Indians Confidential

For a young team looking for anyway to win a game, Thursday night’s results were just what the doctor ordered for the Indians. Big hits when they needed them followed by a gutsy five-out save for a guy that should be the closer of the future spelled for a 3-2 win over the A’s at Progressive Field.

The win snaps a five-game losing streak for the Indians, and the 11,826 on hand with their dogs for “Puppypalozza” were treated to a night where they saw a good outing for Justin Masterson, and maybe even a better one for Chris Perez.

Let’s start with Masterson. He threw 6 innings, allowing two runs on five hits. He walked two and struck out three. The media continues to pepper Manny Acta with questions about the future for Masterson – on if he will be a starter or closer, but Acta keeps his answers always the same – he’s a starting pitcher now and for the future for the Indians.

Masterson moved to 5-12 with the win, a positive for a good guy who continues to do what he can to get better. On to Perez, who came in with one out in the 8th with the A’s having the tying run on second and go-ahead run on first thanks to two walks by Joe Smith.

Perez, pitching fearless as always, got a strikeout, then a soft groundout to first to end the inning. He allowed a hit in the 9th with one out, but got two strikeouts to end the game with a sigh of relief.

It was the 16th save for Perez, a guy that had to wait his turn for the team to finally trade bust Kerry Wood to the Yankees about a month ago.

As for the hitting, it was Matt LaPorta playing the role of hero, as with the Indians down 2-1 in the 6th he crushed an 0-0 pitch to left for his 8th homer of the season and the two-run shot was the difference as it gave the Indians a 3-2 lead.

LaPorta had been in the midst of a slump, but was able to get a hold of the Vin Mazzaro pitch and make sure it left the park to give the Tribe the one-run lead.

The Tribe are now 18-16 in one run games, and while they don’t win much when they score less than three runs (are just 10-53 in that department), they were able to do enough to get the win tonight.

They start a series with the Royals on Friday at Progressive Field.

Indians manager Manny Acta talks with the media prior to the Indians-Yankees 7/28 game at Progressive Field. He talks about the status of injured closer Kerry Wood, the mentality of closer Chris Perez, why Josh Tomlin got the start on Tuesday night, and the comeback of pitcher Anthony Reyes.

Coming into this season the Indians were supposed to be a solid hitting team with many question marks pointed straight at the pitching staff.

Now we are nearing the All-Star break and the Tribe’s pitchers are starting to be the strength of the team. In the last five games, every starter has earned the win with closer Kerry Wood getting three saves.

The other two games were saved by Chris Perez on Wednesday night, and Frank Herrmann getting his first Major League save yesterday afternoon completing a four game sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays.

This was also the first four game sweep of the Jays since 1995. Overall the pitching staff has a home ERA of 4.16 and a road ERA of 5.14 this year. Starter Justin Masterson has looked stronger and stronger each time he takes the mound.

Opening day starter Jake Westbrook is 5-2 with a 4.18 ERA over his last ten starts. Fausto Carmona is 7-6 with a 3.68 ERA, and Mitch Talbot is 8-6 with a 3.88 ERA this season. With the struggling David Huff (2-9, 6.04 ERA) being sent down to AAA Columbus, Aaron Laffey (1-2, 5.55 ERA) has been put into the fifth starter spot for now.

The bullpen has settled in with Chris Perez (0-2, 2.90 ERA) setting up for Wood (1-3, 6.62 ERA) nicely at the back end. Herrmann (0-0, 2.13 ERA) has pitched extremely well in his thirteen appearances walking only two batters while striking out seven. The bullpen has a record of 5-14 with a 4.94 ERA through 72 games.

Aaron Laffey’s first start with the Indians didn’t go so hot, throwing just four innings allowing five runs in a 10-3 loss to the Reds last Friday.

Wednesday night at Progressive Field, he was about as opposite of that start as you can get, going six solid innings in the Tribe’s 4th straight win – 3-1 over the slumping Blue Jays.

Laffey, who was on all night with his off-speed pitches, allowed just one run on five hits in six innings. He walked two, struck out five, and threw 97 pitches on the night, 56 were strikes.

“More strikes,” Indians manager Manny Acta said of the turnaround for Laffey from Friday. “He’s a guy that doesn’t have overpowering stuff, and he can’t afford to be pitching behind in the count, and today he threw about 60 percent of his pitches for strikes.”

The offense played long ball for two of their three runs, as Shin-Soo Choo hit a first inning homer, his team high 13th of the year to give the Indians an early 1-0 lead.

Carlos Santana got his 15th RBI of the year with a single in the 6th to make it 2-0. Then after Toronto scored their only run of the game in the 7th to make it 2-1, Matt LaPorta hit his second homer in as many nights, a 414 foot shot to make it 3-1.

LaPorta has two homers and has hit the ball well in the three games here at home after going 0-for-4 in his first start at Cincy on Sunday.

The game was closed out by Chris Perez, not Kerry Wood, who was given the night off after three saves in a row. For Perez, it was his 7th save of the 2010 season.

“It’s a luxury we have right now,” Acta said. “The fact that Chris has already closed games for us at the beginning of the season, it’s a nice commodity to have.”

Winners of now four in a row, the team is 17 games under .500, and will look for the sweep with an afternoon game at 12:05pm Thursday at Progressive Field.

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.