are your observations for game number ten, and a look ahead at what’s next for this team.

The Offense Remains in a Serious Funk

The club overall in the 10 games has scored 26 runs, an ugly 2.6 runs per game.

Take away a week ago today when the team scored nine runs against the Kansas City Royals and the team has scored (get ready) 17 runs in 9 games, which by the way is an average of 1.9 runs per game.

You have to remember that it seems that pitching around the league right now is ahead of hitting, but that’s an easy cop out as to why the team isn’t hitting, and you can’t use that as an excuse for the current situation.

The Twins pitching was very good for the four-game set, and for the most part so was the Indians, as Minnesota didn’t exactly light up the scoreboard, scoring 10 runs over the four games of the series getting shut out by Shane Bieber on Thursday.

“The reality is even though the season is shorter the plate appearances are the same, our guys are working hard and hopefully that work will pay off with more consistent and quality at-bats,” Indians president Chris Antonetti said after the 3-1 loss to the Twins.

Let’s face it, there are no easy answers to a major slump at the plate for the team as a whole, but a couple of guys getting hot, or at least warm, would help right now.

“At times yes they are trying to do too much,” Sunday acting manager Sandy Alomar said.

“The guys have to continue doing their job, and have to have more quality at-bats, I think that it’s still early.”

Pitching Again Hangs In

Indians starter Aaron Civale was very good once again for the second straight start, going six innings, allowing three runs on five hits.

Civale didn’t allow any free passes and struck out nine in the 3-1 loss.

“Just got a little bit more comfortable as things went on, kind of settled in a little bit, doing the best I can, the more the game went on the better I felt,” Civale said.

He gave up one run in each of the first three innings, but hung in and allowed the team the chance for a comeback, they just never got the offense going as stated in our first postgame observation.

“Well after the bump in the road early he settled down and his pitching kept us in the game, he kept his composure,” Alomar said of the starter.

In his first start Civale allowed two runs on seven hits with a walk and nine K’s, so over the first two games of 2020 he’s struck out 18 batters, impressive for anyone, much less a second-year starter trying to find his way in the Majors.

The bullpen did a nice job as well, as Nick Wittgren and James Karinchak each threw an inning, and between the two they didn’t allow a run, allowing a total of two hits and four K’s.

One thing to remember is the team does not have their normal catcher manning the backstop, as Roberto Perez is on the injured list, and the team is going with Sandy Leon and Beau Taylor as catchers right now.

“They’ve done a tremendous job,” Alomar said. “Mechanically they have done very good, they know they have a big task in front of them until Roberto comes back.”

Confidence Shaken?

Let’s face it, when this team just three days ago was 5-2 and getting another huge outing from Shane Bieber, things were looking bright.

Now, much like the rainy weather today in Cleveland, things seem gloomy for the 2020 Tribe, with most of that being from the way the offense has simply tanked in the first 10 games.

“Right now we are back to .500 and focus on the way we were swinging at summer camp,” Alomar said.

Almoar alluded to the confidence of the offense being a bit low, but all it takes is one or two really good outings where the team scores 5-6 runs and gets back on track.

It’s been said a number of times that this team has too much talent up and down the lineup to not eventually hit, but watching an outing like Sunday is frustrating because when you’re down 2-3 runs, it feels like 100.

New second basemen Cesar Hernandez (.300) and Jose Ramirez (.333) are both off to solid offensive starts, but honestly this team is going to win only if you get those numbers from 2-3 other guys in the starting nine.

Everyone knew the outfield would be a challenge, but Sunday’s three of Domingo Santana (.158), Oscar Mercado (.080) and Bradly Zimmer (.250) are just not hitting enough to get it done.

Mike Freeman played short as Francisco Lindor got the chance to DH to keep his bat in the lineup, and Freeman is hitting just .143.

You can throw out numbers all day long, it’s ugly, but the club simply has got to get some confidence and that’s only going to come with 2-3 solid games at the plate scoring 5-6 runs with 8-12 hits.

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