Rosario homers, but bats 'coming up empty'

DETROIT -- In 2015, Eddie Rosario launched a homer in his first Major League plate appearance with the Twins. He did the same the first time he stepped into the batter’s box in the 2017 postseason. In 2021, however, Rosario made the Indians wait until his first plate appearance of his second game before he hit his first long ball as a member of the Tribe.

Rosario smacked a 383-foot homer to right in the Indians' 5-2 loss to the Tigers on Saturday at Comerica Park, marking the first time Cleveland dropped consecutive games to Detroit since May 14-15, 2018.

“The first game was a little difficult with the weather,” Rosario said through team interpreter Agustin Rivero. “Today we saw better at-bats, better contact and I feel the guys had a good approach. Bad luck today. Some good hits at more than 100 mph off the bat. I think the offense is going to be there.”

Rosario's blast induced a 108.4 mph exit velocity, which is tied for Rosario’s second-hardest hit batted ball (all of which are homers) in his career. And while his hit was one of 14 batted balls that were considered hard-hit by Statcast (at least 95 mph), it was also just one of four hard-hit balls that fell in for a hit. Ten hard-hit outs is still far from the Tribe’s record (16) in the Statcast Era, but the team was encouraged by the approaches at the plate.

“I actually thought we hit some balls pretty good,” manager Terry Francona said. “We haven’t strung them together. … We’re just coming up empty. We got to string some together.”

Cleveland inked Rosario to a one-year, $8 million deal this winter for some much-needed pop in the middle of its order, after finishing 2020 with the second-worst wRC+ (87) and scoring the third-fewest number of runs per game (4.2) in the American League. While Rosario’s bat was silent this spring, he reassured Franmil Reyes toward the end of camp that he was saving up his energy for the regular season. So far, he’s been right, though he hasn’t had much help to make his bat more impactful.

“I know in Spring Training, those numbers don’t count,” Rosario said. “For me, it’s just getting at-bats. So when the lights go on, I can be at my best, and I feel like that’s where I am.”

Rosario was all of the Indians’ offense on Saturday, hitting the homer in the second inning and later recording a sacrifice fly. Through two games, he’s hit .400 (2-for-5) with two walks, and he’s showing early signs that he could be the spark the Tribe hoped for (or we should say, needed). But, without help from the other bats the club was relying on to produce -- including José Ramírez, Reyes or Josh Naylor -- the offense will struggle to support its elite pitching rotation that’s already turned in back-to-back quality starts, but was handed two losses.

“The runs are gonna come, man,” Saturday’s starter Zach Plesac said. “I think it’s just gonna come down to doing our jobs, not worrying about what they’re doing. We’re just gonna have to execute as well as we can. We’re gonna have to keep going day in and day out being on our routines, making sure we’re ready to pitch, ready to start, give our team quality starts. When we do that, we give ourselves a chance to win. So, just going to keep working on that, and we know the bats are coming soon.”