Cleveland Indians Make Final Trip to West Coast for Series with the A’s

The Cleveland Indians are riding high as they make their final trip to the west coast of 2016 for a three-game series with the Oakland Athletics.

The Cleveland Indians arrive in Oakland for a three-game series against the Athletics on Monday fresh off of a dramatic series win over the Toronto Blue Jays at Progressive Field and a successful 8-3 homestand. The Tribe enters play on Monday night with a seven-game lead in the Central Division, and in a battle for the best record in the American League.

This is the last trip Cleveland will make to the Pacific time zone, and the beginning of a weeklong trip that will also include four games against the AL West-leading Texas Rangers. By the time the Indians return home, they will have played 20 games in 20 days.

Oakland is having a season that in many ways is the polar opposite of the Tribe. The A’s have a record of 53-71 and find themselves 19.5 games behind the Rangers. The club was a seller at the trade deadline, dealing standouts Josh Reddick and Rich Hill to the Los Angeles Dodgers, banking on a solid return of prospects to impact the franchise’s future.

With serious postseason aspirations, this is the sort of series in which Cleveland must handle its business. The Indians are 3-0 against Oakland thus far this season, outscoring the A’s 19-6 in those games, and continuing on that theme before another matchup with a first place team would be beneficial for the team.

Next: Inside the numbers

Numbers to Know

14

Oakland comes into the series ranked 14th out of 15 teams in the American League in runs scored, averaging four runs per game and being outscored by a 101 runs on the season. The team is dead last in the league in both on-base percentage and OPS.

Cleveland, on the other hand, is outscoring its opponents by 105 runs in 2016, the second-best run differential in the AL, and boasts a pitching staff that leads the league in bWAR. Tribe pitchers have a combined earned run average of 3.83 and a batting average against of .241, both of which rank second behind only the Blue Jays.

As the Indians average over five runs per game and feature one of the stingiest pitching staffs in the league, the advantage on paper is clearly in the club’s favor against the woebegone A’s.

32

Despite Oakland’s offensive struggles as a team, one player who can do major damage is Khris Davis, who comes into the series third in the American League with 32 home runs and just outside the top ten in both RBIs and slugging percentage. The 28-year old is in just his third full season in the big leagues after being picked up in a trade with the Milwaukee Brewers in the offseason.

When the A’s and Indians hooked up for three games at the end of July, Tribe pitching limited Davis to a 1-for-11 line, with a home run, an RBI, a walk, and four strikeouts. But he comes into this series hot, having gone 5-for-11 in his last three games (against the Chicago White Sox) with two homers, five RBIs, and four runs scored.

Davis is hitting .290 in the month of August, and has hit 17 of his home runs in his home ballpark. With the departure of Reddick, much of the pressure to produce in the middle of the lineup has fallen to him, and he has thus far responded.

81.6

Cleveland leads the AL with 102 stolen bases and an 81.6 percent success rate. As has been on display in recent weeks, particularly in the series at Progressive Field against the Los Angeles Angels, the Indians are using their baserunning as a weapon.

According to FanGraphs, the Tribe is tops in all of baseball in weighted stolen bases and it isn’t even close. The club is also second in MLB in speed score. All of which is to say Cleveland will exert pressure on Oakland’s pitching staff and catchers when it reaches base.

Regular A’s catcher Stephen Vogt is throwing out about 29 percent of attempted base stealers in 2016, which puts him in the bottom half of the American League. It is an advantage that the Indians will want to exploit.

Next: Who to watch

Names to Know

Kendall Graveman

Graveman will take the ball in the series finale on Wednesday, and he’s been on a solid role. Since the end of June, the 25-year old righty is 6-2 in nine starts, and in his most recent outing, tossed the second Maddux in MLB this season.

In 143 innings, Graveman has a 4.09 ERA, 4.48 FIP, and a 98 ERA+, and his 1.31 WHIP and .270 batting average against suggest he can be hit around. In a July 29th start against the Indians, he went 6.1 innings, allowing four runs, three earned, on six hits in taking a loss. The Tribe produced 13 ground balls in that game, so the team’s recent double play woes could be firmly in play against Graveman.

Marcus Semien

A familiar face from the two seasons he spent with the White Sox, Semien is having the most productive year at the plate of his young career this season, slashing .240/.302/.446 with 23 homers, 55 RBIs, and an OPS+ of 104. Manager Bob Melvin hits him all over the lineup, as he has seen starts in the leadoff spot, three-hole, and five-hole recently.

Semien has also managed to clean up his defensive game in 2016, after a disastrous 2015 that saw him commit a league-high 35 errors. This year, he’s a league-average shortstop according to Baseball Reference’s total fielding runs above average metric, having committed just 16 errors to this point in the season and already approaching the number of total chances he had a season ago.

Next: On the bump

Pitching Probables

Game one of the series will pit Cleveland right-hander Carlos Carrasco against Oakland rookie Andrew Triggs. Carrasco has been engaged in a Jekyll & Hyde routine for the past month, looking unhittable at times while at others getting teed off on. His 6.66 ERA in 24.1 August innings belies the inconsistencies he has experienced.

Triggs has appeared in 21 games for Oakland in his first season in the big leagues, and Monday’s start will be just his fourth. For the year, the right-hander has a 4.98 ERA and 81 ERA+, but his 3.54 FIP suggests he has pitched more effectively than his stat line says.

On Tuesday night, Danny Salazar will face off with another rookie, Sean Manaea. Salazar will be looking to bounce back from a disastrous one inning effort in his last start, the first appearance he had made since a stint on the disabled list with elbow soreness.

Manaea has taken his lumps in 18 starts thus far in his rookie campaign, posting a 4.73 ERA, 4.44 FIP, and an ERA+ of 85 in 110.1 innings of work, and has been knocked around to the tune of a 5.32 ERA in the month of August.

In Wednesday afternoon’s series finale, Trevor Bauer will be on the bump against Graveman. Bauer has been incredibly solid in his past three starts, and is fresh off an eight inning, 13-strikeout performance against the Blue Jays, better known as the Tyler Naquin inside-the-park walkoff home run game.

Next: Indians' September Call-Up Options

Game one: Monday, August 22nd, 10:05 p.m. ET. Airing live on SportsTime Ohio, WTAM1100, and WMMS 100.7.

Game two: Tuesday, August 23rd, 10:05 p.m. ET. Airing live on SportsTime Ohio, WTAM1100, and WMMS 100.7.

Game three: Wednesday, August 24th, 3:35 p.m. ET. Airing live on SportsTime Ohio, MLB Netowrk (out-of-market only), WTAM1100, and WMMS 100.7.