The Longball Loving Indians

The 2021 Indians season is off to a good start as the team has won four straight after starting the season losing three of their first four. One reason for the turnaround is the long ball, which the Tribe has fallen in love with after hitting five homers in Saturday's win over Detroit. How long can the long ball help out the Indians?

The Cleveland Indians are now officially in first place of the AL Central Division. Sure, it’s only eight games into the season and it was a sweep against a Detroit Tigers team that many consider being a bottom-feeder that propelled the Tribe to the top.

What those like to point out is the ratio of runs that the Indians are scoring via the long ball. That it may be an unhealthy way of scoring over a long period of time and not the best plan to rely on the classic ‘swing and a drive.’

Yes, the Indians are third in the Majors with 14 home runs hit as a club. Even so, looking at the statistics from the pitching aspect of this team and shows a diversity of success for this club. 

It’s not just simply a home run party to try and outscore the opponent.

The Indians are first in batting average against at .169, second in walks plus hits per inning pitched at 1.00, third with a collective earned run average of 2.83.

Thus, it’s clear that the pitching is certainly helping the team continue the winning ways. Sure, the hitting with a team batting average of .226 (18th) and only 37 total runs (19th) could use improvement.

It’s just odd that the idea of hitting home runs has become almost a bad thing. There needs to be a happy medium where the offense continues to hit the long ball while also finding that groove with certain types of clutch hitting of singles, doubles, hitting with runners in scoring position and more.

Of course, it’s only been eight games of a long 162-game season. It’s way too early to make any type of judgments that reflect what type of total year the Tribe will have here in 2021.

The team starts a four-game series in Chicago against the White Sox this week. 

It will be interesting to see if the team continues to depend on the long ball or if the Indians are able to take some of those various types of hitting and use them within the games.