Andrew Miller is heading to the disabled list with knee soreness

Cleveland is hoping it’s only a short stint for their bullpen linchpin.

The Indians have put Andrew Miller on the disabled list with knee soreness, and with the tightness of the race in the AL Central they have to hope it will be a quick stint. Cleveland is only up two games on Kansas City, who are basically the antagonist in a horror movie based on how they’re tearing through teams at this point.

The team is citing soreness in Miller’s right knee for the move, which may also explain some of his recent performances. He blew a save against Boston on Tuesday night, and has walked five batters and hit two in his last 10 starts.

While his July splits are on par or better than his performances in other months, he’s looked off in recent starts besides just his blown save or hit batters. Even taking those missteps into account, his performance hasn’t caused too many issues for Cleveland.

Should Miller be out longer than expected, the Indians would be losing a reliever that has been a reliable and important puzzle piece for them.

However, the soreness could also be a result of him genuinely needing to take a break from his workload. He put up more than 93 innings of work all told last year between the regular season and postseason, and has already worked 54 innings this year.

In those 54 frames, Miller has allowed only 26 hits and 11 runs, with a 1.67 ERA and 78 strikeouts. Cleveland will want (and need) that performance back in time to clinch their division and put their best foot forward for the playoffs.

They could get by without him, but it’s not exactly a lineup experiment that they want to have to worry about for very long.