Tagged: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Indians Take Two From The Halos
In
the previous series review I mentioned that there was a chance the
Tribe could win this series. Of course I also mentioned that due to the
bullpen’s continued efforts to make me swear off baseball all together
I wasn’t sure what would happen past Cliff Lee’s start. However things
went the Indians’ way and here we sit the first AL team to win a series
against the Angels since mid-May.
Cliff Lee was the Indians’ starter for game one of this series. With Cliff on the mound going for win number 17
you suspected he would do well but it is always a question with this
bullpen how deep into a game should he go. The quick answer is the
longer the better and Lee didn’t disappoint in this game. Lee pitched a
complete game giving up just two runs on eight hits and lowering his
ERA to 2.43 on the way to his AL leading 17th win. This against one of
the best teams in baseball is impressive, but that has been Cliff Lee
this entire season. Offensively the Tribe need three runs for this win
and that was all they got. Peralta, Garko, and Cabrera accounted for
the driving in of those three runs. Both teams put up eight hits but
the Indians drew five walks to the Angels two. One of those walks was
Kelly Shoppach who later scored. Actually Kelly was the only walk to score but never mind that. Tribe win 2-3.
Oh
Cleveland Indians of 2008 the second game of this series was not your
best effort. I’m sure this is the type of game that give Wedge
headaches.Carmona, he of the inconsistent starting, took the mound for game two of the series. Carmona pitched well going seven innings and only earning two runs. Usually that is all you can ask from a pitcher. However Carmona had some hard luck with the Indians posting four errors on the evening. Of course one of those errors was by Carmona himself so he still takes some of that blame too. But with half of the four Angels runs unearned things weren’t looking easy for the Indians. Betancourt
did make a relief appearance and pitched two lights out scoreless
innings. With his line being all zeroes except for that one strikeout a
glaring blight in the box score. On the offense side of the field the
Indians only mustered three runs off of starter Lackey which is all you
could ask of the offense on a usual night. Next came the Angels bullpen
going three innings only allowing a hit an inning and no runs. The
Indians did strand thirteen compared to the Angels six. Indians lose
4-3.
The rubber match for the series, game three, brought with
it so many questions. Would Sowers pick up win number two? Would the
bullpen explode again? Would the score involve a team scoring three
runs? Would Sal Fasano continue his dominance of all things facial hair? Well Sowers pitched a solid
6.2 innings surrendering only three runs. Perez followed with 1.1
scoreless and Lewis picked up save number three after giving up two
hits. Offensively the Indians had contributions from Gutierrez, Garko, and Sizemore. Garko
batted in four of the Tribe’s nine runs during this series so he seems
to have picked up a little on his hitting of late. Strangely Grady was
hit with only his second error of the season and once again looks to be
on an all out effort to jeopardize any future he has with this team. Oh and Sowers takes home win number dos. Tribe win 3-4.
Amazingly
the Indians did it. While not a sweep, this is probably the best this
team could hope for, but those errors in game two still hurt. The
Indians won this series on great to solid starting pitching and a
consistent, but not overpowering offense. This series reminded me a lot
of last year. Not so much that I became delusional, just that the Indians won games that were close and had contributions from enough guys to close out these games.
In other news Martinez homered last night for the Aeros scoring one of their two runs in a loss. Tonight Barfield and Hafner are in Buffalo, soon to be joined by Martinez. Hafner is already 1 for 2 on the night with a double.
Thank
the scheduling gods for this Monday home off day for the Indians. KC is
up next. Yes, a team a solid 1.5 games back of the Indians.
Thank the scheduling gods for this Monday home off day.
Game 1: Luke Hochevar, RHP (6-11, 5.44) vs. Anthony Reyes, RHP (3-2, 3.67)
Game 2: Gil Meche, RHP (10-9, 4.13) vs. Zach Jackson, LHP (0-0, 5.19)
Game 3: Zack Greinke, RHP (9-8, 3.92) vs. Cliff Lee, LHP (17-2, 2.43)
I’ll take these matchups. I’m a little worried about Jackson against Meche, but we’ll see how the Tribe handles these three righthanders. The Indians have been playing decently these last few series and are 7-3 over their last ten.
Go Tribe!
(AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
Thank You, Day Off
As
a person with little motivation to write on a regular basis I truly
relish knowing that the Tribe have an off day, meaning I can postpone
the series review post. Yesterday was no exception, obviously. Even
though the Tribe played a
get-the-hell-out-of-here-and-back-to-the-east-coast-before-tomorrow day
game after seeing the score I thought to myself “this can wait for
tomorrow” and wait it did.
Monday’s series opener saw the
Indians coming in hot off a series win (2-1) against Seattle a team
worst than the Tribe. The Angels came in after sweeping the Red Sox,
what some people would consider a good team. That and given the
matchups you might have wanted to shut your eyes and maybe not open
them for a week hoping good things would happen between now and then.
Well this night good things did happen. After this game was done Paul
Byrd has raised his record to 4-10 and Ervin Santana had lowered his to
11-4. Yes this matchup was horrible on paper for the Tribe but worked
out well. I think Santana is now 0-4 lifetime against the Indians, but
some people don’t like lifetime against a certain team stats. Anyway
with the effective pitching of Byrd, Perez and Kobayashi the Tribe
stretched their winning streak to three road games (amazing really).
The Tribe offense supplied 5 runs via homeruns by Blake, Peralta, and
Marte and Dellucci had an RBI single. How is Dellucci doing anything on
this team? With his 79 OPS+ on a team rebuilding what is his
contribution? I say we drop Dellucci and trade a bag of balls to the
Giants for Omar. As I hear they won’t release him to save face. Why not do it just so Omar ends his career with a really tall Wahoo on his head. OK back to the regularly scheduled post.
Tuesday’s
game saw a return to normal Indians baseball circa 2008. Ginter pitched
well with 6 innings 3 runs which isn’t bad considering the Angels
offense. Of course the Indians offense which had done a fine job in the
three preceding games regressed back to the Tribe offense we all know
and hate. 2 runs in the first two innings and that’s all she wrote, 3-2
Angels win.
Now upon seeing Wednesday’s results I was shocked!
Shocked I say! The final was 14 -11 Angels. How in the hell does a team
score eleven, eleven runs without winning? Well the answer is simple
really give up a week’s worth of runs. I’d rather not go over the
offense since it is a lot of runs that didn’t matter but I want to
touch on the starter Aaron “I was once good” Laffey. Mr. Laffey earned
8 runs on 4 innings of work. At least he made it to 4 innings this
time. His last start was only 3.2. Of course Mastny is brought in on 10
days rest to promptly earn himself 4 runs in 1.1 and just to complete
the cycle of frustration Jensen “slow pitch” Lewis earned 2 in 1.2.
This
serious brought a few things to the surface. What do you do with Ginter
and Laffey? Do you let Laffey work his problems out in the majors? Do
you release Ginter when Carmona returns? The other major question is
what the hell do you do with this bullpen? Perez has done a nice job of
late but who here isn’t scared of almost everyone else in the bullpen
right now? Wedge has gone on record saying he thinks the organization
is going to have to go outside the farm system to help this situation
out next year. Here’s my two cents. Send Laffey down. Ginter isn’t the
answer of the future but I hate to think Laffey may become frustrated
at the major league level trying to work this out. As far as the
bullpen goes I agree that a closer is not visible anywhere in the
Tribe’s system, but a FA answer is too big for a hack like me to
answer, especially at this time.
So it’s time to look forward
and welcome the Minnesota Twins to Progressive Field. The Twins come in
55-46 and 2.5 games back of the division leading White Sox.
Game 1: Livan Hernandez, RHP (10-6, 5.29) vs. Cliff Lee, LHP (13-2, 2.29)
Game 2: Scott Baker, RHP (6-3, 3.26) vs. Fausto Carmona, RHP (4-2, 3.10)
Game 3: Nick Blackburn, RHP (7-6, 3.83) vs. Jeremy Sowers, LHP (1-5, 7.33)
Without
really looking into it (that’s what real writers do, not me) I have to
imagine Livan had a couple bad games to be sporting an era that high
but still be carrying around 10 wins. Saturday marks the return of
Fausto who was injured that one game I attended. While Sunday’s matchup
will hopefully result in Jeremy’s second win to keep his streak alive.
I’m going out on a limb here and say the Tribe take two, at least.
Go Tribe!
(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Tribe 4-5 & Better Things To Come
I have always considered myself an optimist. Well, not really, but let’s pretend to be for now.
The
Tribe have been less than sharp these first few weeks. If anything they
have found all the major ways to lose games; poor starting pitching,
poor relief pitching, less than spectacular hitting, and occasionally
questionable fielding.
After a trip out west with series against
the surprising (so far anyway) Oakland A’s and the always-tough Angels,
the Tribe return home to hopefully regain their composure and play like
the team we know they all can be. So as an optimist I’m going to say
the Tribe are due to bust out of this slump they’ve got themselves in.
I know it seems like maybe this team isn’t one to handle expectations
well (see 2006) but you’re not going to keep this team down for very
long.
A lot of talk is always placed around getting a good start
to the season. And while the Tribe’s record isn’t so bad (4-5), two of
those four wins came in the first two games. Obviously, given the
option of a fast start and a bad one, we would all want a fast one, and
why not, but this is a game that has a long season. So before we
concede the AL Central to KC or even god forbid the White Sox, let’s
keep that in mind.
In the good news category, the Tribe wrapped
up Fausto Carmona through 2011 with options out to 2014. This can’t be
seen as a surprise by anyone – it’s inline with the way the Tribe does
business.
So let’s forget most of that west coast trip happened
and look forward to a fresh series against the . . . A’s. Yes sometimes
this scheduling thing seems stupid. Well anyway, let’s look for C.C. to
get back on track against Blanton tonight.
Go Tribe!
Go Tribe! 