Indians Confidential

David Dellucci’s two-run homer in the top of the fifth snapped a 2-all tie and the Indians held on for a 5-2 win over the Rays in the opener of a three-game series at Tropicana Field.  The Indians have had the Rays number this season, as after last night’s win the team is 5-0 against them this season.

Cliff Lee hurled seven innings of two-run ball to become the second 15-game winner in the majors.  Asdrubal Cabrera hit a solo shot and Kelly Shoppach plated two runs for the Indians, who have split their last four contests. 

Rafael Perez threw two scoreless innings to notch his second save.  Aki Iwamura had a two-run single for the Rays, who had won five in-a-row.  Matt Garza allowed four runs over five frames to take the loss.

The Indians continue their series with the Rays tonight.  Fausto Carmona, who’s 5-and-3 with a 4.19 ERA, will start for the Indians.  The Rays will send out Edwin Jackson, who’s 7-and-7 with a 4.20 ERA.  First pitch at Tropicana Field is set for 7:10 p.m.

It’s just too bad that Paul Byrd couldn’t pitch every game vs the Tigers. For whatever reason, Byrd has the Tigers number, and Monday night at Progressive Field he was at it again against the Motor City Kitties, shutting them out for 7.2 innings as the Indians won the first of a four-game set vs Detroit, shutting them out 5-0.

Byrd was helped out by an offense that used the long ball, with Kelly Shoppach hitting his 9th homer of the year and that being followed up by a two-run shot by Asdrubal Cabrera, who hit his second of the year. Both shots came off of losing pitcher Kenny Rogers, who allowed all five Indians runs on 9 hits in 5.2 innings.

There’s been talk about the Indians moving Byrd, who is in the last year of his deal. If last night was any indication, he would have some value on the market. He threw 107 pitches, 70 for strikes. He raised his record to 5-10 on the season, and the big improvement was not giving up the long ball, which has been his issue all season. Pitching inside as well as he has all season, the veteran had the Tigers tied up all night.

The win puts the Indians back to 12 games under .500 at 46-58. The Tigers were lucky in that the White Sox lost, keeping them at 53-52, 6.5 back of Chicago in the Central. If they are not careful, they could find themselves 8-9 out by the time they leave town early Thursday evening.

The Indians will continue their series with the Tigers tonight. Matt Ginter, who’s 1-and-1 with a 2.45 ERA, will start for the Indians. The Tigers will send out Armando Galarraga, who’s 8-and-4 with a 3.27 ERA. First pitch at Progressive Field is set for 7:05 p.m.

When it comes to the return of pitcher Fausto Carmona, it will go down as a return he and the Indians will want to forget.  On a day when the team made a bunch of roster moves, the biggest trading veteran locker room guy Casey Blake, Carmona was rocked hard by the Twins for nine runs in just over two plus innings in the Indians 11-4 loss at Progressive Field.

Carmona was up in the zone for most of the 69 pitches he was in there, and went just 2.1 innings, allowing nine runs on seven hits.  He walked three, which all came in the first to get him in trouble, and struck out one.  The Twins batted around in a six-run first, the big hit being a three-run homer by Brian Buscher to make it 6-0.  After a 1-2-3 second, he ran into more trouble in the third, allowing a run scoring double to Mike Lamb, then a two-run single to Buscher to knock him out of the game.

Down 9-0, the Indians got a solo homer from Andy Marte in the 5th to make it 9-1, then a Jhonny Peralta single to left in the 6th scored two more to make it 9-3.  The Twins made sure there would be no miracle comeback, as they piled on two runs in the 8th off of Jensen Lewis to make it 11-3.  A Kelly Shoppach single in the 8th closed out the scoring to make it 11-4.

The Tribe used five pitchers, with Tom Mastny going 2.2 innings, allowing just two hits and a walk.  Lewis went 2.1, allowing two runs, and Rafael Betancourt threw two outs and Edward Mujica also got two outs in relief.  As far as the offense went, the team managed eight hits off of five pitchers, with Scott Baker going five innings for the Twins to get the win to improve to 7-3.

Just called up Andy Gonzalez did manage to get a hit in his first at-bat for the Tribe, a harmless single in the 9th off of Matt Guerrier.  The loss puts the Tribe back at 12 games under .500 at 45-57.  The Twins improve to 56-47, breaking their five-game losing streak.

Sunday in the finale of the three-game weekend set it will be Jeremy Sowers (1-5, 6.44) vs Nick Blackburn (7-6, 3.83) at 1:05pm.

Home cooking is starting to taste good again to the Indians, who Friday night in the kickoff of Beach weekend (whatever) took advantage again of Twins pitcher Livan Hernandez in beating Minnesota 5-2.  The Indians roughed up Hernandez back on June 12th, as they scored 7 runs against him on 12 hits in just three innings in a 12-2 win.

Tonight they jumped on him for four runs in the first inning to set the pace, also sending 8 men to the plate.  Ben Francisco hit a sac fly with two on that scored Grady Sizemore from second when Carlos Gomez slammed against the wall and laid on the ground hurt.  Shin-Soo Choo hit another sac fly to make it 2-0 that scored Jamey Carroll.  Kelly Shoppach two batters later hit a double that scored Jhonny Peralta and Casey Blake to make it 4-0.

Cliff Lee was on again for the Indians, as the Cy Young candidate went 8 innings, throwing another gem.  He allowed two runs on six hits, striking out 10.  The Tribe MVP improves to 14-2 on the year, the first pitcher in the Majors to win 14 games this year.  He allowed a single run in the 3rd on a Denard Span single, and another in the 6th on  Joe Mauer double, but other than that was again solid.

The Indians offense also got a homer from Franklin Gutierrez in the 9th spot in the order which made it 5-1 in the second.  They pounded out 12 hits on the night, with Blake, Peralta and Gutierrez all with more than one hit. Masa Kobayashi came in to take the final inning for Lee and quickly allowed a hit and a Justin Morneau homer to make it 5-4.   Delmon Young then doubled and Eric Wedge moved to Rafael Perez.

Perez got Mike Redmond to lineout to first, then got Brendan Harris to ground out to the pitcher to get two quick outs.  The threat was gone when Nick Punto grounded out to second on a great play by Asdrubal Cabrera to end the game.

The team, now 45-56, will look for two in a row over the Twins on Saturday night at 7:05 when it’s the return of Fausto Carmona (4-2, 3.10) from the DL vs Scott Baker (6-3, 3.26).

Indians manager Eric Wedge has preached throughout this tough season that his team was not going to give in, no matter what the circumstances. That theory was again shown over the weekend as the team returned to action to take two-of-three from the Mariners in a series between two teams going nowhere fast. They dropped the first game, but recovered nicely to win the final two games of the series to take the series and up their streak to winning six of their last seven.

Sunday it was All-Star starter Cliff Lee’s turn to take the hill, and while it for sure was not one of his best outings of the season, the lefty got the job done, allowing 11 hits, but going the distance as the team topped Seattle 6-2. The big hit of the day was a Kelly Shoppach three-run homer that made a 1-1 game a 4-1 Indians lead. That was all Lee would need to up his record to 13-2.

It’s amazing to think that the Indians, a team that is 11 games under .500, has a pitcher on staff that is 11 games over .500. That’s the case with Lee, who by far is the teams MVP this season. He threw strikes to 16 of his first 20 batters, and 41 of his first 50 pitches were strikes, showing how good his command was. Four of the Mariners 11 hits were infield hits, and only one batter all day saw ball three.

The Indians will now move to Anaheim, where they may find a lot more competition than the Mariners. Anaheim has the best record in the Majors at 60-38, a far cry from the awful Mariners who after yesterday are 38-60. Nevertheless, the team can hang its head high as they are playing some of the best ball we’ve seen all season, problem is it’s very likely too little, too late.

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.

If there is one thing the Indians have been able to count on in this season that appears to already be lost, it’s the pitching of starter Cliff Lee. Last season Lee found himself in Buffalo with the teams Triple-A club, and this year, unless there is some stunning collapse over the next two weeks, Lee will find himself in New York with the American League All-Star team.

Last night at Progressive Field Lee moved to 8-1 when he’s pitched the day after an Indians loss, as he threw a career-high 11 strikeouts in the teams 4-1 win over the Giants to salvage the finale of the three-game set. Lee is now 11-1 on the season. He went 8 innings, allowing one run on four hits, walking one and recording 11 K’s. His season ERA drops to 2.34. Manager Eric Wedge said postgame that Lee and C.C. Sabathia have been carrying the starting pitching the last few weeks, but for the most part Lee’s carried it the whole season.

On offense, the team got to Giants starter Matt Cain early, scoring three runs in the third after getting runners on in the first and second innings. Jamey Carroll, who continues to play well, tripled in a run when the ball bounced off the wall in deep left, and then Jhonny Peralta doubled in two more runs to make it 3-0. The Giants got their only run of the game in the 4th, but the Indians came right back as Carroll singled in Kelly Shoppach to make it 4-1.

Carroll is now hitting .293 on the season, and an injury to Josh Barfield and the poor play at the Major League level by Asdrubal Cabrera has allowed Carroll to play everyday, which he’s taking advantage of. Peralta had two hits as well, and put his average at .244. Overall the team pounded out 8 hits, Shoppach also went 2-for-3.

The win puts the team back to 7.5 back of the White Sox in the division, but they still have a share of last place with the Royals. At 36-43, they sorely need to go out and sweep the Ohio rival Reds at home over the weekend. C.C. Sabathia, who is 5-and-8 with a 4.06 ERA, will start for the Indians tonight . Daryl Thompson, who’s 0-and-0 with a 0.00 ERA, will start for the Reds. First pitch at Progressive Field is set for 7:05 p.m.