Cleveland Indians: Pitching Reaching Epic Standards for Futility

The bottom line on the ESPN Sports Center screen scrawled by and the White Sox vs. Indians score blinked an all too familiar array of crooked numbers.  The eleven runs scored by the Sox, in a rain shortened game to boot, helped cement a growing 2009 pitching legacy that bathes in futility. It's been well known, the struggles that the Indians pitching staff has had this year. The Indians have given up 440 runs this year, which is exactly 80 runs more than the next highest allowed run total of anyone in their division.  If a team averages, say five runs a game which is probably median for the league, then it would take a team sixteen games to catch the Indians IF the Tribe pitching staff could throw shut outs in those sixteen games. It is well advertised that this staff cannot throw strikes. They give up the long ball and they can't get easy outs via strike out, but these numbers are starting to get ridiculous. At what point, does general management send down the whole staff and ... (link)