ronburgundy
Contributor
That is in large part an artifact of the absurd and nonsensical way that "earned" and "unearned" runs are counted.
A pitcher makes an "error" every time they through a bad pitch. Imagine a pitcher throw 3 terrible pitches out of the zone, and then in desperation throws one right over the plate that the hitter smacks at 105 mph at the feet of the shortstop, who then barely gets a glove on it by diving, then frantically throws to first b/c that is the only hope of getting the runner, but the throw is wild. Not only is that counted solely against the fielder and not the far more lousy pitching, but then if the pitcher walks the next 3 batters, the resulting run is "unearned". Likewise, if a fielder makes an error with 2 outs, that allows 1 person on base, then the pitcher gives up 5 hits and 3 walks which leads to 8 runs, all 8 of those runs are counted as "unearned" just because the inning would have ended without the error. This is absurd, because the inning would have ended without a single run if the lousy pitcher didn't give up all those hits and walks. They are way more to blame than the fielder.
Bauer gave up 4 hits and 2 walks in less than 2 innings. He bears majority responsibility for the 4 runs scored under his watch, regardless of what the meaningless "earned" run stats say. Likewise, Clevinger was also terrible, giving up 2 hits and walk in less than 1 inning. And Klubber was 100% responsible for the game 5 loss. He gave up 2 walks, 3 hits, 2 homers, and 3 earned runs in his lousy 3.2 innings, which was all the Yanks needed to win against the Indians lousy, under-performing defense. Plus it was Klubber combined with Clevinger who in game 2 combined gave up 8 hits, 3 walks, 3 home runs, and 8 earned runs in a total of 3 innings. Even though the offense and stupidity by Girardi saved their asses, that lousy pitching exhausted the pen and forced a terrible short-rest outing by Bauer in game 4.
Bottom line is that without any errors, the Indians would have lost due to the stunningly bad pitching, for which Klubber deserves much of the blame even for game 4 where he didn't pitch.
