The Wind

"The wind, the wind brings me cards from Argentina
It brings scarves from finer ladies
And the scent of the gardenias
Won't sleep or rest or sit itself beside me
If I run out, there's no one that could hide me
And I know that I'll regret it
But I think I'm gonna let it in"

"The Wind" by Nathan, from Key Principles

The Indians have been looking for something to "take fear from bats", and it seems like they may have found it in Arlington this week. The weather was hot, the wind was blowing out, and the Indians got to feast on weak Rangers' pitching. Alas, the wind was also blowing out for the Rangers as well, as the ulitmate result was a split, with the Tribe scoring 39 runs and the Rangers scoring 39 runs. The highlights:

• Monday: Tribe 13 - Rangers 9: Casey Blake, 2 HR, 7 RBI. Laffey got pummeled. Westbrook put on DL. Nobody ready to start next game, since Sowers started earlier in the week.
• Tuesday: Tribe 7 - Rangers 12: Tribe starts Tom Mastny due to Westbrook's sudden appearance on DL. Mastny gets plowed under like last year's corn stalks. Bullpen really didn't recover for the rest of the series.
• Wednesday: Tribe 15 - Rangers 9: Everybody hits! Ben Francisco gets 5 all by himself! Garko gets 4, with 6 RBI. Cliff Lee leaves after getting hosed by the home plate umpire in the 5th inning and allowing the go ahead runs and then paces the dugout hurling curses towards home plate as the Indians break the game open with 5 in the top of the 6th to give him the victory.
• Thursday: Tribe 4 - Ranger 9: With the chance to capture the series and staked to a 4-0 lead, CC Sabathia falls prey to his "inning of crap" (thanks, Steve Buffum), surrenders the lead and then the Senor Slow implodes, putting the game out of reach. Kevin Millwood, after a bad start, pitches lights out into the 7th to get the win for the Rangers.

Other notes:

• Milton Bradley continues to be a showboating douchebag. At least CC hit him with a pitch on Thursday, though he came around to score in the "inning of crap."
• Jake Westbrook is on the DL with "right elbow soreness." He went to see Dr. Yocum and the results will be released this weekend. Uh-oh. Still think the Indians should trade some of their pitching depth?
• The Westbrook injury forced the Tribe to shuffle their bullpen. Tom Mastny and Jensen Lewis were up. Then they were down and Rick Bauer and Brian Slocum came up. Bauer closed out the 15-9 game, giving up 3 runs in the 9th.
• The draft was this week. The Indians took Lonnie Chisenhall, a middle infield type, allegedly with a plus bat, who fell from grace at U South Carolina after being involved in an incident regarding the theft of some electronic equipment.

Last night, the Indians beat the Tigers 4-2, with Paul Byrd getting his 100th career win. The Tribe is now 6.5 games behind the Whine Sox, who have won their last 4.

Andy Marte played Tuesday. So did Blake. Andy went 1 for 3 with a run scored. He was pinch-hit for late in the game by Dellucci, who flied out weakly to left. This is particularly noteworthy because Wedge got outmanaged. Texas pitcher Jamey Wright was struggling. The bases were loaded and the Rangers needed more time to get a pitcher ready. Instead of sending up Marte against a struggling pitcher, Wedge wastes time getting a pinch-hitter up (lefty Dellucci vs righty Wright) allowing the Rangers time to get lefty Eddie Guardado into the game, who proceeded to drink David Dellucci's milkshake.

When we last left Casey Blake's stats, he had an OPS+ of 52. Now that he's been on the road to feast on weak KC and Texas pitching, he has increased his OPS+ to 94, which now actually approximates the OPS+ of an actual major league player, albeit still a below average one. His batting line is now .236/.315/.407. So, don't expect the Casey Blake Experience to end any time soon.

When Andy Marte plays, the Indians are 11-6, with a two game losing streak. Blake also played in both games. When both Marte and Blake play, the Indians are 6-5.

So long, J-Mike.

Indians beat writer Anthony Castrovince has confirmed that Jason Michaels will be DFA'd to make room for Ben Francisco.

As The Diatriber has mentioned early and often, Jason Michaels has been pretty superfluous on this team, more so since he's not been producing.

What will this solve? On the surface, not a lot. Francisco has not exactly been lighting it up at Buffalo this year. Dellucci will likely still get most of the starts in left field, since right now he is the third-most productive hitter in the lineup behind Grady and Victor. I suspect that this also means that we see more of Dellucci at DH and Pronk on the bench against pitchers that have given Hafner fits.

This is a message move - even if you're a veteran, your job is not safe if you don't produce quality at-bats. I'm looking at you, Casey Blake. Will it work? Who knows? It worked last year when The Beaded One was brought up to supplant Josh Barfield. How many times can you go to this well?

The other question is - will anyone want J-Mike? Can we at least get a low-ceiling prospect for him? He has shown some signs of at least playing like a major leaguer lately (7 for his last 20), so there might be an NL team that could use him as a bat off the bench and willing to give up a little something for him. Stay tuned.

Good Thing STO Isn't Doing Your City's Fireworks

I hope for you that the fireworks show you're going to see tonight (or saw last night, in the case of those of you who might have gone to Red, White and Boom in Columbus) is run much more effectively than SportsTime Ohio ran their broadcast last night. Otherwise, you might miss the finale completely. After the Indians defused a bases loaded/one out threat from the Motor City Kitties, STO did not come back for the top of the 11th, instead broadcasting static.

After checking to see that the problem was indeed with STO and not my cable (other channels were broadcasting successfully), I turned on the radio in time to hear Casey Blake smash one out of the Oversized Litter Box to give the Tribe the lead. Shortly after this occurred, STO realized, "Hey, we might have a technical problem! Better let people know!" and then a technical difficulty screen appeared on my TV. The picture came back as the Tigers were starting the bottom of the 11th.

What we could see of last night's game was exciting. I was out at a movie with my wife and missed the first 6 innings or so, but I saw on replays a great play by Kelly "Quadzilla" Shoppach to block the plate on Gary Sheffield to save a critical run in the fifth. The Ben Francisco "Treat" continued his run of stellar play with a pinch-hit home run to tie the game and send it into bonus baseball. Franklin Gutierrez caught a ball up against the fence in right field despite his best efforts to give himself poor position to make the play in the 10th. Tom Mastny pitched himself into bases loaded peril in the 1oth and then cleaned up his own mess.

Among the weirdness and mind games going on:

• The home plate umpire was truly incapable of providing a consistent strike zone, leading to much sniping from both sides.
• The umpires exercised an obscure rule that never gets enforced, probably at the instigation of Jim Leyland, that the pitcher has 12 second to deliver the ball or the umpire has the authority to award a ball to the batter. While I think it is unquestionable that Betancourt is one of the slowest and most deliberate pitchers in the league, the suddenness of enforcing this rule with runners on base in the 8th inning of a tie game in a critical game with pennant implications is pretty penny ante stuff. There has to be some way to retaliate against the Tigers for this pissy garbage. After the game, Wedge was actually angry. This is a big deal and it's not over yet. Maybe Wedge can have them impound Magglio Ordonez' bat and have it x-rayed for cork - there's something mighty suspicious about his .369 batting average.
• Catchers interference was called against Ivan Rodriguez during a plate appearance by Pronk in the 3rd inning, after which Pudge spent the rest of the game bitching to the home plate umpire that Pronk was out of the box on every subsequent plate appearance. The hit he was awarded on that catcher's interference call was Pronk's only hit of the evening.

About the previous night's game against the D-Rays, well, let's just say that right now the D-Rays are D-Moralized, as they played defense about as well as your average tee-ball league team and threw away the game. The Indians won 10-2 behind solid pitching by Carmona, who got picked up when he hit the wall by Rafael Perez. Perez pitched out of a bases loaded/no outs jam in the 7th to give the Tribe time to keep the Tribe ahead 3-2 and give the Tribe the chance to blow it open in the 8th with 7 runs as Tampa Bay's defense collapsed and the Indians' bats woke up, capped by a Sizemore grand slam.

Ben Francisco - 3/3, with a home run.

Pronk - 1/4 with a run scored.

The stands were packed with friends and family of D-Rays starting pitcher Andy Sonnanstine, a northeast Ohio native who went to Kent, and who pitched well against his hometown team, giving up 3 earned runs in 6 innings, and keeping his team in the game.

At any rate, the Indians are 3 games up on Detroit and as a team they seem to have their mojo working completely, and are now, officially, in the Tigers' heads. The Tigers are now 0-4 in their own stadium against the Indians. The Indians know how to Beat Michigan.

Big Ben to the Rescue

For those who have been wondering why the Indians would bring Ben Francisco up to the big leagues and then not play him - maybe you were on to something.

Francisco got his first start, his first major league hit, and his first major league home run - a walk-off shot to left field that propelled the Indians to a 2-1 victory over Tampa Bay.

In addition to showing some pop at the plate, Francisco showed some pretty good moves after the game, as he successfully dodged the first "leadership pie" from Designated Morale Officer Trot Nixon, only to get hit by the second a few minutes later.

Pronkwatch: 1 for 4, with 2 Ks.