Cleveland Indians five-point checklist for the month of June

Cut down on the walks

During the month of May, the Cleveland Indians allowed the third-most walks in all of baseball, walking a total of 124 batters over the course of 29 games played. That’s an average of more than four walks per game. Only the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Angels walked more batters during the month.

Unfortunately, that’s kind of been the story of the season for Cleveland, having walked the sixth-most for the entire season with a mark of 201 walks through 59 games. On the season, the average of walks per game is just above three, but that also means that the problem got worse in May, not better.

Among individual players, the Tribe have two in the league’s top five for most walks allowed. No other team has two players in the top five and only the Los Angeles Angels and Boston Red Sox have two in the top nine.

As stated on the last slide, Triston McKenzie is leading all of baseball with 35 walks. However, the second Tribe pitcher in the top five is a bit surprising. Shane Bieber. Now, Bieber is in the top five for innings pitched this year, so you could make the argument that it comes with usage. However, his 27 walks are still tied for the fifth-most so far this season. To put it into perspective, his 27 walks in 11 games this year is only 13 away from his career-high for walks in a season, being 40 during the 2019 campaign and those came across 34 games.

Seeing walk struggles from a young prospect is rather typical, but seeing it from the defending Cy Young isn’t a great sign. As a whole, the Tribe need to cut down on the walks in June if they want to stay within range of the playoffs.