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

6 in one...half dozen in the other

Who says you have to play all 9 innings to get a win. What a 7th inning. And it's about time that they gave C.C. a little run support. I'm sure, up until the 7th, that it was going to be another one of those nights. Here we go again.

But no, there was something different about tonight. It turns out the field players have been playing a joke on ole C.C. all season. Some would say pulling a fast one.

So there you go, after 8 games and 33 earned runs, it was a joke after all. Well that's refreshing.

Cleveland (17-18) - 6

Toronto (17-20) - 1

POG - C.C. Sabathia - 7 innings, 6 hits, 1 earned run, 2 walks and 9 k's

Get to walkin Jason

"NEW YORK (AP)—Jason Giambi and the sluggish New York Yankees suddenly turned sluggerish."

I'm not sure if sluggerish is really even a word, but I think I get their point. You expect guys like Giambi to crush the ball when they make contact since he's eats and drinks roids, but Damon/Cano/Betemit? What's up with that? I guess you really can't complain though. I'll take 2 of 3 on the road every time.

More big news today.....Jason Michaels, pack your bags. I'm definatly not devistated about this move. I just hope we don't bring up another reliever. We need bats. Bats that like to hit the ball. Bats without holes. You get my point.

Cleveland (16-18) - 3

New York (18-18) - 6

POG - Steroids

Cliff Lee throws strikes

This game was set up perfectly. You had Cliff Lee, 5-0, having an incredible start to his season facing Wang, 6-0, who also has had a pretty decent start. We also saw the return of Victor to the lineup, which is important because he's the only player on our team batting over .300 and I hear that's good.

By all accounts, it looks like Cliff Lee has had it up to here with losing. And what's that? Our relievers? Perez and Betancourt go 2 innings and give up 1 hit combined. And with our lineup right now, we will have to continue playing small-ball and having solid pitching to get wins.

In a related story....... When I was a kid, we had this place in our neighborhood called "The Dips". It was a spot in the woods that had ramps and bike trails and stuff like that. There was a time when it was run by a group of older kids. They were bigger than we were. They smoked. They had more expensive bikes than we did. Well one day one of them dared one of us to race them and finish with a jump over a really large ditch. I took the dare, he beat me in the race, but when it came to the jump, he wouldn't do it. So I jumped the ditch and won his small collection of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards.

Cleveland (16-17) - 3

New York (17-18) - 0

POG - Cliff Lee - (6-0) 7 innings, 6 hits, 7 strikeouts

- On the year - Lee - 44.2 innings, 25 hits, 4 ER's, 39 strikeouts, 2(two) BB's

Joba the Hit

As previously noted, I love to see the Tribe beat the Yankees. But again, I get more joy from watching the Tribe beat the Yankees in a heartbreaking way.

It seems like every 6 minutes, ESPN says something about this Joba Chamberlain guy. He's the next best thing. He's soooo great. And then pair him with Mariano. If you only took what they said, you would think it would be impossible for the Yanks to lose a game this season.

Take tonight...... The Yanks are up 3-2 in the 8th. Joba comes in to relieve Farnsworth. The announcers made it sounds like there was no reason to even keep listening to the game because it was "over". And then walk, walk, goodbye.

I'm not sure what I was more impressed with tonight? 5 runs off of 6 hits and a 3-run bomb off of the "unstoppable" setup man. Or, Perez, Lewis and Betancourt coming in and getting the job done perfectly.

Cleveland (15-17) - 5

New York (17-17) - 3

POG - Bobby Abreu - 0-3 and striking out looking to end the game......at home. Atta boy Bobby, atta boy