Cleveland Indians Yan Gomes Sacrifices Chicken to Break Slump
Slumping Cleveland Indians catcher Yan Gomes participated in a clubhouse sacrifice ritual in an attempt to turn around his terrible season.
When you’re hitting .162/.196/.308 at the start of the second half, you have to do something to break out of your season-long slump. For the Cleveland Indians Yan Gomes, it was a sacrifice to the baseball gods reminiscent of the movie Major League, which was also about the Cleveland baseball club. Jason Kipnis, Mike Napoli, Lonnie Chisenhall, and Chris Gimenez organized the ceremony, hoping to summon the spirits from the netherworld to breathe life back into Gomes’ season.
It has been a truly awful season at the plate for Gomes. For comparison, in 2013, Miguel Cabrera led the American League in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage, the rare Triple Crown of rate stats. This year, Yan Gomes is at the bottom of the league in average and on-base percentage and fourth from the bottom in slugging percentage (for players with 250 or more plate appearances). He’s the bizarro world Miguel Cabrera.
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The biggest issue for Gomes has been a .188 Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP). His career BABIP is .292, so he’s more than 100 points off of where he would be expected to be. The worst single-season BABIP for a full-time player is the .196 that Aaron Hill put up for the Blue Jays in 2010. Gomes has been worse than that even.
So it was time for a sacrifice. Gomes put on a white robe and kneeled before the altar, with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a bat in the other. The flowers symbolized rebirth. The bat symbolized power. His Cleveland teammates used noisemakers in the background to ward away negative spirits. They sounded like an elementary school band warming up their instruments. The chicken, purchased from Target, the go-to spot for sacrificial chicken, was placed in the center of a wreath and surrounded by candles. Baseball bats were perfectly placed around the outside of this arrangement (the bats raise a question: are they bats that have been used by successful hitters, like Kipnis and Napoli, or were they some of Gomes’ bats, hoping to be infused with positive energy?)
With everything in place, it was time to pay homage to the baseball gods and the great Jobu. Jason Kipnis, sporting the full beard that is required to be grown by a minimum of five players on each Major League Baseball team (except for the Yankees, Marlins, and Reds) stepped up to deliver the blessing. He wore a rainbow cape and a “Party at Napoli’s” t-shirt, which added solemnity to the occasion:
“We have prepared this exorcism to honor thy holiness and to absolve Yan Gomes of any wrongdoing he may have committed towards thee. We urge you to forgive his obsession with the octagon and bestow him with your guidance and grace on the diamond. Please accept these offerings as atonement for him straying from the righteous path. Be kind and just in your willingness to accept him and not condemn him any further. In the name of Jobu, amen!”
“Amen!” said the rest of the team.
Amidst a chorus of cheers, Gomes then sliced the sacrificial chicken, one of the first things he’s hit solid all year. The celebration ended with the ceremonial smashing of the piñata, as is the custom.
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Cleveland manager Terry Francona enjoyed the ceremony, saying, “I thought that was probably clubhouse humor to the nth degree. That’s probably stuff you don’t do in the regular workplace, but I thought it was good.” Francona has a point. How many office workers sacrifice chickens to get out of a slump?