No Soft Landing For Indians Austin Adams

Adams Rough Debut But Future Remains Bright

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Austin Adams the former college shortstop turned reliever who was drafted by the Indians in the fifth round of the 2009 draft had to overcome a lost season due to injury finally arrived in the big leagues with the Cleveland Indians against the Chicago White Sox on July 12th.

Many times a young reliever will get the call to the big leagues and the manager will look to give the pitcher a soft landing.

He’ll try and find a spot where the game is either a large lead or a big deficit. Finding a spot where the leverage is minimized is known as giving the player a soft landing.

When Adams was called up from Columbus Tito Francona did not give him the soft landing – he threw him right into the fire.

With the White Sox holding a narrow 3-2 lead heading to the top of the ninth inning Francona elected to bring Adams in from the pen to make his major league debut.. The trial by fire approach didn’t end well for Adams or the Indians.

Dayan Viciedo welcomed him to the big leagues delivering a lead off single and moved to third on a Connor Gillaspie double. Both Viciedo and Gilaspie came in to score on Gordon Beckham‘s double which extended the White Sox double to extend the Sox lead to 5-2.

He finally recorded an out getting Tyler Flowers to ground out before exiting the game. His final line in his major league debut was not flattering as he was charged for three runs all earned on three hits in just 1/3 of an inning.

Adams was sent back to the Indians Triple-A affiliate Columbus Clippers after another outing but returned to the Tribe two more times.

The hard throwing former shortstop made six appearances with the Indians in 2014 posting an ERA of 9.00 (7ER/7IP) striking out four and walking none. According to Brooksbaseball.net Adams threw 100 pitches at the major league level and 69 were fastballs with an average velocity of 97.39% and 25 were curveballs at an average velocity of 87.83 mph.

Despite the results the 27 year old Adams showed in his brief showing in 2014 the future is still bright. While with the Clippers he appeared in 42 games posting a record of 3-2 with an ERA of 2.50 (15ER/54IP) while striking out 52 and walking 16.