Starters vs. Bullpen

Well there are two ways that we can look at this situation...... 

1.  Whenever you have a great bullpen, you expect them to do great things.  You especially expect them to close out games.  At worst, you expect them to "only" give up 1 run during their appearance. 

2.  Your bullpen is so bad that you expect them to blow leads, tied games, or even chances.  At best, you are giddy when they actually don't lose the game.

Point being.....Last year, I would have voted #1.  However this year, I am having a hard time adjusting to #2.

Laffey had a good outing, slightly better than Sanchez.  Francisco became the lone active Indian to be batting over .300.  

Yeah, we lost.

Cleveland - 2

San Francisco - 3

POG - I really don't know

Bullpen gives up zero runs

Byrd, Byrd, Byrd.........

Thank you for last year.  Your persona was definitely intriguing.  We loved the underdog status you absorbed.  It was fun.  But come on man.  In a season where you had a few of the guys slotted before you fall down, you could have easily cemented your spot in the 2009 lineup.  But that is just not happening.

Ben Francisco is by far the most productive offensive player we have right now.  So it was an obvious choice to have him sit on the bench today. 

After this series is said and done, I can honestly be satisfied.  But not overjoyed.  Byrd CAN NOT be traded for anything.  Face it.  He's a guy that's been OK for our franchise the past 2 years but is at the end of his rope.  No one will take him.  

As a die-hard Indians fan, at what point in the season do you start thinking about next year.  Not giving up on this year, but to be honest, you have to start that thinking at some point.  What moves do ya'll foresee?  What pieces of our puzzle need to be replaced?  I would love to hear some suggestions.

Cleveland - 3

LA Dodgers - 4

Audition?

Many of you commented and emailed me today about a controversial title to my last post. "Will he stay or will he go now?” of course referring to Cliff Lee. First of all, this was by no way any disrespect towards Cliff. I think he is an incredible asset to the Cleveland Indians. However, I also know that our front office prides itself on making moves that don’t make sense to most of us at the time, only later to pan out perfect and make the GM look like Nostradamus. We do know one thing for sure, something will be done soon. The only question is what.

Now on to today’s game. Is it just me, or is it extremely difficult to see the Indians and the Dodgers on the same field? Since the whole inter league move, I have been able to adjust to a few of the NL teams, but for some reason, it just doesn’t look natural.

Anyway, today was another opportunity for Sabathia to prove why he is the ace on our staff, after such an awful start to the season. Speaking of players that “could be moved” sometime soon........he sure looked like he was auditioning for all of the National League teams out there today. Great stuff on the mound, but he also was swinging for the fences. And whenever a 300+ lb professional athlete connects with a fastball, it’s going to go a long way. I couldn’t actually watch the game on tv, but I can almost promise you that his eyes were closed when he swung. Nonetheless, he connected, and tada Cleveland is up 1-0.

Jeff Kent proved again that he’s a jerk when he returned the favor in the 6th, evening the score to 1-1. This trade for Sal Fasano looks like it’s paying off already. Wait, strike that. Fasano struck out twice to end innings and flied to left for his third out (at least he made contact. Gotta crawl before you walk). But again, at least he’s got the stache working for him.

Just like last night, this one headed into extra innings. Carroll and Francisco singled to start the 11th. After Garko lined out, the Dodgers brought in Scott Procter. Procter has stats that rival even Betancourt and Borowski. Peralta singled to score Carroll giving the Tribe a 2-1 lead. Blake singled to drive in Fransisco, 3-1. Proctor walks Choo to load the bases. Shoppach singled to drive in Blake and Peralta, 5-1. Apparently Wedge sent out a cardboard cut-out of Randy Travis (his name is J. Velandia or something) and he drew a walk to load the bases, again. I’m no math wiz, but if my calculations are correct, Proctor has an infinite ERA for this game, exactly like a perfect game except nothing like that. Troncoso comes in to relieve Proctor, only thing is, his ERA makes Proctor look like Greg Maddux. Of course his first pitch was a single to right by Sizemore, Tribe 6-1. Double play = inning over. I would personally like to thank the pitching staff of the LA Dodgers for letting me get all 9 Cleveland players mentioned during the half inning that I have covered so far..

Elarton relieves Kobayashi in the bottom of the 11th to face “the jerk”. And I don’t mean “The Jerk” as in Steve Martin, I think that would be a complement. Kent lines out. Elarton gives up a single to Martin just for kicks, to fit in with the bullpen. Young strikes out. I’m watching this game on the computer with yahoo’s Gamechannel and “Scott Elarton’s” picture looks eerily like Borowski. But surely it can’t be him. Loney doubles to score Matrin, 7-2. OK, OK, it really is Borowski. Well maybe not, Maza popped out to end the game. I’m totally confused now.

Cleveland - 7
LA Dodgers - 2
POG - C.C. Sabathia - 7 innings pitched, 5 hits, 1 ER, 10 K’s and 1 HR to take the game to extra innings. Dooooo I hear 1 dollar, 1 dollar, 1 dollar.

Will he stay or will he go now......

I must apologize to all of you for the recent departure. Thanks for the encouragement from all of you who have written in the past few weeks. And also thanks for the many Cleveland Indians fans that I have met in the past few months who live right here in Mississippi. When I set out to do this, I never thought it would be so real. I especially never thought it would be so tough to write a post about a loss.

But I understand that a loss is not the worst thing in the world. Just today, I saw something scroll across the bottom of ESPN saying that the Indians had traded with Atlanta for C - Sal Fasano. Why is this important to me? Well first of all, he is being traded from the Braves and their AA club is in my home town here in Mississippi. Secondly, if you do any research at all, you will be able to tell the he might possibly have one of the top 4 mustaches of all time. No kidding.

So we start fresh tonight, however, I will be filling in the previously skipped posts throughout the next few days, so go back anytime to check them out. I mean..... only if you're really a Tribe fan....and really bored.

On to tonight.......

Cliff Lee is on the hill again tonight. Trying to hammer down his 11th win this season. It's still disturbing to me that Borowski is still our team's leading saver with 5 saves. At least the hitting is finally starting to somewhat show up.

From everything that I have heard of read, Cliff Lee is quite possibly one of the best humans on Earth. If you think back only to last season, you can remember him being the goat. The guy being sent back to the minors to "find himself". Well good for you Cliff, good for you. I understand that it was during that time that Cliff discovered that there were more important things in life than baseball. And, in turn, that's when he actually started to play with no worries. I think you see that so many times in sports that just go unnoticed. And it's a shame.

The most important sports-town in my life is definitely Cleveland. The most important sports team in my life is definitely the Cleveland Indians. However, as loud as I yell when we prosper, or as much as I hurt when we fail, at the end of the day, it is just sport. And I think that Cliff Lee has realized that. And that is what makes him human. And that is also what has made him succeed this year.

As far as tonight, me patiently watching a baseball game on a computer (ugh), nothing sticks out more to me than the batting averages. Let's look.....(.266,.279,.299,.254,.298,.229,.269,.229, Cliff Lee=pass).

Bottom of the 8th, Betancourt comes in....and gives up a double to "Stupid" Jeff Kent, driving in a run.

Cle-4 LA-1 - prompting Wedge to pull Betancourt to bring in Perez........who in-turn gives up another single to drive in another run.....4-2. Perez strikes out LaRoche. Perez strikes out a high school junior to end the 8th.

Cle-4 LA-2- Borowski is in....uh oh. Runners on second and third. K. Infield single - Berroa scored.

Cle-4 LA-3- Borowski is intentionally walking Kemp. Stupid Jeff Kent drives in a run.

Cle-4 LA-4 - Thanks Joe for not losing it.. Finally...... Extra innings.....Carroll walks...Francisco singled (Carroll to 2nd)...Garko singles. (Carroll to 3rd, Francisco to 2nd)....Double play....Peralta doubled to deep right. scoring Garko and Gutierrez. Blake walked.. Inning over.

Cle-6 LA-4 - Enter-Kobayashi.....Ground Out......Ground Out.....Single...Ground Out!!!

Cleveland - 6

LA dodgers - 4

POG - Everyone other than Joe Borowski

Byrd finally gets some help

It looks like starting pitching and timely hitting is going to be the trend with this team this season. Paul Byrd pitched 7 strong shut out innings, which extending the shutout streak by the starters to 34 innings. That's amazing.

What is not amazing is the hitting. Although the 7 hits were enough to win today, I expected them to get around 13-14 hits today after getting chewed out by Wedge yesterday for getting 7 hits in the 2 games combined.

You can tell that there is a problem when you see quotes like this from starting pitchers.... "I definitely had a little pressure on me," Byrd said. "It was like I'm a loser if I give up one run."

Also, Cabrera and Hafner were lucky enough today to accidentally hit a baseball.

Cleveland (20-19) - 4

Oakland (23-17) - 0

POG - Paul Byrd - 7.1 innings, 5 hits, 7 k's, 0 bb's

Duece

Game 1 - It's hard to get too excited for a guy hitting .190 and being a total disappointment this season. But I guess I can muster something up. Cabrera was all the support that Fausto needed today. One swing of the bat. That's all. Fausto was incredible today. Complete game 5 hitter shutout. That's how it's supposed to be done. Who needs all the drama, just don't let the other team get on base and you win more times than not.

Game 2 - Again, it's hard to get too excited for a guy hitting .190 and being a total disappointment. But somehow this guy has done "just enough" today to make the headlines. Tonight, Cabrera turned an unassisted triple play. Sounds very exciting. That is unless you actually saw it. He just caught a bloop hit straight at him, took a step and touched the runner, then took another step and touched the bag. As rare as that is, it doesn't even compare to how rare it is that you have your best pitcher of the season come in, throw 9 innings of shutout ball, and to be thanked by ZERO run support and a bullpen that gets a kick out of blowing games. This really has become a problem.

Game 1 -

Cleveland (19-18) - 3

Toronto (17-22) - 0

POG - Fausto Carmona - 9 innings 0 earned runs

Game 2 -

Cleveland (19-19) - 0

Toronto (18-22) - 3

POG - Cliff Lee - 9 innings 0 earned runs

Size Matters

I guess it was a pretty good day in Cleveland. Especially for Grady Sizemore. What a guy. Always giving, and giving, and giving to the fans.

For starters, he personally handed out his own blankets with his own face on them to every fan that entered the Prog. Then, while walking to the plate to lead off the bottom of the first, he saw a bee that was in the outfield bleachers that was about to sting a kid. So naturally, he stopped, aimed and hit the ball directly at the bee. Killing the bee and saving the kids life (we later found out the kid was deathly allergic to bees).

He was also in such a good mood, that in the bottom of the 5th, he saw the same kid, and hit him another ball just to help him start his collection of Grady Sizemore homerun balls. What a guy.

Also, congrat to Aaron Laffey. Great game.

Cleveland (18-18) - 12

Toronto (17-21) - 0

POG - Grady Sizemore - 3-5, 2 HR's, 5 RBI, 1 kid saved