Lost Weekend

The Indians lost yet another series to a bad team, this time the Minnesota Twins in the Abomination Dome.

The weekend started out promising, as Cliff Lee pitched 8 scoreless and Rafael Perez mopped up a 4-0 shutout on Friday night. Then the Abomination Dome black magic kicked in, as the Indians couldn't buy a break Saturday or Sunday. Saturday, they hammered Nick Blackburn, but you would never know by the box score, as they got their hits with two outs, or smoked the ball right at somebody, or get jobbed by the turf at the Abomination Dome. Westbrook made one bad pitch to Justin Morneau after having a double play grounder glance off the heel of his glove to stake the Twins to a 2-0 lead, and David Dellucci gave the Twinkies a run because of his failure to play two balls correctly in the Abomination Dome lights/roof of horrors. The end result was a 3-0 shutout.

Sunday was perhaps worse. The Indians made Scott Baker look like an ace, wasting the second straight fine performance from Age and Treachery in a 2-1 10-inning loss. Besides the general inability of the Tribe to get a clutch hit off pretty weak pitching, the worst part was that we let the Twins best hitter beat us both games. Why would the Indians pitch to Justin Morneau with a base open with the game on the line and two outs? Walk him, load the bases, pitch to Delmon Young. No brainer.

Quick Facts:

• The Indians gave up 5 runs and lost the series.
• The Indians have played 7 series and are 1-5-1, having not won a series since the very first of the season.
• The Indians are last in the American League in batting average, slugging percentage and total bases.
• The Indians have allowed 90 runs and scored 79.
• Only the Baltimore Orioles have allowed more home runs than Indians' pitching.
• The Indians are last in the major leagues in batting average from the 7th inning on, batting a miserable .200, which indicates that teams are making adjustments on the Tribe and they are not making adjustments at the plate.
• The Indians pitching from the 7th inning on has an ERA of 5.09. Only the Tigers have a higher ERA after the 7th. More importantly, their WHIP from the 7th inning on is 1.74, which means that nearly two runners are getting on base every inning at the end of games. This is the worst WHIP after 6 in the American League. For the first 6 innings of a game, the Indians pitching ERA is 4.18, 8th in the AL.

Right now, this team is failing at every aspect of the game. They are not hitting early. They are not hitting late. Late inning pitching has been abominable. How long does this team get to be this bad before something is done? Is it time to start the Fire Derek Shelton campaign? These bad early season starts are becoming routine under Eric Wedge - is a Fire Eric Wedge campaign an overreaction at this point?

Mojo Watch:

Cliff Lee:

Age and Treachery: I'd give him more mojo if the team would stop blowing his great pitching efforts.

Everyone else: Joan Rivers has more Elvis than this team right now. They can't hit their way out of a wet paper bag. They've scored 1 run in 21 innings off guys who aren't exactly aces.

Andy Marte Watch:

Friday


Saturday


Sunday