At Least There Was Probably Some Really Good Barbecue

When we last left our intrepid Tribesmen, they were heading to Kansas City for some baseball and some barbecue.

At least, we can only hope they all got some good barbecue, because the baseball was pretty sad. The quick recap:

• Friday - Andy Marte and Casey Blake both play. Andy Marte extends his hitting streak to 4 games. Cliff Lee gets knocked around a little bit but get saved by 2 homers by Sizemore and 1 by Blake and the Indians win, 5-4.
• Saturday - Andy Marte does not play. Casey Blake does. CC Sabathia has, as Steve Buffum calls it, The Inning of Crap. The Indians fail to get their offense going against Kyle Davies, who has just been called up from AAA. Indians lose 4-2. Kansas City losing streak ends at 12 games,
• Sunday - Age and Treachery starts for the Tribe against Brian Bannister. Youth and Inexperience hit Age and Treachery pretty hard, while Bannister shuts the Tribe down. Final score - 6-1 Kansas City. KC win streak now at 2, and the Indians have lost another series, their 5th in a row. Andy Marte plays, goes hitless ending his hit streak at 4 games. Casey Blake does not play.

More fun facts:

• When Andy Marte plays: Indians are 11-5. When Blake and Marte both play - 6-4.
• Pronk is now on the DL with a shoulder injury which he's apparently been battling since very early in the season. Maybe he'll get sent out on rehab and get to devour some Eastern League pitching for a few days and get back in a groove.
• The Indians' silence about injuries to both Pronk and He Who Shall Not Be Named is extremely troubling - it's as if they are trying to become the New England Patriots or the Denver Broncos of the Major Leagues (that's not a good thing - both of these teams are notorious for being tight-lipped about player injuries). This really makes me wonder what we're not hearing about Victor Martinez - his lack of power continues to be puzzling, and I cannot help but think that there is some physical reason why his power has vanished.
• Welcome back, Shin Soo Choo. When Hafner got shut down, Choo got brought up.

Onwards to Texas, having lost 2 in a row and 12 of our last 15 (to the Reds, Whine Sox, Rangers and Royals). This is not the way a contending team performs. Aaron Laffey tries to right the ship against Vicente Padilla tomorrow night.

3 Out of 4 Ain't Bad (Neither is 3 out of 3)

Hey crimestoppers,

Coming at you from New Jersey, where I'll be on business for a couple days.

The Tribe has scratched and clawed its way to .500 (well, briefly over .500) since my last post, carrying 3 of 4 from Toronto.

Good things:

• Unassisted Triple Play by The Beaded One!
• Knocking out Roy Halladay with a 6-spot in his shortest outing of the season.
• Going into the 10th inning of the nightcap of last night's doubleheader, the Indians had held Toronto scoreless for 31 straight innings.
• Complete game shutout for Fausto Carmona.
• Aaron Laffey went 7 scoreless to get a victory
• Cliff Lee went another 9 scoreless innings
• Craig Breslow sighting! Craig Breslow sighting! (2 scoreless)
• Grady Sizemore goes berserk on Grady Sizemore Fleece Night, knocking two out of the park, along with a double for 5 RBI. It may be time for a Travis Hafner fleece night.
• The starting pitching has been so good that Tom Mastny has not been seeing enough innings to stay sharp, so they sent him down to put some work in and stay ready.
• First homer of the year from the Beaded One.
• Shin Soo Choo has started his rehab assignment in Buffalo.
• Andy Marte sighting!

Not-so-good-things

• Tribe's bats silenced by Shaun Marcum in doubleheader nightcap and Senor Slow came on in the 10th to blow the game after Cliff Lee gave the Tribe 9 shutout innings. Rafael Betancourt's appearances are looking less and less like sure things. I can't believe this, but if He Who Shall Not Be Named really gets back what little velocity he had, he may actually be a better closer for this team. (Ack - I can't believe I just typed that, but there it is.) Betancourt does not look like the same guy in the 9th and 10th with the game tied now that he's The Closer.
• Jason Tyner called up to replace Mastny - and he started the second game of the doubleheader. Apparently our outfield logjam isn't so severe that we can find at-bats for a slap hitter like Jason Tyner in one of our corner outfield spots (career OPS - .637). I suspect he's just roster filler until He Who Shall Not Be Named or Shin-Soo-Choo or Westbrook is ready, but geez - do we have to start him? Late-inning defensive replacement for the Looch? Sure. Pinch-runner? Sure. Starting a game in place of someone who can actually hit? Please, no thanks.
• For those just looking at the box score, who see Andy Marte batting .091 on the season, with 3 LOB in the doubleheader nightcap, it's easy to wonder why he's still on the team. Those of us who are Andy Marte apologists will say that it's hard to get in a groove when you play only once a week. Those who are not will insist that any faith in him is not justified - look at his batting average. I keep waiting and hoping for Andy's Big Bustout, because I think it's coming, but for now, I'll have to be content with him playing better defense than Casey Blake and seeing a lot of pitches.

The beat goes on - Age and Treachery goes tonight against Duchsherer with the A's in town for 3.

So Long, FEDBU Stadium.

The Tribe made their last regular season trip to FEDBU Stadium a memorable one, winning a three-game series (and the season series) against the FEDBU. Among the memorable events:

• A come-from-behind victory against the overhyped Joba Chamberlain capped by a three-run home run by David Dellucci, after which young Joba was seen moping dramatically with a towel over his head in the FEDBU dugout. Apparently, there was a ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal in the dugout that Joba needed to hide from and Joba was just being a hoopy frood who always knows where his towel is. These were the first runs given up by the young future HOF'er in FEDBU Stadium in his entire HOF career in the building - 15 innings worth.
• In a much overhyped pitching "battle of the unbeatens", Cliff Lee's Beta Unit shut out the FEDBU and Chien-Ming Wang. The real Cliff Lee remains off-planet, defending the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.
• Andy Marte played in back to back games for the first time this season, starting the first two games of the series and getting his second hit of the season, scoring a run and generally playing nifty defense. The Indians won both games. The Indians are now 6-2 in games in which Andy Marte plays. Coincidence? However, with the bases loaded in the second game and 1 out, with the Tribe ahead 3-0, Wedge pinch-hit Pronk for Marte. Pronk proceeded to hit a double play dribbler that ended the threat. I guess I see both sides of this - Wedge was making the standard lefty-righty late game substitution. By most standards, this was the kind of typical baseball move that managers make all the time. However, it was just another in a continuing series of examples dating back to Marte's September callup in 2006 and proceeding through the numerous bunt orders this season that indicates that management has no cofidence that Marte can produce in clutch situations. We don't know whether he can because he's been given the chance so few times.
• The Indians version of Age and Treachery lost to the FEDBU version (Mike Mussina) in the last game of the series, primarily by not keeping the ball in the ballpark. Jason Giambi, whose career has declined to the point where he can pretty much only hit soft-tossers, hit a home run, as did Johnny Damon, Robinson Cano and Wilson Betemit. Pretty much the complete list of struggling FEDBU hitters were able to get well against Age and Treachery.
• During game 3 of this series, future HOFer Joba Chamberlain came out to work the 8th with the FEDBU ahead 6-3. He closed the inning by striking out David Dellucci and celebrating as if he'd just won the seventh game of the World Series. When asked about it later, Chamberlain said "That's who I am. Everybody knows that." Because his 38.1 regular season major league innings have made him known to the great American baseball public, who expect him to roll that way. When asked, David Dellucci had this to say: "It is what it is," he said. "If he wants to yell and scream after a strikeout, I guess that's what gets him going. It's May baseball. The home run was in a much bigger situation. I didn't dance and scream. If a hitter did something like that, it would be bush. It's kind of interesting how a pitcher gets away with it." I like David Dellucci more and more every day.
• The Indians now have a 4-6-2 record in series' this year and are 16-18 on the season. Amazingly, this is only 1.5 games back of the division leading Minnesota Twins. (I never thought I'd be typing the phrase "division leading Minnesota Twins" in May.) They start a 7-game homestand tonight against the Blue Jays.
• J-Mike is now a teammate of J-Bay. The Tribe traded him to the Pirates for a PTBNL. By most accounts, it looks like the Tribe is eating most of J-Mike's salary, so they may get a decent prospect back in this trade.

Mojo Watch

Cliff Lee: Full Elvis for Clifton.

David Dellucci: Elvisness for being clutch and for being old school.

Andy Marte: I'm giving Marte some Elvis for playing two in a row and looking like a major league third baseman in the process.

Fausto Carmona: His ERA is low. His WHIP is high. He's killing me in my fantasy leagues with his insane walk rate. Imagine how well he could be pitching if he could find the plate consistently.

Pronk: Right now, Pronk is Michael J. Fox -he's got no Elvis. His mojo is completely AWOL. I'm thinking that it's time for the Hello Kitty armband.

Cliffie!

There are many surprising things so far about the Indians season. Here are a few of them:

• CC Sabathia's puzzling stretch of awfulness.
• The fact that several key hitters seem to be hovering near the Mendoza Line, including Jason Michaels, Asdrubal Cabrera, and Pronk, Casey Blake, and, with his recent nosedive, now Ryan Garko as well, to name the most egregious offenders.
• The puzzling continued extensive pine time of young Andy Marte.
• The complete disappearance of Victor Martinez' power.
• The implosion of the bullpen.

However, one surpise ranks well above all the others, and that is the Nintendo numbers being put up on the mound by one Cliff "Sleepy Kitten" Lee. To put this in perspective, at one point in last night's game, Lee had pitched 28 consecutive scoreless innings, including 6 last night. Lee tired to open the 7th, giving up a couple singles followed by a bomb to make his line 3 runs in 6 innings. To put this into perspective, giving up those 3 runs increased Lee's ERA to 0.96. Think about that for awhile.

The other good news is that when Lee gave up those runs, it was not cause for heart palpitations and the tense gripping of armrests among Tribe faithgul because Lee had been staked to an 8-0 lead. Sizemore, who looks more like the Sizemore of old that we've come to know and love since he had a couple of forced days off, opened the game with a big fly. The Tribe finally pummeled mediocre starting pitching (Jarrod Washburn), putting the game away with a 5-run fifth. Sizemore was 2 for 3 with a double, homer and two walks. Frank the Tank had 3 RBI.

So, the Indians finish April at 13-15. The good news is that Detroit also finishes April at 13-15. We haven't lost ground to the Motor City Kitties, but we've also not been able to put them into a hole based on their 0-7 start. The other good news is that no other team seems to want to run away with the division. The Whine Sox are 14-12, 2.0 games ahead of the Tribe and MCK. The last place Royals are only 2.5 games out. Even more good news - given the quality of the Indians' starting pitching, they are the team most likely to be able to put together a good run and put some distance between them and the rest of the teams in the division, if they can get a good run of hitting and some solid bullpen work.

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

Cliff Lee Saves a Nearly Lost Weekend

After the Tribe's ace and ace-in-waiting both turned in forgettable performances, last year's scapegoat Cliff Lee stopped the bleeding with a shut-down performance in the snow. On to the quick hits:

Game 10: Cleveland 7, Oakland 9

I didn't see the game. I was visiting friends in the Cincinnati area. CC got pummeled, giving up 9 runs on 12 hits in 3.1 innings. The Indians added 6 pretty meaningless runs in the 8th to make it respectable. The good news is that the bullpen shut Oakland down for the last 5.2 innings. Jhonny Peralta homered.

Andy Marte Watch:



Game 11: Cleveland 3, Oakland 7

I didn't see this game, either. My wife and I were at the symphony. At any rate, I'm glad I didn't see it. Fausto Carmona didn't have it. He gave up 3 runs in 3.1 innings, walking 8. The bullpen stopped the bleeding and kept the Tribe in the game until the 7th inning, when Rafael Perez gave up a 3-run shot to Bobby Crosby which broke the game open. The A's ran Lenny DiNardo out to the mound and the Tribe only managed 2 runs in 5 innings. If you can't beat a AAAA pitcher like Lenny DiNardo, you deserve to lose.

Andy Marte Watch:



Game 12: Cleveland 7, Oakland 1

Cliff Lee posted his second solid effort in a row, pitching 8 innings of 2-hit baseball in a game which featured windy, cold conditions, including swirling snow. The Tribe manufactured three runs early in the game, and then broke it open with 4 runs in the 8th.

Andy Marte Watch:

.

Indians manager Eric Wedge seems to be trying his darnedest to screw up Andy Marte. Marte started at third, and came up in the third inning for his first at bat after Jamey Carroll got hit by a pitch. Here's a potential power hitter that you're supposedly trying to get untracked, and hasn't played in a week and in his first at bat, Wedge asks him to bunt. Marte fouled off two bunt attempts, and then swung meekly at a breaking ball, striking out.

In his next at-bat, in the fifth inning, Jamey Carroll led off the inning with a single and then it's deja vu all over again! Eric Wedge asked his young power hitter to bunt. Again. This time, Marte got the a good bunt down and pitcher Chad Gaudin threw the ball wildly down the first-base line, allowing Carroll to advance to third.

Marte came up in the sixth inning with the bases loaded in two outs, and was finally allowed to swing the bat for the first time in the game. He struck out.

The next time Marte came up, in the 8th inning, the bases were loaded with one out in the 8th. Here's a great chance for your young power hitter to swing the bat and gain some confidence. The bases are loaded with a chance to break the game open, it's the 8th inning, and your pitcher is rolling. Nothing to lose, right? Let the kid swing the bat. Instead, Wedge pinch-hit The Beaded One for Marte. The Beaded One struck out. Grady Sizemore and David Dellucci followed Cabrera with back to back doubles to break the game open.

How are we going to know if Marte can hit in the clutch if Wedge pinch hits for him in nearly every clutch situation. How is Marte going to get in any kind of groove or make any kind of adjustments to the major leagues if he plays once a week, and when he plays, he's not really allowed to swing the bat in meaningful situations? Wedge is mishandling Andy Marte. Badly.

Mojo Watch:

CC Sabathia: Right now, CC has no Elvis. If he wants somebody to show him the money, he needs to start being money on the mound.

Fausto Carmona:
The Indians showed Fausto the money, and he rewarded them in his first game as a rich man by spreading the love, giving everybody a free ride on the Walk To First Base Express. He'll come around.

David Dellucci: Dellucci seems to be coming around. His average is up to .273, and he's put up some clutch hits in the last couple days.

Jason Michaels: Still ain't got any Elvis. He has lots of hair, though. Michaels had a hit Saturday to increase his batting average on the year at .111.

Pronk: Pronk went 2 for 5 with 2 RBI.

Ryan Garko: Garko is batting .325 on the year so far, with OBP of .460., including 10 walks. So far, he's been the Tribe's best offensive weapon, slugging .500 with an OPS of .960 with 1 homer and 6 walks. If we could get guys on ahead of him, we might score some runs.

SUMM: Since his Opening Day heroics, Super Utility Mountain Man Casey Blake has let his average drop to .143 and he's already made 3 errors.

The Indians continue their homestand with the only visit of the year from Boston, who comes in for a two-game set. Yes, the Red Sox only play two games here, while we play 4 in Boston in September. This is just one example of how the people who make the schedule for MLB have gone to great lengths to hose the Tribe, loading them up with home games in the coldest months of the year, in addition to giving them fewer home games against a rival with whom they may be competing for a playoff spot.

All told, considering how poorly the Indians have played at times, they are fortunate to be sitting at 5-7, and only 2.5 games out of first place. In the schadenfreude department, Sunday's win puts them three games ahead of the Motor City Kitties, who are now 2-10. It's no more Mr. Nice Guy from Detroit manager Smokey McChimney (aka Jim Leyland), who apparently went nuclear following their latest loss, an 11-0 spanking by the Whine Sox. The Motor City Kitties have scored 33 runs through 12 games and given up 78.

Games 5 & 6: Guys Named Dana Have it In for the Tribe

Game 5: Oakland 6, Cleveland 1

What is it about guys named Dana? Dana Demuth, umpiring in the ALCS behind the plate in Game 6 hoses Fausto Carmona. Oakland pitcher Dana Eveland holds the Indians down in this game, while CC pitches another clunker in front of the hometown fans.

The only good thing is that it wasn't on television so that nobody outside of the stadium got to see this dog of a game.

Andy Marte Watch:



Game 6: Indians 2, Athletics 1

Andy Marte Watch:

Andy Marte starts the game, goes 1 for 3, starts the winning rally with a base hit. The Indians are now 1-0 when Andy Marte plays and 2-3 when he doesn't. Coincidence?

Clifton "Sleepy Kitten" Lee gave up only 1 unearned run on 4 hits in 6.2 innings. The Indians are now 1-0 when Cliff Lee starts a game and 2-3 when someone else starts. Coincidence?

In other news, David Dellucci remains 0 for the season. Jason Michaels is now batting .077. Andy Marte: .333.

Now What?

I've taken a few days to get the season out of my system. I've moved past denial into acceptance, and I'm ready for Hot Stove.

Here are the issues that the Tribe needs to face during the offseason, as I see them, in no particular order:

• Pronk's Mojo - Pronk's Mojo must be found. First priority. It's out there, people - keep looking!
• Who's on Third? - Andy Marte is out of options. It's time to fish or cut bait with Andy Marte. If Andy Marte can be a right handed power bat in the bottom of this order, that would be huge for the Tribe. That also frees Casey Blake to be Super Utility Grizzly(SUG), a role for which he is ideally suited.
• Whither CC? - I suspect that negotiations on an extension for CC have already started. The only way CC is not on this roster at the end of the 2008 season is if the Indians are 20 games out at the All-Star break. I don't see that happening. I think 2007 has only made this team hungrier for 2008 and the Tribe's best shot to win it all is with CC on the mound, despite his poor post-season performances. CC appears to be one who is very capable of learning and growing from his mistakes. Chalk up the 2007 postseason for CC as a learning experience.
• How Do You Solve a Problem Like the Byrdman? - Three weeks ago, picking up Paul Byrd's option was a drop dead no-brainer. At $8 million for a veteran #4 starter, Byrd is cheap in today's baseball economy. Then came the HGH controversy. Without getting into any conspiracy theories about the allegation's timing, it is fortuitous for the Indians that this came out before the Tribe was required to notify Byrd whether they were going to pick up his option, as the team can fully assess the ramifications before saying "yes." I think they pick up his option and slot him at #4. The free agent market for pitching is pretty thin, and Byrd's clubhouse presence cannot be ignored.
• Who's the #5 Starter? - It's going to be a fun battle this spring to see who is the number 5 guy. Aaron Laffey is a left-handed ground ball specialist. Can lefty Cliff Lee get his pitching and attitude together and flash back to 2004 form? Is "Atom" Miller ready? Was Jeremy Sowers a flash in the pan with his Jamie Moyer like junkballing? Do you trade one or any of these guys for offseason help? If Adam Miller is ready, then I think you have to add his power arm to this rotation, with Aaron Laffey as a swing guy out of the pen. Is there a team out there who would be willing to take a chance on Cliff Lee in return for a prospect or two? I think Shapiro has to explore that option in the offseason. I think we've seen the last of Lee in Tribewear.
• Who Closes? - Gotta be Joe Knows Closing. His option is cheap, and unless Shapiro does something radical like bring in Mariano Rivera, we're in for more tightrope walking in the 9th next season. Senor Slow will continue to be the high leverage guy in the late innings.
• Crowded House in the Outfield - No, not the Finn boys from Kiwi land, but the logjam of bodies in the outfield. We know K-Love will be gone. Gutierrez appears to have solved the right field problem, so that pretty much leaves Jason Michaels, David Dellucci, Ben Francisco and Shin Soo Choo fighting it out for playing time in left field. Can the platoon of Michaels and Dellucci perform next year as advertised? Choo is out of options. Neither one has anything left to prove at AAA. Do we see them carry 5 outfielders, with Choo/Gutierrez platooning in right and Dellucci/Michaels platooning in left. If so, then it limits the team as to bench help in the infield. Look for Shapiro to try to move either Francisco or Choo in the offseason, perhaps packaged with a pitcher (Lee or Sowers?), either for prospects or a talented corner outfield bat.
• How Do You Solve a Problem Like Josh Barfield? - The causes for the complete nosedive of Josh Barfield in 2007 are totally mysterious. Sophomore slump? League change? Did he lose some lucky object in his move to Cleveland? Is he under some kind of voodoo curse? At any rate, it looks like he and Cabrera will go into Spring Training fighting it out for the second base job, and it looks every bit like this is Cabrera's job to lose. Barfield probably starts the year at Buffalo to see if he can find anything resembling plate discipline. After this horrendous season, his trade value is at an all-time low, so he's not going anywhere.
• Retire the Chief - It's time. In fact, it's way past time. As someone with a very small percentage of Native ancestry, I understand why it's offensive, and as a fan, it bothers me that people cannot root for my team because they find its symbol offensive. It's one thing to root against a team because you find the players (Albert Belle anyone?) or the city not to your liking. It's another when the mascot mocks and trivializes your ancestry and heritage. We could also change the name while we're at it so we don't have any more idiots showing up at the park in headdresses with their faces painted red. Man, that was embarrassing. Symbols matter. Get a fresh start, Tribe. Put Chief Wahoo in the rear view mirror.
• Trades? - This team really doesn't have to do much in the offseason trade market. A power hitting corner outfielder for left field would be nice. Additional bullpen help is always a good idea if the price is right, as building a bullpen is a crapshoot every year (see Cabrera, Fernando or the 2006 Indians). If the past is any guideline, whatever Shapiro does will probably be something we don't see coming.

It's Good to Be Back Home Again

When last we left our intrepid band of Wahoo Warriors, they were in the midst of a wicked 10-game road trip featuring stops in Minnesota, A Nameless Place in Southern California, and Chicago. They had just dropped the first game of a 4-game set in that Nameless Place in Southern California.

The good news is that, after dropping a tough game 2 of that series, the Indians went on to take the next two, including a Sunday night victory on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball, to split the series.


After a 4:30 AM arrival in Chicago, the team managed to show some spunk, behind a 3-run 7th-inning rally to win a rain soaked 6-2 game that lasted well into Tuesday morning. After a 2-hour-plus rain delay, the Indians poured on two more runs while Chicago was phoning it in. Chicago phoned in the next game as well. With the off-day coming, Eric Wedge decided to rest key regulars to give them a two-day break. Unfortunately, the Indians were facing Javier Vazquez, who is pretty much the only consistent pitcher the Sox have left, and, with the Sox' Konerko given a gift home run that was clearly foul, as well as a poor relief performance from Cliff "Sleepy Kitten" Lee (see below), the Tribe managed to lost 7-4.







So, the grueling road trip is over, and the Indians went 7-3. This caps a stretch of 23 straight days with a game, during which the Indians went 16-7, and ended with a 5.5 game lead, and a magic number of 11. You know, this team might turn out to be pretty good after all, after all the hand-wringing we've been through this year.


After an off day for everyone, the Tribe last night managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat once again, coming from a 4-1 deficit against the Royals on a 2-run homer by Franklin Gutierrez in the 7th, a solo homer from Victor Martinez in the 8th, and a leadoff, walkoff solo shot by Casey Blake in the 9th against Tribe castoff David Riske. Joe Knows Closing got the victory for pitching a reasonably uneventful 9th. Last night's victory leaves the Tribe's magic number at 10.

Mojo Watch:

Pronk: It seemed like Pronk was about to turn it around. He hasn't, at least not to the extent we all have hoped. He still has managed to knock in 91 runs. However, his 21 homers is half of what he put up last year in 8 fewer games than he has already played this year.

Indians: The Indians continue to run on Full Elvis. They're winning the games they should win, and sometimes even winning the games they have no business winning. The magic number is 10.