Indians Confidential

From: The Indians

JOE BOROWSKI (released)

RICK BAUER (elected free agency)

Both were designated for assignment on July 4.

The Indians today signed their 3rd round selection from the 2008 First-Year Player Draft, inking INF CORD PHELPS (107th overall pick) to his first professional contract. The junior second baseman hit .351 (91-259) this season for Stanford University with 16 2B, 3 3B, 13HR and 58RBI in 63 games for the Cardinal (76RS, 41BB, 38K). The Santa Barbara, CA native led the team in walks and on-base % (.445) and was an All-Pac 10 selection at second base. He hit .389 (7-18) in 4 College World Series games w/6RS, 2 2B, 2 3B & 5RBI. He is a switch-hitter and is 6-2, 200lb. He will report to the Gulf Coast League in Winter Haven to rehab a sprained ankle he suffered prior to the CWS before moving on to Mahoning Valley. The Indians have signed 20 picks overall and 15 of their top 21 selections.

Also today, the Indians claimed RHP BRYAN BULLINGTON off waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates and optioned him to AAA Buffalo. Bullington, 27, has pitched at AAA Indianapolis the entire season, going 4-6 w/a 5.52 ERA in 15 starts (75.0IP, 90H, 46ER, 25BB, 60K, 8HR). He was with the Pirates, but did not pitch, from May 29-June 12 and was named International League Pitcher-of-the-Week after going 2-0 with a 1.38 ERA (2GS, 13.0IP, 12H, 2ER, 15K) in two starts during week of May 19-26. He was designated for assignment on July 3.

Bullington was a 1st round pick (1st overall) by the Pirates in the 2002 First –Year Player Draft out of Ball State (IN) University. He appeared in 6 Major League games with the Pirates in 2005 and 2007 (0-3, 6G/3GS, 18.1IP, 25H, 12ER, 8K) and owns a minor league career record of 49-32 w/a 3.76 ERA in 110 games/109 starts (622.2IP, 626H, 260ER). He missed half of 2005 and all of 2006 due to right shoulder surgery. The 40-man roster is at 40.

The Indians bullpen has been underachieving all season, and today the team made it’s first major move to rebuild and look ahead for the 2009 season. The moves comes as follows: the team has recalled relievers Brian Slocum and Jensen Lewis, and designated relief pitchers Joe Borowski and Rick Bauer for assignment.

The biggest move in the bunch is finally calling it quits with Joe-Bo. This season has basically been a nightmare for Borowski, as he went 1-3 w/a 7.56 ERA in 18 games (6SV, 10OPP, 16.2IP, 24H, 14/RER) with the Indians this season. His real undoing came early in the season in blowing a save to the Red Sox when he allowed former Indian Manny Ramirez to blast a homer to lose a game it appeared the Indians had in hand.

It is uncertain who the closer will be from here, but right now that’s the last of the Indians problems. I guess they will throw Rafael Betancourt in there again, if and when the Indians ever have another save situation. They could also use Masa Kobayashi, but he’s struggled a lot as of late just in the bullpen role he has now.

Bauer posted an ERA of 13.50 in 4 relief appearances (8.0IP, 10H, 9R/ER). Lewis has split the 2008 campaign between AAA Buffalo and Cleveland. At Buffalo he has gone 1-2 with 1 save and a 3.60 ERA in 11 relief appearances (20.0IP, 16H, 8ER, 8BB, 18K) and has not allowed a run on 2 hits in his last 4 outings (6.0IP, 5K). Triple A hitters have hit .219 (16-73) off him with right-handed hitters batting .189 (7-37). Over the first two months of the season with Cleveland he posted a mark of 0-2 w/a 3.82 ERA in 21 games (30.2IP, 32H, 13ER). He will again wear #50.

Slocum has spent the majority of the season at AAA Buffalo and has flourished since being converted to a relief role three weeks ago. At Buffalo he has gone 3-5 w/a save and a 4.62 ERA in 18 games/11 starts (62.1IP, 59H, 32ER, 33BB, 55K). As a reliever, he has 1 save and a 0.69 ERA in 7 outings (13.0IP, 8H, 1R/ER, 3BB, 10K), limiting Triple A hitters to a .182 (8-44) average out of the ‘pen. Overall left-handed hitters have batted .206 (27-131) off him on the season at Buffalo. This will be his second stint at the big league level in 2008 as he did not appear in a game during his first stint with the club from June 4-6.

Make no mistake, this will be the first of many roster moves as the team begins to officially declare 2008 over and start looking ahead to 09.

In a season of tough losses, Tuesday night’s 3-2 extra inning loss to the White Sox could very well be right near the top.  The Indians hung in there against a team that they are trying as hard as they can keep pace with, and on a night where they tried to get their deficit back down to 9.5 games, Joe Borowski did what some say he does best - blow a save.

The Indians took a 2-1 lead in the top of the 10th when Casey Blake hit a solo homer to left.  Borowski came on, and gave it back, but of course not till he got the first two outs, making it even tougher to swallow.  He got Joe Crede to ground out, and then struck out Nick Swisher.  Then with the game looking like it belonged to the Tribe, Jo-Bo imploeded, giving up a solo homer to Alexei Ramirez, just his 6th of the year.

As if that was hard enough to watch, the implosion continued.  Pinch-hitter Dewayne Wise singled, stole second, as everyone usually does vs Borowski, then scored when Orlando Cabrera singled to center, and Wise came in with the winning run to make it 3-2.  They don’t come much tougher than this.

As they have done a ton of times this season, the Indians wasted a good outing from Cliff Lee, as he went 8 innings, allowing one earned run on six hits, walking one and striking out three.  Lee dropped his ERA to 2.26, but could not get any run support to move his record past 11-1.  He allowed a run in the 2nd, then the Indians tied it in the 6th when Kelly Shoppach hit a homer to left to make it 1-1.

All that aside, the end was painful to watch.  The team falls to a full 10 games under .500 at 37-47.  Instead of being 9.5 back of the Sox if they could have hung on to win, they now fall 11.5 back, and are still in last in the AL Central.  The time to start making moves is nearing, and games like this one only made that point all the more clear.

I can’t really think of any positives that can come of getting swept by a team that coming into this past series was 14 games under .500. Let’s just say that it may have given GM Mark Shapiro enough indication to pull the plug on the 2008 season and start looking more at becoming a seller instead of a buyer as the trading deadline starts to creep closer.

Last night the Indians storyline against the Colorado Rockies was almost the same as it was the past two nights - allow a struggling pitcher to right himself against a weak Indians offense, allow some no-name like Jeff Baker to hit another homer (third straight game vs the Indians), and have shots to win it with a big hit, but in the end come up short. Sounds like the same recipe for a loss we’ve heard quite a bit this season.

To think that entering this stretch the Indians looked as if they finally may have righted the ship following a 4-2 homestand, now it looks like it’s back to square one. They allowed Jorge De La Rosa, who had a 6.89 ERA entering the game Thursday to strike out 10 Indians batters, allow just four hits, three runs and walk one in six innings. Jeremy Sowers was okay at best, allowing four runs, three earned, 10 hits, four strikeouts in six innings. He takes the loss to fall to 0-2.

The Indians actually had a first inning lead as Ben Francisco hit a two-run homer to make it 2-0. Sowers gave half of it right back in the bottom of the first on a Matt Holliday single to make it 2-1. Colorado then chipped away and built a lead with single runs in the 4th and 5th to make it 3-2. Casey Blake his a solo homer in the 6th to tie the game at 3, but then a Baker homer, and two more Rockies runs in the 7th iced it for the 6-3 win.

After Blake’s homer in the 6th, the Indians managed just one more base runner the rest of the night, and that was Blake again, who doubled in the 9th with one out. Overall three Rockies relief pitchers threw three scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and striking out two. Masa Kobayashi gave up two runs in that critical 7th, and Joe Borowski did throw a scoreless 9th.

Things have gone from bad to worse this week, as the team drops 7 games under .500 at 33-40. They are now a whopping 8.5 back of the White Sox, who beat the awful Pirates again, and 1.5 back of third place Detroit, 4 back of the 2nd place Twins. Could a roster tweaking in terms of deals be far behind at this point?

Tonight the team moves to Los Angeles to take on the Dodgers in the first of a three-game weekend series starting at 10:40pm. Cliff Lee, who’s 10-and-1 with a 2.55 ERA, will start for the Indians. The Dodgers will send out Clayton Kershaw, who’s 0-and-1 with a 3.75 ERA. First pitch at Dodger Stadium is set for 10:40 p.m.

On a night when the offense got off to a great start then hit the snooze button the rest of the evening, the Tribe dropped a tough decision to the San Diego Padres 8-3 in 10 innings at Progressive Field. Maybe the team was tired after playing till after 1am on Friday night. Whatever the case was, Padres pitcher Cha Seung Baek gave up early runs, but was in complete control from there out.

On the offensive side for the Padres, it took them awhile to get going, but once they hit extra innings, they made the Indians pay for throwing out Edward Mujica (0-1), who first walked in a run then gave up a grand slam to former Indian Kevin Kouzmanoff for what was the difference. It was the third homer that Mujica has allowed in just six appearances in 2008.

The Indians jumped on Baek in the first inning, as they scored three runs on two hits. Ryan Garko hit a single to bring in Grady Sizemore to make it 1-0, then Shin-Soo Choo stayed hot with a double to drive in Ben Francisco to make it 2-0 with one out. Jhonny Peralta then hit a ground out to short that scored Garko to make it 3-0. Little did the Indians know that Baek would settle into a groove from there.

The Padres pitcher after that first inning was unhittable, putting down the last 16 batters he faced. The only baserunner he allowed was Sizemore, who walked in the second but was stranded when Jamey Carroll lined out to short to end the inning. Baek struck out only four batters, but the Tribe offense seemed never to be able to do much of anything against him.

San Diego rallied for single runs in the 3rd, 5th and 8th to end up tying the game. The 3rd inning run came on a solo homer by left fielder Justin Huber, who had just one dinger on the season entering the game. Former Indian Jody Gerut singled in a run in the 5th, and then spoiled Cliff Lee’s effort for his 11th win when he hit a homer in the 8th off of Rafael Perez.

With the loss the Indians fall to 32-37 on the season, 19-18 at Progressive Field. The homestand and the three-game set wraps up on Sunday at 1:05pm with what should be a great pitching matchup. C.C. Sabathia (4-8, 4.34) coming off the shutout of the Twins on Tuesday night, takes on Greg Maddux (3-4, 3.33).

If there is one thing that the Indians can take some pride in so far in 2008 - the Tigers are worse than they are.  That fact was proven once again on Friday night at Comerica Park, as the Indians used a three-run fourth and a solid pitching outing from Paul Byrd to top the Tigers 4-2 in the first of a four-game set.  Byrd went seven innings, allowing two runs on just four hits.  He didn’t allow a walk and struck out two.  He made two mistakes, allowing two solo homers, but otherwise had maybe his best outing of 2008.

The offense was paced by Casey Blake and Franklin Gutierrez.  Blake hit a key one-out double in the 4th off of losing pitcher Justin Verlander that scored two to give the Tribe a 2-0 lead.  Gutierrez then came up with a single to left that scored David Dellucci to make it 3-0, enough for the Indians and Byrd.  With the team leading 3-2 in the 8th, Ryan Garko hit a big homer to deep left off reliever Denny Bautista to make it 4-2.

Masa Kobayashi came in and pitched the 8th without allowing any damage, and then Joe Borowski pitched the ninth, allowing one hit, but striking out one and earning his 5th save of the season.  Byrd with the win improves to 3-5 on the season, and drops his ERA to 4.46.

The Tribe improves to 28-33 on the season, dropping the Tigers to 24-36, losers of four straight.  Aaron Laffey (3-3, 3.02) goes tomorrow for the Indians at 3:55pm vs Kenny Rogers (4-4, 5.54).

The Indians road trip got off to a good start Friday night, as after falling behind 4-1 in the 4th inning, the team rallied for four runs between the 5th and the 6th innings to walk away with a 5-4 win.  What may have been even more impressive than the comeback on offense was the way the bullpen responded, as they pitched three scoreless innings in relief of Cliff Lee to notch the teams 25th win against 29 losses.

The offense was sparked by Grady Sizemore, who led the game off with a homer, and then hit another in the 5th to put the Indians back within striking distance.  He was 2-for-4 with two homers and three RBI.  Jhonny Peralta was 2-for-3 with a run scored and a walk.  The team had eight hits, three homers, and six total extra base hits.

Casey Blake’s 6th inning homer that scored he and Peralta was the difference, as his 4th homer of the season off of Brett Tomko ended up being the difference.  Rafael Betancourt, two days after a postgame tounge lashing from Eric Wedge about throwing more inside, pitched a scoreless two outs in the sixth.  Rafael Perez pitched 1.1 innings, allowing one hit and striking out one, and Joe Borowski gave up a double in the 9th, but got out of it for his 4th save.

Lee was okay at best, but good enough to notch his 8th win against one loss.  He went six innings, allowing four runs on 10 hits.  He walked one and struck out three.  His ERA sits at 1.88.  He allowed a pair of runs in each of the 2nd and 4th innings, but was good enough otherwise to get the win and then turn it over to the pen.

Saturday is game two of the series as C.C. Sabathia will take the mound for the Indians vs Kyle Davies at 7:10pm.