Cleveland Indians' Brandon Moss on fan criticism: 'I don't blame them'

By foxsports
Published

After dropping both games of Sunday's doubleheader against the Orioles, a number of Indians players expressed their disappointment in how the recent weeks have gone.

"If you were on the outside looking in, it would look like we have no heart," Brandon Moss told reporters after the game. "I can't blame them."

"I know what we look like and I know how we feel," said Moss via Cleveland.com. "They're two totally different things.

"We're to the point to where, if we don't clean it up, if we don't start playing better baseball ... we're not going to do what this team is capable of doing. We're going to be playing spoilers come August. That's not what we had in mind."

The Indians have lost seven of their last nine games and are 6-13 over their last 19 games.

Moss shouldered much of the blame for the Tribe's recent slump.

"There are nine guys in a lineup and everybody is supposed to do what they do," said Moss via Cleveland.com. "It's not like Carlos (Santana) and I are going to come out and hit .340 one year. It's not going to happen.

"But if we're doing our job with Kip (Jason Kipnis) and Brant (Michael Brantley) being on base all the time ... But we're not doing our job. They've been on base all the time, but we're not getting them in."

The Indians are currently hitting .224 (134-for-599) with runners in scoring position. Moss indicated that some players might be pressing to try and help pick up their team.

"We all want to be a spark," Moss said. "We all want to pick up our teammates and I think there's so much pressure on us to get runners in that instead of just going up there and taking our normal at bat, we start trying to force the issue."

Cleveland was picked by many to win the AL Central, but the team hasn't come close to living up to expectations. They're currently 33-41 and 12 games out of first in the division.

"The biggest thing is that we're very disappointed in ourselves because, regardless of what anyone says, and regardless of where we were picked to finish, we know that we've played terribly," said Moss. "We know that if we were just playing mediocre, that we'd be right there in it, but we're not."

(h/t Cleveland.com)