Indians Confidential

While it’s just 9 games into the season, the highlight of the 2009 season clearly took place on Thursday afternoon at the new stadium of the New York Yankees, as the Tribe laid a beating on the Yankees, winning 10-2. The game was hailed as not only the opening of the new stadium, but also a matchup of the last two Cy Young award winners – C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee.

Both former teammates went at it tooth and nail, and in the end, it was Lee shining. He went six innings, allowing just one run on seven hits. He was much more in control than his first two starts, and seemed to pick up where he left off when he was able to rebound late last Saturday against the Blue Jays.

As for the offense, the hero was Grady Sizemore, who had a shot earlier in the game to break it open with the bases loaded and two outs tied at one, only to fly out. It was two innings later when Grady came up again with the bases loaded, and this time he delivered, slamming a grand slam to make a 5-1 game into a blowout at 9-1.

“To come in here and do what we did is something we’ll always remember,” Sizemore said.

Sabathia looked weird in pinstripes as far as I was concerned. The Tribe did a great job making him throw pitches, as by the time he left the game after 5.2 innings, he had thrown a whopping 122 pitches, the most in a game by a Yankee since Randy Johnson’s 129 on July 19, 2006.

He gave up five hits and one run, but walked five and struck out four. On this day, it was Lee who pitched better, and the Indians bullpen (Rafel Perez and Rafel Betancourt) actually did their job, allowing just one run between them in three innings and two hits with five walks and two strikeouts while the offense did their damage.

The Indians wrapped up their best day of the young season with 10 runs, 13 hits, five doubles and two homers. They made the expensive Yankees look like wannabe’s which is exactly what they are in the AL East – a third or fourth place team that is way overrated.

The win puts the Indians at 3-7 on the year, their first two-game winning streak of the 2009 season. The Yankees fall to 5-5. With three more games to go this weekend vs the Yankees, this is a great shot for the team to turn their early rocky start to the 09 season around.

So far, so good.