Cleveland Indians: 3 things that went wrong in June

Pitching struggles arise for the Cleveland Indians

The pitching staff for the Cleveland Indians began the season among the league’s best. However, the injuries have taken a toll on not only the starting rotation, but the entire pitching corps.

The starting rotation has been unable to go deep in games recently, which is forcing the bullpen to be used much more than in the first couple months of the season. The added usage and tough situations has caused the team’s pitching stats to spike in the month of June.

After posting an ERA of 4.12 in May, which still isn’t incredible, the club’s ERA jumped up to 5.22 in June. Even with five fewer games played in June the team still gave up four more home runs in June, hit three more batters and gave up nearly the same amount of hits, seeing the WHIP go from 1.34 in May to 1.40 in June.

The trend of a rising ERA has been a season-long story for the Tribe. April saw a team ERA of 3.71, the 11th best mark in the league. That number moved up to 4.12 in May and dropped the team to 17th for the month. As for June, the 5.22 ERA is down to 26th, better than only the Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals, Arizona Diamondbacks and Baltimore Orioles.

Over the course of July the team should hopefully get back Plesac, Bieber and Civale which will be a huge help. But, even with those players back, the Tribe still clearly need help in the starting rotation if they want to stabilize the bullpen and get back to dominant pitching.