If the Indians can maintain their current pace and keep their head above water for a few more weeks, they’ll have a chance to enter the month of May with something that’s been absent the past three seasons around this time of year: Momentum.
In each of the past two years and to a certain extent the past three, the Indians effectively limped into May, beaten and battered in the cold as if they had endured a brutal Russian winter.
The Indians have a winning record the past three months of May, but each time it was only an effort to get back to .500 after a dismal start. Last year, the Indians went 7-14 in April. In 2014, they were 11-17 by the time May 1 rolled around. A positive May became a fight with urgency and the Indians simply trying to climb back into the division race.
The Indians are aware of the pattern of early season struggles but haven’t been overly concerned with them because it’s something that seems so fluky. There’s no scientific method that can be applied to a team of 25 players struggling out of the gate. Maybe more-so than any other sport, there’s no one thing or group of things that can be attributed to a slow start and applied to the entire team. There’s no metric to measure it.
“If you can tell me [what to do to change it], we’ll do it,” Indians manager Terry Francona said in the spring. “There’s no way to ensure — think about it, how can you? I wish I knew how to stay hot the whole year.”
There’s also no way to indicate it’s coming.
“There have been springs I’ve left and been worried and we’ve gotten off to great starts,” Francona said. “Whatever you do here [in Arizona], you do what you think is right and when the season starts, it’s a different game because everything counts.”
This season, it could be a different story. The Indians entered Saturday’s game 4-4 midway through the month. A .500 record for April would be an upgrade in and of itself.
More importantly, the Indians could add several key names back into the lineup by that time. Namely, that means Michael Brantley, whose presence in the middle of the Indians’ lineup is sorely missed. Brantley is arguably the best regular left fielder in the game and has attributed 10 WAR (wins above replacement) the past two seasons combined, per FanGraphs. The Indians are deploying plenty of options in his absence, such as Rajai Davis, Marlon Byrd, Collin Cowgill and Jose Ramirez. But there’s nobody in that group who can match Brantley’s steady production.
It also means Lonnie Chisenhall, who is now at the stage of playing back-to-back days for Double-A Akron, an important milestone in his rehab, should be back. Chisenhall would provide a significant upgrade defensively in right field and would give the Indians a better option offensively against right-handed pitchers, allowing him to enter a platoon with Byrd.
For an offense that has more-so been carried by a stellar pitching staff than the other way around the past few seasons, losing two pieces and one of the focal points of the lineup was something the Indians could ill afford. So, if the Indians survive April unscathed and have Brantley and Chisenhall back in the lineup, it might mean the arrow is pointing in the right direction instead of a frantic attempt to erase a subpar start to the season.
Also likely at some point in May is the return of veteran relief pitcher Tommy Hunter, who is rehabbing from core muscle surgery and is also on a rehab assignment.
It could all mean nothing. If Brantley’s shoulder doesn’t hold up for the rest of the season, the Indians are likely in trouble. If they struggle to end the month, the feeling around May 1 might be much of the same. The division is shaping up to be a four-team dogfight that includes last season’s World Series champion Kansas City Royals.
But,should the Indians enter May around .500 and healthy, they might just be one of the clubs in the American League trending upward as the weather finally warms up.
Even if all goes to plan, the Indians will have a long way to go and several questions still to answer. But the direction and feeling of the club on May 1 might include additional optimism that fans haven’t felt at this juncture of the calendar in several seasons.
Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Indians blog at www.ohio.com/indians. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RyanLewisABJ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RyanLewisABJ.