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.