Andy Marte Can Pitch!

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So I slept on it, and I still don’t know what to make of last night’s 11-4 loss to the New York Yankees.

This was a game in which:

The Indians actually led at one point.

Starter Mitch Talbot pitched two innings then left in the top of the third with a mid-back strain

Raffy Perez came on and pitched two scoreless innings in relief of Talbot, but the rest of the pen was (obviously) not so lucky. All in all, Tribe pitchers gave up 12 walks.

Catcher Carlos “Supernatural” Santana left the game in the 7th after he missed a Joe Smith slider and it hit Santana in the kneecap.

And who was probably the most effective reliever of the night? Um, that would be “El Gato,” Andy Marte himself. Yes, the third baseman. No, he’s never pitched before in his life. He pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning and even struck out Nick Swisher. Here’s what the former OSU Buckeye had to say about Marte’s, um, stuff:

“I now have a new most embarrassing moment. He had some run on his stuff. I was sitting on the breaking ball, 0-2, and he gassed me upstairs. … As soon as I swung, I knew it.”
-Nick Swisher

To which Marte responded, with the quote of the night (at least):

“It was a fastball. They were all fastballs.”
-Andy Marte

Marte topped out at 89 MPH, and I have to make the obligatory, “Aaron Laffey is jealous” joke, because, well, it’s kinda funny (but kinda sad). Jake Westbrook and Fausto Carmona could be seen on TV howling away at Marte pitching. I laughed too. You kind of have to at this point.

Manager Manny Acta said he hated throwing Marte out there:

“That’s something I don’t like doing. I did it because we had to. It looks like a mockery of the game.”
-Manny Acta

That’s noble and all, Manny, but Marte was kind of your most effective reliever tonight. Maybe you should turn to him more often? Although I would have loved to have heard the conversation telling Marte he had to pitch. Ah, to be a fly on the wall…

Still trying to wrap my head around this game but I do know this: El Gato lives. Be very, very afraid.