Weekend With the Royals

The Tribe escaped a weekend series with the KC Royals, taking 2 out of 3 at home.

Friday: Cleveland 5, KC 4

After the Tribe tried to give this one to the Royals after JoeBo, staked to a 1-run lead going in to the 9th, gave up the tying run, the Royals gave it right back by giving up a run in the bottom of the 9th. After $57 Million Man Pronk smashed a double to right, Ryan Garko knocked pinch runner Mike Rouse in from second base with a bouncer up the middle off the mound. This was Garko's first walk-off hit in the majors, and, for his efforts, he got a taste of Leadership Pie. Pronk was 1 for 4 with a walk, with the double that ignited the winning rally as his only hit on the night. Westbrook spotted the Royals a 3-1, lead through the middle of the third, but then Westbrook settled down and the Indians regained a 4-3 lead going into the dramatic 9th inning.

Saturday: KC 6, Cleveland 5

CC Sabathia spotted the Royals a 5-0 lead after giving up a two-run double to Billy Butler in the first and, even worse, a 3-run big fly to Emil Brown in the second. CC settled down, and the Indians got to within 5-4, but then KC got a gift run in the 7th on a double followed by a fielders choice and a throwing error on Casey Blake allowing the run to score. Pronk drove in the final run with a sac fly in the bottom of the 7th. The Indians got the tying run to second in the bottom of the 9th, but could not push the run home. Pronk went 0 for 4 with an RBI on the sac fly. Ryan Garko hit a towering two-run shot to the home run porch in the 6th.

Sunday: Cleveland 5, KC 3

Pronk gave a Jorge de la Rosa pitch a one-way trip to Pronkville, going 3 for 4 on the day including a 2-run homer to the right field mezzanine in the first, and Fausto Carmona held the Royals to 2 runs through 7 innings. De la Rosa only gave up two hits, but both were homers (Garko hit a solo shot). The Tribe tacked on two more in the 6th and the Royals got one more on a home run by Jason Smith (who?) off Rafael Betancourt (huh?). The one home run per half of the season that Betancourt typically gives up is now out of the way, so we can all move on.

It looks like Pronk is snapping out of his funk. His shot to Pronkville was a line drive reported as travelling 436 feet. Later he smoked a ball off the wall that normally would go as a double, but the ball was hit so hard, and Teahen played it perfectly and threw a strike to second, nailing Pronk.

While the Indians were taking 2 of 3 from KC, the Motor City Kitties were splitting a 4-game set with the suddenly hot Mariners, so the Tribe has gained a half game on the Tigers. The Tribe us now 54 - 37, one half game behind the 54 - 36 Tigers.

The rumour du jour: the Tribe is looking to bring back Kenny Lofton. I would not necessarily oppose this at the right price, especially if packaged with Otsuka, and if the price is not too high. Lofton is having an excellent season. He gets on base and he's still running, and he could platoon with Michaels in left field (he doesn't have the arm for right field - well, actually, he never did). The Indians visit the ballpark formerly known as The Ballpark in Arlington for a four-game series on Thursday, and if anything is going to happen with a trade to Texas, this might be the week.

Next up: The Tribe has the next shot at sticking a fork in the White Sox for three. Pitching matchups: LHP John Danks (5-6, 4.62 ERA) vs. LHP Cliff Lee (5-5, 5.23), tonight at 7:05; RHP Jon Garland (7-6, 3.85) vs. RHP Paul Byrd (7-4, 4.41), Tuesday at 7:05 p.m.; LHP Mark Buehrle (6-5, 2.98) vs. RHP Jake Westbrook (1-4, 6.08), Wednesday at 12:05 p.m.

Pronk Needs $57 Million

Word from those in the know indicates that Pronk will sign a 4-year, $57 million dollar extension tomorrow. This contract will keep him in Cleveland through 2012.

According to Paul Hoynes, $9 million of that money will be to pick up his option for next year and sweeten his deal for the remainder of this season and next year. The remaining $48 million consists of 2 additional years at $11 million per (2009, 2010) and 2 more at $13 million per (2011, 2012).

With the new contract signed, will Pronk be relaxed enough to begin pummeling opposing pitchers again? We can only hope. Tune in tomorrow and find out.

Let the negotiations with CC Sabathia begin.

Skidding Towards the All-Star Break

The Indians ended the first half of the season by generally playing pretty crappy baseball.

Thursday: Tigers 12, Indians 3. CC stunk. Verlander didn't. Enough said.

Friday: Blue Jays 8, Indians 6. Cliff Lee stunk. So did Halladay, but much less than Cliff Lee.

Saturday: Indians 9, Blue Jays 4: Carmona pitched well. The Indians hit the ball. Heck, even Trot Nixon got a home run. Even a blind squirrel occasionally finds an acorn.

Sunday: Blue Jays 1, Indians 0: The Indians got shut out by Josh Towers and friends, wasting a great pitching effort by Paul Byrd. As Bill the Cat once so eloquently said, "Ack!"

The end result - the Tribe went from a 3-game lead over the Tigers to a 1-game deficit, in second place in the AL Central with a 52-36 record, 2 games back in the loss column. If you had asked me at the beginning of the season if I would be happy if the Indians had won 50 games by the All-Star break and were 1 game out of first place, I would have said then I would be ecstatic. This team still has an extremely good shot to win the AL Central, or, if not, to be the wild card team and play post-season baseball.

Pronk's Mojo? Well, it may be circling the field waiting for a landing. At times over the last couple weeks, Pronk has put together some at bats that look like the old Pronk, but he's often had little to show with it, as he's scorched line drives right at people, or he's been foiled by the Pronk Shift. With any luck, Pronk will have had a nice relaxing break and will come back ready to club some baseballs. If Pronk returns to being Pronk, the Indians really don't need to add another bat. This team could be really fearsome offensively if Pronk takes off, considering how well they've been doing with him underperforming.

What the Indians need to keep competing: another solid bullpen arm would be nice. The guy I'd love to see the Indians get, and who I'm sure will be available given the Reds' impending yard sale, is David Weathers. He's reasonably dependable, he can close if necessary, and he can give you more than one inning.

It would also be nice to see the Indians get a left-handed corner outfielder who can platoon with the guys we have (Michaels, Gutierrez and Francisco) so that we don't have to keep running Mosey Nixon out there so often.

Here's hoping the Tribe comes back from the break tanned, rested, and ready.

STO Responds

My wife, when the Indians game went off the air on Tuesday, went to the STO website and filled in a form saying, essentially, "Hey, what happened to the game!?" This morning she got a response from STO:

"We apologize for the lost signal in Tuesday night’s game. We had an interruption of our transmission because the company we hired had us on a timer instead of basing our feed on the live event. Thus when the game went long, we just went off the air. We are sorry for the inconvenience and are working to prevent this from happening again."

I know you have all been waiting on the edges of your seats for the official word from STO on what happened. This is all just another part of the full-service blogging that you've come to expect.

Old Scratch Stepped Up for Kenny Rogers

Old Mudhands' Kenny Rogers' deal with Old Scratch remains in effect, as the Tigers beat the Indians 6-4 last night. The Indians hit him hard, but it was one of those nights where during key at bats, the ball was scorched by the Tribe, but right at someone, or one of the Tigers made a leaping out-of-his mind catch. Even when the ball did fall in it didn't always help, as we failed to score a run on a ground rule double which, had it stayed in the park, would most likely have been a triple.

What was the problem? Could it be, luck? No. Could it be stellar defense? Maybe. Hmmm, could it be, I don't know, ....... SATAN!

The angels, however, let Pronk hit one out, so that was good, but I think that was a make-up for the smash up the middle that Satan allowed Carlos Guillen to get to despite the ball almost taking off his glove hand it was hit so hard.

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.

Hey, Now, You're an All-Star!

The Tribe has now rolled out four straight victories, with an 8-6 victory Saturday night and a 3-2 victory Sunday afternoon over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The key has been solid pitching from CC Sabathia (Saturday) and Cliff "Sleepy Kitten" Lee on Sunday. Borowski got saves each day, making it 4 straight games for JoeBo with a save.

Pronkwatch: Saturday: 1/3 with a big fly to right and two BBs. Sunday: 1/4 with a caught stealing. Pronk was sent on a hit and run by Eric Wedge not once, but twice. Really. I am not making this up. Garko fouled a pitch off the first time, in the second inning, and ended up singling. The next time, the D-Rays were ready for it and Pronk was caught stealing in the sixth.

Ben Francisco made another appearance in Sunday's game, going 1 for 3 with a run scored.

Meanwhile, the Tigers have salvaged a pitcher's duel tonight with the Twins, and the Indians' lead stays at 1.5 games.

Grady Sizemore, Victor Martinez and CC Sabathia - you're on the All-Star Team. Call your agent and exercise that bonus clause! Go win home field for the World Series, and don't even think about participating in the Home Run Derby, even if they ask politely (see Abreu, Bobby).

In other news: Mike Hargrove steps down as manager of the Mariners, in the middle of a 7-game winning streak that has put his team in the pennant race, saying, essentially, that his heart isn't in it any more. I suspect that there's something else going on that we may not hear about until much later, but I certainly wish Mike Hargrove well. I have fond memories of the Human Rain Delay as a player, and he managed certainly the greatest Indians teams of the last 40 years. Good luck, Grover. And the M's won today in his final game, making it 8 straight.

And, finally, the Reds fired manager Jerry Narron because they couldn't fire the entire team.