Eric Wedge's job is safe for some reason - MLB

As I mentioned in the recaps this morning, Eric Wedge’s job is safe:

Cleveland general manager Mark Shapiro says Indians manager Eric
Wedge’s job is safe for the rest of the season. The Indians, expected
to contend in the AL Central Division, are 33-49, the worst record in
the league. Shapiro says this season’s disappointments are the fault of
players, the manager, coaches and the front office.

Four things listed there. Let’s break them down:

Players: roster assembled by GM
Coaches: hired by the GM
Front Office: run by the GM
Manager: Wedge.

Maybe GM Mark Shapiro is right not to fire Wedge. After all, he’s only 1/4 of the problem . . .

In all seriousness, however, this has to be pretty demoralizing for
Indians’ fans who are very, very tired of team Shapiro-Wedge at this
point. The CW is to point to injuries, but every team suffers injuries.
The job of the GM and the manager is to work through them, and Shapiro
and Wedge have been utterly unable to do that. Shapiro set up a roster
dependent upon too many guys with injury histories staying healthy and
on too many pitchers who would have to have or at least repeat career
years in order to be useful. Meanwhile one can only assume that Wedge
is the one who has insisted on the Tribe carrying a thirteen man
pitching staff while scraping to cover for Sizemore’s absence in center
and while Matt LaPorta rots down in Columbus (not that there’s anything wrong with C-Bus). In light of all of that, how are Shapiro and Wedge still employed?

A fellow who comments at my other blog
believes that the real problem is simple dollars and cents: “Wedge, and
more than likely Shapiro, would have been fired a while back if Larry
Dolan had the money to pay their salaries and the guys who would
replace them.” There may be some truth to that. Shapiro is under
contract through 2012, and likely makes something more than Eric Wedge
— who is under contract through next year — does, at just north of a
million a year. Figure, then, that canning those guys will cause Dolan
to have to pay at least another $5 million to fill their jobs.

None of which makes this any less depressing for Indians’ fans.

CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”