Cleveland Indians need to fix their glaring weakness quickly

The Cleveland Indians roster is a story of two extremes as 2020 gets underway.

It’s hard to find another pitching staff that’s currently outperforming the Cleveland Indians group of arms and their remarkable start to the 2020 season. In fact, Indians pitchers are tied for the lead in Major League Baseball with a combined 2.5 fWAR through the first two weeks of the year.

Unfortunately, the Cleveland Indians offense has been providing their young and dominant staff with Jacob deGrom level run support, including just six runs scored over their last six games (1-5 record in those games) before squeaking out four runs on Tuesday night in a win over Cincinnati.

However, those four runs came on just three hits.

While the 2020 playoffs have been expanded to 16 teams and slow starts for Cleveland’s offense have been a regular thing in the past, we’re already 20% of the way through the season and every single loss is magnified in 2020.

If Cleveland wants to make a deep postseason run with this more than capable roster, the offense is going to need to start performing immediately.

Indians hitters rank 29th out of 30 MLB teams in combined fWAR at -0.2 thus far, hitting below the Mendoza-line as a team with a .183 clip. That’s the worst team batting average in the majors by nine points.

With every single team across the league facing the same challenges, it’s hard to place the blame on trying to play baseball in the midst of a global pandemic. Not to diminish that impact in any way, but Cleveland’s offensive struggles go beyond the expected struggles of players given the current circumstances.

The Indians rank 25th in home runs (8), 22nd in runs scored (32 in 12 games), 29th in wRC+ (59), and 29th in team OPS (.551). If you take out Jose Ramirez and his current .279/.392/.465 slash line, two home runs, and 145 wRC+, Cleveland’s offensive numbers look even more depressing, which is saying something considering their current overall numbers.

As lovable as Franmil Reyes is, the designated hitter is striking out in 33% of his at-bats through 11 games, owns a .200 on-base percentage, and has managed a wRC+ of just 28. Remember, league-average is 100. He is just one example of this Indians lineup struggling mightily out of the gates. The Indians outfield, for example, ranks dead last in the majors in terms of offensive production with a 19 wRC+ and combined -0.8 fWAR.

Francisco Lindor can’t carry this lineup on his back, as good as he is, and the elite pitching performances put together night after night by Cleveland pitchers will also cool off at some point in the coming weeks, except for maybe one of the most exciting players in all baseball in Shane Bieber.

Just how good is this pitching staff? The numbers speak for themselves:

• Shane Bieber: 3-0, 0.83 ERA, 14.54 K/9 IP
• Zach Plesac- 0-1, 1.80 ERA, 10.20 K/9 IP, 0.60 BB/9 IP
• Aaron Civale- 1-1, 3.75 ERA, 13.50 K/9 IP
• Carlos Carrasco- 1-1, 3.75 ERA, 11.25 K/9 IP

There’s also a guy by the name of Mike Clevinger in the rotation, you may have heard of him. He may be struggling through his first two starts, but Clevinger has ace-level stuff and it’s only a matter of time before he settles in and picks it up in 2020.

All of these pitchers have one thing in common and that’s the need for more run support. If Cleveland hitters can turn things around soon, the American League is there for the taking.

Minnesota currently sits atop the AL Central with an 9-2 record and is showing no signs of slowing down, with the hot-hitting young stars of Chicago sitting at 7-4 through 11 games and in second place. The Indians (6-6) sit 3.5 games out of the division lead and 1.0 game out a Wild Card spot with 48 games left to play. It’s not time to panic, but there isn’t much time left to figure out a fix to the Tribe’s offensive woes.

The Cleveland Indians will get an opportunity to make up some ground this weekend in a three-game set against the White Sox before nine-straight games against the Tigers and Pirates. If the bats can get hot during that stretch, they will set themselves up nicely for a run over the second half of this very short season.