Posts Tagged ‘michael aubrey’
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The Offense is Offensive.May 22nd, 2008
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Hey, remember that time when I wrote about the Indians offense being bad? What’s that you say? That’s all I’ve been writing about recently?
Well, I hate to sound like a broken record, but: the Indians still can’t hit. And, with the pitching staff seemingly coming back to earth after that absurd 23-runs-given-up-in-a-14-game-stretch, the Indians have now lost five in a row and have dropped from first to third in the standings.
So what’s the remedy? Without rehashing old ideas too much, here are some ideas:
Fire Derek Shelton: Look, I already wrote about it here, but enough is enough already; it’s time for someone to get blamed. Maybe it sends a message and fires the players up, or a new guy comes in and the players respond to the new authority. Or, maybe nothing happens because the hitters are beyond repairable. However, I do know this: statistically speaking, they can’t be any worse than they are right now, so the whole don’t-fire-a-guy-unless-there’s-someone-better-to-replace-him thing doesn’t really apply. It’s time to make a change.
Shuffle the lineup: This is something Manager Eric Wedge has tried, and the results have been equally as poor as the offense. In the last 10 games, Wedge has filled 9 different lineup cards. Ben Francisco has hit 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 8th; Jhonny Peralta has hit 2nd, 3rd, and 6th; Franklin Gutierrez has hit 5th, 6th, and 8th; David Dellucci has hit 3rd, 5th, and 6th; I could go on, but you get the idea. And remember, this is just in the last 10 games. Maybe you could blame Wedge for not sticking to a lineup that works (except none of the seem to work), or blame him for not trusting his players in specific lineup spots (he trusts they’ll be bad in all the spots), or even for not providing the players with lineup and playing consistency (even though none of them deserved it), but you can’t blame Wedge for not trying something different. Even if it’s different every single game.