The season-ending series against the Toledo Mud Hens will kick-off with two home games and then swing back to Toledo to wrap the regular season. The Clippers are all but assured a playoff spot holding a 4.5 game lead on Syracuse Chiefs for the wild card. The only questions is who the 1st round opponent will be. If the Clippers win the division, they will face the IL-South winning Durham Bulls and if they earn the Wild Card bid, they will face the IL-North winning Scranton Wilkes/Barre Yankees.
Quick Breakdown:
IL-West Division GB IL-Wild Card GB
Clippers (78-61) --- Clippers (0.5)
Bats (77-61) 0.5 Bats ---
Chiefs 4.0
Opponents:
Win Division: @Durham Bulls
Win Wild Card: @Scranton-W/B Yankees
Team Pitching: 1(1) R(ER), 5H, 4BB, HBP 5K, 55% strikes, 42% GB
Corey Kluber had great results (6IP, 1ER), but he pitched merely 'good', not really 'great' and he was aided by a couple lucky breaks. He threw only 54% strikes, he gave up only 4 hits (and 2BB,HBP), but all 5 of his GB's were converted into outs, he had two line-drives that were caught and was aided by a strike'em out-throw'em out in the 2nd when the glacially-slow Jeff Clement (4-13 career on SB attempts) was casually thrown out at 3rd. Credit Kluber for inducing the strikeout though, fault Indy for making the final out at 3rd on an ill-advised steal attempt.
Carlton Smith pitched a scorless 7th, and Zach Putnam had a flawless 8th. Putnam needed only 6 pitches to get his three outs and he used his heavy fastball and splitter to induce a pair of ground outs. He should be in the mix for a bullpen spot next season as he has the profile of a successful reliever: lots of K's, few BB's, and few HR's (good GB%). Saul Rivera got the save by pitching a scoreless 9th, despite walking a pair and needing 30 pitches to get the final 3 outs.
Team Hitting: 4R, 13H, 4XBH, BB, HBP, 4GIDP, PO
Josh Rodriguez went 4-4 (2B, 3B, 2RBI, R) and is showing signs of life after a horrible first few weeks of August. In his last 10 games, Rodriguez has gone 412/412/647 for an OPS of 1.059. His August line going into this hot streak was 100/229/200 for an atrocious 429 OPS. He clearly has the ability to hit AAA pitching, as evidenced by his recent hot streak and his extraordinary June (400/483/627), but he'll need to find some consistency if he wants to break into the suddenly crowded infield situation at Cleveland.
Asdrubal Cabrera, Jason Donald, Cord Phelps, and Jason Kipnis are the present and apparent-future of the Indians, so Josh will have to keep hitting and hope to prove himself in one of the injury gaps or roster-expansions in 2011. However, you can't fault his overall performance during his first taste of AAA as he has put up a 360 OBP and demonstrated decent power with 31 XBH's in only 293 AB's. He'll need to have another strong season in order to get his chance and overcome the position crunch.
The Clippers will take on the Toledo Mud Hens with eyes on cementing their IL-West division title and getting ready for the 2010 postseason. A special, early, start time of 4:35 (deference to Ohio State drubbing Marshall at 7:30...O-H!) will see David Huff taking on Charles Furbush at Huntington Park.
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