Indians Respond, Sweep Twins

After the bad taste that Joe Borowski left in every one's mouths after the Indians' recent 10 game road trip, nothing could be sweeter than a bounce back sweep of the rival Minnesota Twins at Jacobs Field.

After two power packed wins Tuesday and Wednesday, Fausto Carmona notched his first career shutout as he out dueled Johan Santana to secure the sweep with a 2-0 victory today.

Not a lot of negatives for the series other than Fernando Cabrera's continuing downward spiral and Travis Hafner's continued recent funk.

The positives were, but not limited to:

• Grady Sizemore breaking out of his May haze and looking like the MVP candidate many were calling him. Including upping his stolen bases to 14 (in 14 attempts!).


• Casey Blake starting to produce, and in the 2 hole, none-the-less.


• Fausto Carmona upping his record to 5-0 despite his impending demotion back to Buffalo.


• C. C. Sabathia bouncing back to re-establish himself as a legit Cy Young candidate.


• Trot Nixon and Victor Martinez continuing to deliver in the clutch.


• Jason Michaels contributing nicely in his rare, platoon appearances in LF.


• Roberto Hernandez working out of a jam someone else created and looking good doing it.

But make that sweep #2 of the Twins this year. 5-0 Tribe. Ever since Ron Gardenhire took over for Tom Kelly I have disliked the Twins. He is so whiny and animated it's just old. Torii Hunter, despite being an amazing defensive center fielder, is an uppity SOB and they have a collection of hitters who just aren't real good, just kind lucky. Slap, dink and dunk guy that drive you nuts. If it weren't for Joe Mauer replacing A. J. Pierzynski it would be worse. Mauer, class act. Pierzynski, douche bag.

Battle of Ohio this weekend as the Cincinnati Reds are in town for 3.

Peace.

At A Crossroad

It's only May 14th but the Indians are at a crossroads. Where do they want to go this season? Do they want to tease us with hanging around all year or do they want to be a serious contender in the American League and for the World Series.

They got off to a better start this year instead of their normal April swoon and they still are only 1 1/2 games behind Detroit for first place in the Central Division. Paul Byrd and Fausto Carmona have been wonderful surprises. Casey Blake and Josh Barfield actually have started hitting the ball and overall the defense hasn't been as glaringly bad as 2006. It does look like the verteran influences they brought in have been a positive and calming influence on the team.

But they still are missing something that the great teams have. A killer instinct. Yesterday's game was a prime example. Two runners left on in the 1st, base left loaded in the 2nd, two runners left on in the 5th and two runners left on in the 9th. The pitching (both starting and relief) have had the habit of giving up runs the inning immediately after the Tribe takes or adds on to the league. Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner haven't been the dominating players they were last year. Jeremy Sowers looks completely lost on the mound. Cliff Lee has been up and down after coming off an injury. Jake Westbrook looked just as lost as Sowers before he went on the DL. Joe Borowski is 12 of 14 in save opportunities but he has a 9.00 ERA. Fernando Cabrera has given up walk off homers in his past two appearances after looking dominant to start. There is a lot wrong with this team.

But like I said they are still only 1 1/2 games out of first place. They've managed to hang in their despite their shortcomings. There's nothing wrong with kicking your opponent while they are down. If anything they'd have 3-4 more wins out of it.

I hope they adopt that philosophy against the hated Twins this week at The Jake.

A weekend in Balti-whore

Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a beautiful ballpark. It just has the misfortune of being located in Baltimore, Maryland. I feel bad for you Camden Yards. I really do.

I attended the last 3 games of the series braving DC traffic to make the trek up to Baltimore. Well worth it considering the Tribe managed a 2-2 split after the bullpen pissed away Game 1. Rather than touch on every game since I was there live the was some good, bad and some interesting from the weekend.

The Good

• After losing the first two games the Tribe rallied to split the series. Yes, they should have WON the series but I get the feeling that the 2006 Indians may have just rolled over and ended up losing the series. With the 2007 Tribe, I get the feeling they actually take some pride in their performance against inferior opponents.


• Starting pitching was outstanding (minus one person to be addressed later) again. Needed after Westbrook went on the DL. Byrd was great, should of won Game 1. C. C. his normal solid, spectacular when necessary, self. And Fausto, holy crap! I have to admit I was wrong. I thought he was done for good after the Closer-in-Training debacle. Unsalvagable. His last two games have been incredible and the amount of ground balls, Sweet Lord. A masterfully pitched game and when he got in a jam he was calm, didn't panic and pitched his way out of it.


• The Thunder Sticks Awaken. After a total of 4 runs in the first two games (both losses) the Indians exploded for 9 runs on Sunday and 10 runs on Monday. Barfield has been getting it together. Trot Nixon was just SICK with the stick and hopefully Pronk's Grand Slam will get him back in the zone.


• New SI cover boy Grady Sizemore deserves it. If he's up in a clutch situation he's delivering faster than Mr. McFeely in Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood. He's only hitting .250 now, but do you honestly think he'll be stuck there all year? Imagine when he's hitting .290 by September. And when this guy finally hits 3rd in a few years. Wow.

The Bad

• Jeremy Sowers looked bad. Real bad. I don't know if it was because it was cold and wet Saturday night and he couldn't get a good break on his pitches. Lucky he didn't give up more than 6 runs in two innings. Painful to watch from I guy I think could be great.


• Pronk in a funk. One hit in the series for Travis Hafner until the Grand Slam. Hopefully it gets him locked back in. The inning before his Grand Slam O's skipper Sam Perlozzo intentionally walked CASEY BLAKE to LOAD THE BASES to pitch to Pronk. And it worked. Pronk struck out. But as the old Klingon proverb says, "Revenge is a dish best served cold."


• Jason Davis pitched himself out of the Cleveland Indians organization. Three ugly innings on Saturday night that did nothing to impress. No pressure, no one on base. All you have to do is keep the game from getting out of hand. Yeah, you didn't do that. CUT! Sad. I thought a few years ago that he could be our closer of the future. Never took advantage of any opportunity given to him. Perfect model for his Cleveland tenure... I went to the Tribe O's game in Baltimore back in 2003. Jason Davis started that game (he was in the rotation in 2003). The Tribe jumped out to a 4 or 5 run lead after 3 innings and Jason Davis slowly but surely gave it back in innings 4 and 5. Walks, bad pitch placement. All he had to do was pitch, he was up 5 runs. And he couldn't do it.


• No Cleveland Stadium Mustard. Just the regular yellow stuff. It just doesn't taste right at the ballpark like that.


• A lot of purple on the stadium patrons. Purple is awful. Just awful.

The Interesting

• I am not joking. Mike Rouse hit a ball that hit the bottom of the outfield wall.... on a fly. Seriously. It didn't roll and hit it. It was on the fly. I almost fell over!


• Trot Nixon went 5-5 on Sunday which isn't surprising since he is a good hitter. But the first 4 were against left handed pitching. I believe Trot hits around .200 against lefties. And all were rips, no ground balls with eyes or dying quails.


• The Tribe was up 10-1, bottom of the 9th and the newly promoted Edward Mujica didn't come into pitch. Roberto Hernandez did. Isn't this the opportune time to get a young arm his first action of the season?


• I talked to a couple guys in town from Seattle. Their dislikes of Mike Hargrove's managing style in Seattle are the same ones we had in the 1990's in Cleveland. Some things never change.

All in all a good weekend. Could have been better. Could have been worse. But all in all worth my time and money.

In closing there's only one thing left to say...

Hey Baltimore! Go F yourself!

Love,

Cleveland

Tribe Sweeps Jays 3-0

An interesting series with Toronto to say the least. The Indians managed to fall behind in all three games which, with the way they ended April hitting, would make you think would lead to impending doom.

C. C. Sabathia gave up three home runs in the first inning of Game 1 but after a 30 minute rain delay came back a changed man, striking out 9, as the Tribe romped the Jays 12-3. Jhonny Peralta stayed red hot with 5 RBI including a 3 run jack. Pronk and Trot Nixon also added home runs as the Indians out-muscled the opposition despite being down 3-0 after a half of an inning.

Game 2 saw the Tribe win 7-6 in 11 innings on a dying quail off the bat of Travis Hafner that rolled into short left field where no one was withing 150 feet of it. But a very disheartening game despite the win. Jake Westbrook injured a rib cage muscle and looks destined for the DL. Eric Wedge the proceed to burn out the bullpen by pitching every single reliever. Jason Davis didn't do him any favors by pitching like crap and lasting 1/3 of an inning in game where he needed to eat innings, but I can't justify Wedge using every member of the bullpen and only using two of them for more than 1 1/3 innings (Cabrera 2 2/3, Betancourt 2). It moves like this that make me ponder what Eric Wedge is thinking sometimes. He redeemed himself by sending Dellucci on a 3-2 pitch that let Pronk do what Pronk do and win the game but still the handling of the 'Pen is unforgivable. We'll see how it affect the long road trip the Tribe is about to embark on.

Tonight's game saw the return of Cliff Lee to the tune of a 5 run, 6 inning performance. Not too good, not too bad. Start number two will be a better measuring stick. The Tribe got down 4-0 but came back to take a 5-4 lead before the Jays tied it a 5. The benches cleared briefly after Josh Barfield was thrown out at home plate and Jays' catcher Jason Philips had some choice words for him. Kudos to David Dellucci for getting in Philips' face and showing a little fire. We need a little attitude and this team and it was nice to see. And in the end Grady Sizemore doubled home the winning run in the bottom of the 8th on a ground rule double and Joe Borowski pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to notch his league leading 10th save and a 6-5 Tribe win as the Indians finished the home stand at 7-1.

The first 3 game sweep for the Indians this season but we anxiously await the news on Jake Westbrook and see if the depleted bullpen will come back to bite them on the 10 game raod trip they are about to embark on.

Off to Baltiwhore for a 4 game wrap-around series with the O's

Indians Takes Series From O's Behind Dazzling Outing By Carmona

Well, despite the distractions the Browns created, the Indians kept rolling by taking 2 of 3 from the Baltimore Orioles and are poised to have their first winning record in April under Eric Wedge.

Not much of a recap from me because I've been knee deep in the NFL Draft but highlights included a come from behind victory on Friday night thanks to a Grady Sizemore inside the park homerun. The bullpen did blow the game Saturday and prevents a sweep, but the bullpen hiccups have been much less frequent than 2006. Capped off by an amazing outing by Fausto Carmona in his farewell start and the Indians have won every series this year minus the Yankees debacle.

An off day Monday before the Toronto Blue Jays come in for a 3 game series Tuesday. Keep up the good work boys!

Phil Shocks The World!!! Or Cleveland At The Very Least!

OH MY GOD!!!

Stunned. Shocked. Flabbergasted. Befuddled. Utterly Amazed.

In an absolutely incredible, unanticipated series of moves Phil Savage and the Browns surprised everyone by taking Wisconsin OT Joe Thomas at #3 and then trading up to draft free-falling Notre Dame QB Brady Quinn at #22 and then trading up again in the 2nd Round to grab UNLV CB Eric Wright, who's past character issues caused him slip to #53.

I don't think anyone in Cleveland or the NFL saw this coming. The Browns ended up with 2 of the players they had rated in their Top 5 and another player that would have been a mid-1st Round pick if it weren't for his off the field issues.

So the Browns finally have what appears to be:
1. The final piece to what might actually be the first legitimate offensive line since their reincarnation in 1999.
2. Potentially the franchise QB that has avoided them since Bernie Kosar.
3. A shut-down CB to solidify a position that has been snake-bitten the past two years.

It did come at a price. Both trades were consummated with the Dallas Cowboys.
1. To get Quinn (Round 1, #22) the Browns traded their 2nd Round pick in 2007 (#36) and their 1st Round pick in 2008.
2. To get Wright (Round 2, #53) the Browns traded their 2007 3rd (#67), 4th (#104) and 6th Round (#179) picks. The Browns also received Dallas' 2007 6th Round pick (#196) tomorrow as part of the trade.

This leaves the Browns with a 5th, 6th and 7th Round pick tomorrow.

Was the price too steep? We'll know in the Fall of 2007 and in 2008. All 3 guys could ended up to be busts, you never know. But right now, personally, I am estatic. The Browns got 3 first round talents by giving up an additional 1st and 4th Round picks. (I will consider the 3rd Round pick a wash since we still got 3 players on Day 1 of the 2007 Draft and the 6th Round pick a wash since we swapped it with Dallas' 6th Round pick.)

Thomas. Wow. Think about it... Thomas, Steinbach, Fraley, McKinney, Shaffer. It actually looks like a good offensive line on paper. We haven't been able to say it looks good ON PAPER since 1995! And if Bentley and Tucker come back and replace Fraley and Shaffer?!? Sweet Jesus.

Quinn. Even though they have an O-line the Browns need to follow the model of the 2006 Draft. Vince Young, Matt Leinart and Jay Cutler all sat to start the year and looked good by the end of the season. Carson Palmer and Steve McNair sat entire seasons. Is he worth the extra 1st Round pick? Time will tell. But I would take him over Brian Brohm of Louisville or Colt Brennan of Hawaii who are the only two big name QBs coming out in 2008. Sometimes you have to roll the dice and make a move if you think its right. I hope the Browns are.

Wright. I am going to assume they did their homework. As everyone probably knows by now he was accused (while attending USC) of slipping an 18 year old girl a date rape drug and subsequently police found over 130 pills of Ecstasy in his dorm room. He was never charged with anything but was kicked out of USC and transferred to UNLV. A legitimate 1st Round talent. Can he keep his nose clean? He's got a second chance. Let see what he makes of it.

One of THE most important drafts since the Browns return in 1999 and they did not disappoint. They filled three HUGE holes and did it in dramatic fashion. We'll see how they do tomorrow on Day 2 but an amazing start on Day 1. I said I wanted them to keep stockpiling talent via the draft and Day 1 in 2007 looks like a great beginning!