New Faces, New Places

With all of the recent trades executed by the Indians, it should come as no surprise that the former members of the Tribe have been off to hot starts in their new environments. That would be just the Indians’ luck, right?

One of the few major league-ready players the Indians acquired was reliever Justin Masterson. Not that one pitching performance is worthy of extremely high accolades, but Masterson did enter Saturday’s game against Detroit and pitched three scoreless innings with four strikeouts, while allowing two hits and a walk.

While certainly not a new face in Cleveland, Fausto Carmona is still a face not seen in Cleveland for a while after his meltdown of sorts recently. Fans are probably wondering what happened to the Cy Young candidate from 2007 that won 19 games, while enduring an 8-7 season in 2008 and so far in 2009, a 2-6 campaign with an ERA of over 7.00. Carmona made the start on Friday against the Tigers and pitched five innings of four hit ball while allowing only two runs. Four walks to one strikeout doesn’t look particularly good for the start, but it is certainly an improvement for Fausto to even keep the Indians in a ballgame until his exit.

Moving on to the former Indians, Cliff Lee dazzled Phillie fans in his debut for Philadelphia. Lee went up against the Wild Card contending San Francisco Giants on the road in his first start for the defending champions, and threw a complete game four-hitter, allowing only one run. Lee also struck out six batters, but never allowed the Giants in the game. It appears that Philadelphia received exactly what they wanted when they shipped prospects to Cleveland: a dominant starting pitcher.

Before Victor Martinez was in Boston, he was enduring a mini-slump (at least by his own standards) with the Indians. A team already loaded with enough first baseman/catchers still plundered the floundering Indians for one of the best players in recent memory for the organization. Martinez, who told the media he thought he would retire in a Cleveland jersey, promptly went to Baltimore with his new ‘mates and has gathered six hits in his first ten at-bats. It’s truly a shame that a team like Boston gets spoiled by the addition of Victor Martinez.