Indians Confidential

The first half of the 2009 season is officially over.

Thank Heavens.

Justin Verlander has owned the Indians this season, he’s 3-0 with a 0.39 ERA against Cleveland this season.  Sunday it was business as usual, halting what Eric Wedge thinks is a pretty good offense to to no runs on five his with three walks and eight strikeouts over 7 innings.  In the end, Tomo Ohka was no match for Verlander and the Tigers, as Detroit rocked the Indians 10-1.

The first half of hell ends at 35-54, 19 full games under .500.  The team sits 14 games under .500, they are 19-25 at home and 16-29 on the road.  They have used used 26 different pitchers to date, including Tony Sipp, Matt Herges, Mike Gosling, Vinnie Chulk, Luis Vizcaino, Greg Aquino, Rich Rundles, Winston Abreu, Chris Perez and Ohka.  Yes, it’s been a tough season.

“It’s been a disappointment,” Eric Wedge said. “There’s a long way to go, and I still feel good about the lineup we are putting out there every day, but we’ve got to improve the rotation and our bullpen.”

Improve our rotation?  How about give it and that bullpen which is flat out awful and find a way to get some runs across against the AL Central teams that are pounding the Indians night after night.

The team is going nowhere fast, and if the second half is as bad as the first, you can bet there will be plenty of changes this offseason.

One more time – how’s that Chris Perez trade working out?

Yes, the Indians latest bullpen fall guy was at it again Tuesday night in Chicago, as he gave up a grand slam to Indian killer Paul Konerko as the White Sox scored 9 runs in their last three at-bats to top the Tribe 10-6.

Konerko hit three bombs on the night, driving in 7 runs. Per usual, Jeremy Sowers was pretty good through 5 innings, holding the White Sox to a single run as the Indians led the contest 2-1 entering the bottom of the 6th. Ah but alas, Jeremy would not let us down, as he gave up a double, single and a walk all with one out to load the bases for Konerko.

Enter Perez, who at least this time didn’t hit anyone like in his first Indians outing vs Chicago last week. Instead, he just allowed the worst possible thing to happen, a bases clearing bomb that quickly gave the Sox a 5-2 lead. Of course Perez wasn’t the only comedy act out of the bullpen Tuesday – we also got a chuckle from new Indian Winston “don’t call me Bobby” Abreu.

All he did was allow 80 percent of the batters he faced to score. He gave up a walk (a steal of second), a homer to Alexi Ramirez, a strikeout (his only out recorded), a single, and then Konerko’s third homer of the night, a two-run blast that made it a 10-2 route.

Abreu’s line – 0.1 innings, three hits, four runs, one walk, one strikeout, and two homers. While he couldn’t top Perez’s ERA of 23.14, his whopping 11.25 fits in nicely with the crap that is otherwise known as the Tribe bullpen in 2009.

About the only bright spot was Grady Sizemore, who hit two homers to bring his total to 13 on the season. He went 2-for-4 with three RBI and the two dingers. Shin-Soo Choo also homered (13) and Travis Hafner went 2-for-4 with a RBI and is now batting .281.

Other than that, it was once again the joke of a bullpen and the usual 6th inning meltdown of Sowers that made this outcome one that we’ve seen all too often in 2009.

Boy, that Chris Perez-Mark DeRosa deal sure looks like a winner.

Not.

At least not on Perez’s first night as an Indian, as the teams newest “pitcher” hit two batters and allowed four runs on two hits in his Indians debut in the latest version of the Bad News Bears – a 6-3 loss to the White Sox. Don’t let the final score fool you, as the White Sox never really broke a sweat after going up 2-0 after two innings.

They held the Indians offense at bay, and then in the 9th up 2-0 the team turned to Perez, who came over in the DeRosa trade late Saturday night. He started the inning by plunking Alexei Ramirez in the head, then hit Jermaine Dye on the hand. He then walked Jim Thome, a proceeded to allow a force out for a run, and a Chris Getz double to score a run, a wild pitch to bring a run home, and a single to finish off the fiasco.

Let’s just say the few thousand that were left at Progressive Field were not all that nice to Perez when he was pulled, showering him with a well deserved round of boo’s as he took his rightful place in the Indians dugout. The Indians did
avoid the shutout with three runs in the 9th (Shin-Soo Choo and Ryan Garko homers), but the game was well over at that point.

Of course Garko did have a chance to make it a game with the bases loaded and two outs in the 7th vs Gavin Floyd, but he ended the inning with a dribbler down the first base line that Floyd picked up and threw him out. One ump at first ruled it foul, but after a conference they made the correct call as it was fair, but just to hit the showers early, Eric Wedge argued the call and got booted.

Carl Pavano started, and allowed two runs on five hits in 7 innings, and wasn’t bad, but got no support at all. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out six, but was outdone by Floyd, who gave up five hits as well in 7.1, walking two and striking out five.

The Indians are now 31-47, their worst record this year in terms of being a full 16 games under .500. They have lost 6 of their last 7 at home, and 11 of their last 13. They will continue the homestand in front of a few friends and family on Tuesday night.

The Indians are not saying it, but they are not officially in rebuild mode, as Saturday night after the game the team announced they had sent third basemen Mark DeRosa to the St.Louis Cardinals for relief pitcher Chrs Perez and a player to be named later.

DeRosa was not in the lineup on Saturday night, and when asked if he knew something was up, he said that he knew once he was not in the lineup, that something was amiss. He said that while excited to be going to a team in St.Louis that is challenging for a division title, it is tough to leave the Indians, a team he really wanted to succeed with in 2009.

So with that, the Indians are down a key vet in the locker room, and the mood was somber at best as players like Kerry Wood, Victor Martinez and Carl Pavano said their good-byes to DeRosa and sat around trying to take away the sting of what is going to be another long summer, as if it has not already.

Perez will join the club on Sunday, but won’t be able to pitch till probably Monday according to GM Mark Shapiro, who said this move had to be made simply to address a serious issue with the team – the bullpen. The 23-year-old Perez has spent most of 09 in the Cards pen, going 1-1 with a save and an ERA of 4.18.

He started the 2008 season at AAA Memphis, but spent most of the year in St.Louis after being called up on May 16th. DeRosa was hitting .270 with 13 homers and 50 RBI. He was a key offseason pickup that was supposed to be a rock at third base. Now, he’ll be nothing more than a footnote for his three month Indians career.