Josh Tomlin’s Home Run Problem May Cost Him His Job

Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Josh Tomlin may have pitched his way out of the starting rotation after another bad outing Thursday night.

It is only a small sample size, but the Cleveland Indians have played terrible baseball since Monday’s game against the Oakland A’s.

The only player to do well in this span is Carlos Carrasco, who threw eight shutout innings Monday night. Yet even though the team won the game 1-0, the single run was a cause for concern.

Then came Danny Salazar‘s second bad start in a row, followed by Trevor Bauer giving up five runs in the second inning in Wednesday’s 5-1 loss to the A’s.

The offense has done nothing to help the starting pitchers, but falling behind three or four runs early puts the team at a major disadvantage.

The current series against the Texas Rangers was supposed to be a fresh start, but the 9-0 debacle Thursday night showed the team may be headed in a downward spiral, while one player in particular may be out of a job.

Josh Tomlin entered Thursday night’s game fresh off a start last Saturday in which he allowed three home runs in a 6-5 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. It was his thirteenth consecutive start allowing at least one home run, and he entered Thursday night with a league-worst 32 home runs allowed on the season.

The focus was on the long ball Thursday night, and it did not take long for Tomlin to live up to his reputation. He allowed a three-run home run to Carlos Gomez in the bottom of the second, putting the Indians in another early hole. Three innings later he allowed another three-run home run, this time to Adrian Beltre, pushing the score to an insurmountable 8-0 lead in favor of Texas.

Tomlin has now allowed 34 home runs this season, with the statistics surrounding that number being rather alarming.

The struggles surrounding Salazar are rather new, while Tomlin has had a problem with allowing home runs all season. With the Indians in a pennant race, there is only so much energy one can put into an argument about letting Tomlin work through the problem when it is clear it’s not going away any time soon.

The decision is now in Terry Francona‘s hands. He does not need to relegate Tomlin to the bullpen permanently, but giving Mike Clevinger a spot start in Tomlin’s place could give Tomlin some time to figure out what is going on. He could come in for some relief appearances and work through the struggles in small doses.

This is not a decision made solely on last night’s game, as the offense could not even score a single run, but something that has been building since the beginning of August. Tomlin is now 0-5 this month and has allowed nine home runs in that span. He has also only made it through five innings of work on one occasion, a 3-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox on August 15.

The losses are not the main concern, as a starting pitcher can get handed a loss and still pitch a solid game, but the home runs combined with his short outings are putting the Indians at a disadvantage each time he takes the mound.

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Mike Clevinger may not be the long-term answer, but he can help in the short-term as the Indians try to win the AL Central for the first time since 2007.