Archive for April, 2009

Aaron Laffey had another great start for Cleveland on Sunday.  Laffey, who didn’t make the team out of Spring training, looks better than the rest of the Cleveland starters lately.  Laffey pitched into the seventh and was bailed out of a jam by Tony Sipp who struck out two to end the inning.  Sipp also was recently called up from Columbus. Laffey has a 2.41 ERA in three starts since being called up.  He went 6 1/3 innings and scattered five hits and two earned runs.  Kerry Wood pitched the ninth for his fourth save in four chances. Jhonny Peralta [...]

The Indians dropped to 6-12 after another poor hitting display.  Kevin Slowey improved to 3-0 for Minnesota.  Carl Pavano took the loss (0-3) for Cleveland.  Feast or famine continues… One thing I was happy about was that Eric Wedge finally showed some anger.  Wedge criticized the approach of the team and said that the team better figure out what is wrong quick because he is refusing to sit around and watch much more of this.  Bravo Eric, long overdue! Carl Pavano went five innings giving up 11 hits.  Pavano threw something when he got in the dugout.  Whatever it was, [...]

Grady Sizemore hit an eighth-inning three-run homer to vault Cleveland over visiting Kansas City.  Sizemore’s sixth homer this season broke open a 2-2 tie and Kerry Wood shut the door on Kansas City in the ninth to earn his third save.  Jensen Lewis evened his record at 2-2 for Cleveland in relief of Anthony Reyes who had another quality start for The Tribe. The stat in this game that bothered me was that there were only 12,852 fans in attendance.  That is 26% of the capacity at Progressive Field.  It wasn’t freezing cold or raining, so that number was disturbing [...]

Wishy-washy, quiet, not boisterous, and seemingly non-chalant way too much, Eric Wedge is quietly watching his team struggle.  Wedge is not the type of manager who will be vocal publicly with the players.  He doesn’t yell or scream, he rarely gets ejected, and is the type of guy who just takes in what is going on around him I don’t know how long Cleveland management is going to allow it.  This year’s Indians team is best described as feast (22-4 vs New York Saturday) or famine (2-0 losers to Kansas City last night) so far.  Is there a middle somewhere?  Now you get [...]

Aaron Laffey gave up a run in the first and made history the rest of his innings.  In innings 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7,  The Indians turned a double play.  This was the first time that a double play has been recorded in five consecutive innings since 1970. Laffey got good defense and pitched well through his seven innings.  The bullpen tried real hard to blow a big lead, but in the end Kerry Wood nailed down his second save of the season. Victor Martinez and Grady Sizemore went yard for The Tribe, each recording their fifth round-tripper. Cleveland [...]

In this young 2009 MLB season, we have learned a few things, both good and bad, about this years Indians team.  Feel free to add comments on things I may have forgotten. Good Things Travis Hafner looks like he is back.  Hafner had injury issues but is off to a very solid 2009 campaign. Kerry Wood is throwing in the mid to high 90′s.  Wood is throwing straight gas.  The Indians need to start getting leads for Wood to get any saves. Grady Sizemore is still clutch.  Sizemore isn’t anywhere near his normal batting average yet, but he is getting [...]

22-4? Wow…   Is the new Yankee Stadium corked?  Cleveland had a 14 run second inning on 13 hits, one hit shy of the all-time AL record for hits in an inning.  Asdrubal Cabrera led a balanced attck for The Indians with a grand slam off of Chien-Ming Wang whose ERA went from 28.00 to above 30.00. To make the day better, The Cavs won.  All-in-all it was a damn good day in Cleveland.  It’s a shame The Indians only play once in New York.  The most enjoyable part of the game for me was hearing the boos, almost every inning, [...]

The Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees both have a ton of pressure to win these last two games at the new Yankee Stadium.  Cleveland, off to a horrible start, needs to win the last two games to right the ship.  There is already panic amongst Indians fans over the starting pitching.  The Yankees feel pressure to make a good impression at their new home.  Playing in front of a packed house of fans wanting the new place to be a successful venue for their team is tremendous pressure. Jhonny Peralta got dinged up sliding face first into home but [...]

The New York Yankees opened the doors to their new home for the first time.  The Cleveland Indians were supposed to be the sacrificial lamb to help aid the baptism of a new park.  Cleveland turned out to be the rudest of guests, scoring nine times in the 7th inning and riding their best pitching start of the year to slap the Yankees,  10-2. Cliff Lee looked sharp for six innings giving up just a homer to Jorge Posada.  Lee gave up seven hits and struck out four lowering his season ERA to 6.75.  Other than Posada’s bomb, Lee seemed to [...]

John Buck homered twice as Kansas City looked sharp again defeating Cleveland, 9-3.   Carl Pavano took the loss for The Tribe giving up four earned runs and eight hits in six innings of work.  Former Indian Coco Crisps RBI triple started the scoring.  Crisp then scored on a Mike Aviles sac fly.  Buck homered off of Pavano in the fifth inning, a solo shot, and added a three-run blast in the eighth.  The Indians drop to 1-7 on the young season.  Grady Sizemore went 0-5 in the game watching his average dip to .176.  The Indians can’t seem to get [...]