Sometimes, You Turn a Corner Only To Run Into Another Wall

Coming into last night's game agains the Kansas City Royals, things were looking pretty good for the Tribe. They had their ace, CC Sabathia, on the mound. They had a 2.5 game lead on the Tigers, after winning two exciting games in Detroit with some clutch hitting and some solid pitching. Zack Greinke, once the Royals ace of the future, was making his first start since getting demoted to the bullpen for incompetence, and was on a 45-pitch limit, so it was guaranteed that the Tribe would get deep into the Royals bullpen.


However, the Tribe once again showed "floppe diem" (fumble the day) as they wasted another fine performance by failing to get any clutch hitting (or any significant hitting at all) in a 2-1 loss to the Royals. The Royals were helped by a critical passed ball by Victor Martinez. With the tying run on third base in the eighth and one out after Emil Brown misplayed Asdrubal Cabrera's fly ball to right into a gift triple, Kenny Lofton, the hero of the previous night's game, whiffed on three pitches. His failure meant Blake had to get a hit to score the run, and he grounded out. Why not a squeeze bunt with Lofton, your best bunter and a swift runner on third, and your team in an offensive funk? Because Eric Wedge doesn't believe in the bunt.


Meanwhile, after wasting whatever mojo they had from winning the last two games of the Detroit series, the Indians were done in time to watch Detroit get a thrilling extra-inning win over the Yankees.


AL Central lead - 1.5 games and slipping.

Mojo Watch:
Pronk:
Pronk has no Elvis. He smashes the ball and the other team makes a ridiculous catch. He bloops the ball and it falls in.

Bats:
I thought the bats had some Elvis after the Detroit series. I didn't expect they would score 1 run against 5 KC pitchers. Ouch.

Pitchers:
The only thing keeping the pitchers from having full Elvis is the fact that they're not winning because the bats have gone cold.