More of the Same

The Tribe lost last night's game to the Mariners (7-2) the same ways they've been losing them all season. Let's run down the checklist, shall we?

• Adequate starting pitching wasted by anemic offense? Check
• Lack of clutch hitting? Check
• Fielding mistakes turn into unearned run(s)? Check
• Late bullpen collapse by the closer? Check
• Failure to pound inferior opponent starting pitcher? Check
• Bad luck on balls hit in play by the Indians, better luck by the opposition? Check

FWIW, the domain firederekshelton.com was available when I checked last night. Anyone game?

That's all I've got. It's too disheartening now to elaborate.

Andy Marte Watch:

Andy Marte played. He made several really fine barehanded plays, but ole'd a hard-hit ground ball that led to a run. He went 0 for 4 at the plate and hit the ball hard twice right at people and hit the ball weakly twice. He was not asked to bunt, nor was he pinch-hit for. SUMM played first base in place of Garko, who was given a mental health day.

Luckiness

There's an old maxim that says, "It's better to be lucky than good." That's okay as far as it goes, but it hardly goes far enough. It is best, of course, to be good AND lucky. It is worst to be bad and unluky. The FEDBU, as they pretty much have been throughout their storied history, were lucky last night and the Indians were mostly bad and thoroughly unlucky.

The Tribe dropped a 5-2 decision to the FEDBU, despite a fine pitching performance from Aaron Laffey, because of one bad inning where the FEDBU scored 4 runs while hitting one ball out of the infield. It's particularly annoying to have opponents score runs on crappy, lucky, seeing-eye infield hits, primarily because it means that your pitcher is doing his job - he's pitching so well that opponents can't get good wood on the ball. That being said, the Tribe really only have themselves to blame for not teeing off on the husk of Mike Mussina. They had the chance to have a big inning to blow the game wide open and only got two runs. It wasn't enough.

Oh yeah - Laffey had a no-hitter going before surrendering the first two garbage infield hits.

This represents the second straight game where the offense failed to do anything. The previous day they wasted a gem of a game by CC Sabathia and ended up totally shut down by Chien-Ming Wang and losing 1-0 on a home run by Melky Cabrera. Yeah, that's right, Melky Cabrera. Let that rattle around your innards for awhile and then go get some Zantac.

So much for that 5-game winning streak. The total offensive collapse of the last two games leaves the Tribe at 12-14, with Seattle coming to town. The good news is that it might give Shapiro some face time with his favorite trade patsy, Bill Bavasi.

Mojo Watch:
Indians Pitching:

Indians Hitting:

Andy Marte Watch:

I'm beginning to wonder if Andy Marte is really some sort of advanced three-dimensional hologram that the Indians are testing for scientific purposes. This might explain their reluctance to put him in games.

Back to .500

I know it's been a few days, but I have been extremely busy at work, and then at home in the evening preparing to go to Milwaukee for a few days to visit family and friends.

It's early Sunday morning, and my "niece" Foxy, a 12-week old calico kitten belonging to my brother- and sister-in-law is romping around their living room.

I saw most of the Kansas City series, except the end of the third game, which was too darn late. Playing Kansas City seemed to be good for what was ailing the Tribe. CC looked like CC again. The balls were bouncing in play instead of being hit right at someone or being just foul.

Cliff Lee's Beta Unit continues to perform unbelieveably well while Cliff is on Rylos 4 defending the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada, shutting out the Royals on Saturday night.

And now they've taken the first two in the FEDBU series to guarantee no worse than a split. Jeremy Sowers pitched well and the Indians gritted out a comeback yesterday. Age and Treachery held the FEDBU down far enough that the Tribe could ride Jhonny's clutch hitting on Friday night.

So today it's a battle of aces - Wang v. Sabathia. Whuch CC shows up - Good CC or Bad CC? I think good CC is back, folks.

Mojo Watch:

Everyone: 5 wins in a row including two over the FEDBU? Plenty of Elvis to go around.

Andy Marte Watch:
Andy got into the last game of the KC series, were he went 0 for 2 with another sacrifice bunt. He saw mop up duty in the first game of the KC series , the 15-1 laugher. Other than that, he's seen a lot of this:

Pronk - The Catchphrase That's Sweeping the Pronking Nation!

Courtesy of the Onion:




Congress Debates Merits Of New Catchphrase

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

Hit Parade

Cleveland 11, Detroit 1

Lots of hits going on at Progressive Field last night. Even the pitchers were getting into the act. The tally:

Cleveland: 11 runs, 13 hits, 2 hit batsmen
Grady Sizemore: 1 hit
Jamey Carroll: 2 hits
Pronk: 1 hit (big fly)
Victor Martinez: 2 hits
Jhonny Peralta: 1 hhit
Ryan Garko: 2 hits (1 big fly)
Franklin Gutierrez: 2 hits
Jason Michaels: 2 hits (this brings his season total to 5) with 3 RBI
SUMM: 1 hit
Fausto Carmona: 2 hit batsmen (Santiago, Sheffield)

Detroit: 7 hits, 1 run, 3 hit batsmen
Clete Thomas: 1 hit
Ramon Santiago: 1 hit
Magglio Ordonez: 1 hit
Miguel Cabrera: 1 hit
Carlos Guillen: 1 hit
Edgar Renteria: 1 hit
Brandon Inge: 1 hit
Justin Verlander: 2 hit batsmen (Garko, Michaels)
Bobby Seay: 1 hit batsman (Sizemore)

Among the key takeaways:

• New name, same house of horrors for Justin Verlander: 5.0 innings, 5 runs allowed. His career numbers in Progressive Field remain pretty hideous.
• An Indians pitcher finally retaliated after Tribe hitters got plunked. After Garko's home run in the bottom of the 5th, Verlander (who has a history of hitting Tribe batsmen) plunked Jason Michaels (Jason Michaels? Jason Michaels! Jason Michaels?) in the back. It was the second batter that Verlander had hit on the day. Carmona hit Ramon Santiago to open the top of the 6th. Apparently, this was not enough payback, because Carmona then proceeded to drill Gary Sheffield. Hard. Although the MCK got a run out of the inning, they squandered the opportunity for a big inning when Sheffield inexplicably failed to slide at home plate on a Carlos Guillen single and was tagged out by Victor Martinez.
• Pronk - opposite field home run. Really good sign that things are turning around for the big guy.
• The Beaded One - Mental Health Day.
• The Motor City Kitties - still in last place in the AL Central
• Indians relief pitching looked pretty good, with the exception of Jensen Lewis, who walked 2 in 1/3 of an inning. Kobayashi and Betancourt each went 1 scoreless inning. It sure is easier to pitch with a 10-run lead.
• The homestand: 2-5 (ouch). The Indians now embark on a 6-game road trip to Minnesota and Kansas City, presenting the opportunity to make up some ground against the teams above them in the AL Central standings (wow, did it feel weird to type this sentence).

Andy Marte Watch:

Not even mop up duty.

Everything Looks Like a Hammer When You Feel Like a Nail

Cleveland 2, Detroit 13

Among the bad things that happened, and there were many, I'm not sure which is the worst:

• CC Sabathia's continuing implosion: 4 innings, 9 runs
• Allowing a 26-year-old journeyman making his second major league start to throw 6.2 innings of 1-hit baseball.

David Dellucci hit his first home run of the season in the first inning, staking the Tribe to a 1-0 lead. That was the highlight. It was all downhill from there.

Remember last week when we were mocking the winless Tigers and their massive payroll and inability to score runs? Those were good times. Good times. They seem so far away. At least Pudge is still awful, going 0 for 6. Good thing for Pudge that the Tigers' best-hitting catcher is needed to play centerfield. Frankly, I'm amazed that Detroit picked up his option.

However, as bad as Pudge's .189 is for the MCK, it is absolutely torrid compared to Jason Michaels (.091), SUMM (.146), Asdrubal Cabrera (.173) and Franklin Gutierrez (.182). Right now, the Indians couldn't hit a beachball thrown to the plate by my 6-year-old niece.

And, as bad as things are, we still have a chance to win today to keep the MCK in the AL Central basement. The bad news is that if we lose, we have to look up at them. Carmona vs. Verlander.

Andy Marte Watch

Marte entered the game in mop up duty and made a nifty play at third and had two pretty good at bats with nothing to show for it, including a scorching line drive caught by the left fielder.

Mojo Watch

David Dellucci:

Everyone else who played last night: