Indians Lose 4-3, Choo Breaks Thumb

Carlos Carrasco turned in another solid outing Friday night but unfortunately, for the Indians, a couple untimely errors were enough to propel the Giants over the Tribe.

Carrasco pitched well enough to win, and very well should have. He went the full eight innings, while only allowing one run and giving up six hits. Carrasco has pitched at least six six innings in his last seven starts going 5-2 with a 2.45 ERA in that span and he’s logged at least eight innings twice. He’s also struck out 33 in that time and walked just ten.

Santana’s errors at first base are also intriguing. He’s committed just two errors since moving from behind the plate after Matt LaPorta hurt his ankle, and they came last night. The fielding error was a tough play to make. Ideally you would want your catcher-turned-first baseman to be able to field a ball with both hands but Santana was charging a slow hopper that he was forced to play one-handed. Had he been able to field it cleanly he could have make a good throw home to get the runner with plenty of time or conceeded the run and taken the out by tagging the runner.

His throwing error was a miscue on an attempted throw to second to start a double play. He also made a baserunning blunder that resulted in him getting picked off at first. At this point we can chalk it up to a young ballplayer going through some growing pains at an unfamiliar position but you would like to see a little more attention to detail from one of your cornerstones of the franchise.

In the aftermath of the game the Indians also found out they lost Shin-Soo Choo with a broken thumb. He is expected to be out for up to six weeks after suffering a displaced fracture of his left thumb when he was hit by a fastball from Jonathan Sanchez in the fourth inning. The possibility of surgery is also still open for Choo.

This is discouraging because it had appeared that Choo was beginning to break out of his funk. He had been hitting .370 in his last eight games and had recorded a hit in 29 of his last 26 games.

It’s another blow to an Indians club that was starting to turn the corner health-wise. They had just been bolstered with the return of Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore was again a regular in the lineup. For the Indians to continue to stay afloat in the AL Central they will now need to rely even more on their starting pitching. With July approaching it may also be interesting to see if the Indians acquire someone should Choo indeed need surgery and miss an extended period of time.