Indians Confidential

For at least one night, the moves the Indians trying to fix the pitching woes actually worked. Carl Pavano pitched six pretty good innings, and Aaron Laffey coming out of the pen threw three solid innings without allowing the Red Sox back in the game at the Indians beat the Red Sox in Fenway 9-2.

The Tribe made a couple of moves on Wednesday trying to do whatever they can to help a bullpen that seems to give up leads as easy as any team in baseball history. They dumped Rafael Perez to Columbus (finally), and moved Laffey to the pen and called up Jeremy Sowers to start tomorrow night in the road trip finale.

It was so important for the club to rebound after the nightmare in Toronto on Tuesday, and they did an excellent job of doing just that. The offense again played well, getting some big hits, putting up 9 runs and 13 hits. Mark DeRosa and Victor Martinez each homered, and four players each had three hits.

The offense on this road trip finally seems to be coming around. Asdrubal Cabrera, who had three hits, is now hitting .333. David Dellucci is hitting .412, and Victor is still hitting well, going 3-for-5 with four RBI and is hitting .398.

Pavano allowed two runs on six hits in six innings. He walked three and struck out four, and seems to finally be settling in as the pitcher that the Indians thought they were getting after a pretty solid spring. Laffey allowed two hits and didn’t walk a batter. He struck out one, and got a double play ball to end the game and earn his first Major League save.

The team can actually go 4-3 on this 7-game road trip with a win Thursday night. They are now 11-17 on the season, and maybe if they can just stop the bleeding from a bullpen that has been beat up all season, they can finally start playing more consistant.

Thursday Sowers will go for the Tribe against Tim Wakefield, who shut down the Indians last week at Progressive Field.