Indians Confidential

The first words that come out of most fans mouths when they see an Indians relief pitcher coming in the game are as follows: ‘Uh Oh.”

That could have been the case per usual Friday night at PNC Park in Pittsburgh as the Indians had built a 4-0 lead over the Pirates in the 7th inning behind a strong outing by Fausto Carmona.

But just as quickly as the Indians got a lead, they came close to giving it right back when Ryan Church slammed a double to make it a 4-3 game in the bottom of the inning.

Enter Rafael Perez, who was able to get two huge outs, and Manny Acta went to Frank Herrmann with Church on third with two outs.

The former Harvard student got Ronny Cedeno to fly out to end the inning, and two perfect relief innings later the Indians four game losing streak was in the bag with a 4-3 win.

“I don’t want to say it was over, but the way he (Carmona) was pitching it kinda looked like it was,” Chris Perez said. “We did our job, guys are starting to step up and settle in, that’s how you draw it up.”

Chris Perez pitched a scoreless 8th, then Kerry Wood went 1-2-3 in the ninth to send Pittsburgh to their 12th straight loss, and put the Indians back to 14 games under .500 at 26-40 on the year.

The game was scoreless going into the 7th as Pirates starter Paul Maholm was as good as Carmona, but the Tribe got some big hits in that 7th, with Jason Donald, Aaron Hernandez and the returning Trevor Crowe coming up big.

“That inning we just put a bunch of quality at-bats together back to back,” Trevor Crowe said.

Up to that point, it was a pitchers duel. Carmona stuck out five in the first three innings, and Maholm didn’t allow much if anything to Indians hitters. It was a battle between two teams simply trying to get a run across till the Indians finally broke through with that big 7th.

“It’s tough because he was making a lot of quality pitches and we hadn’t see him that much, if you go up there with the mindset of putting together good at-bats eventually you’ll come though,” Crowe said.

Then it was a wild 7th with 7 total runs, maybe the biggest out though was Herrmann getting Cedeno to fly out to end the inning, this after he fell behind in the count 0-2 to the Pirates short stop.

“I have confidence I can throw the ball in the zone, so if I fall behind I don’t get too concerned about it,” Herrmann said.

The same two teams again Saturday at 7:05 pm as David Huff goes for the Indians against Jeff Karstens for Pittsburgh.

Two struggling teams go at it tonight at PNC Park in Pittsburgh as the Indians, losers of four in a row take on the Pirates, a team that has dropped 11 straight. Fausto Carmona goes for the Indians against Paul Maholm for Pittsburgh. Matt Loede of Indians Confidential has the story.

Tonight’s game against the Boston Red Sox was just a case of running into good pitching. The final score of four to one makes the game seem a lot closer than it really was. Boston’s starting pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka went eight strong innings only giving up four hits and while walking two batters.

The only time a Tribe batter went past first base while he was pitching was when Trevor Crowe stole second base after a walk in the third inning. Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona was not as sharp as his opponent giving up five hits and walking six. The Sox scored on a sacrifice fly by first baseman Kevin Youkilis in the top of the first inning and never looked back.

They then kept it up by scoring a run in the third, seventh, and eighth innings. Boston’s short stop Marco Scutaro had a solid night going 3 for 4 with a walk and three doubles. The only scoring the Indians had was on a 3-2 pitch to left fielder Austin Kearns from relief pitcher Daniel Bard in the ninth inning that went out of the park going 408 feet.

After today’s loss the Indians are 3-10 this year against the A.L. East with three more games left in this series. Tomorrow’s scheduled starters are David Huff (2-6, 6.08 ERA) vs. Tim Wakefield (1-4, 6.02 ERA).

The Yankees hadn’t hit Robinson Cano in the 4-hole the whole season. Friday night against the Indians, he got his shot, and took advantage of it against Fausto Carmona, Tony Sipp and the Tribe. Cano crushed a poor Sipp pitch for a grand slam, and went 3-for-4 with a homer and a walk as the Indians were beat up by the Yankees 8-2.

Carmona tried to keep the Indians in the game by limiting damage, but still allowed four runs on seven hits in six innings, falling to 4-3 on the season. He walked three, struck out three, and allowed an early homer to Nick Swisher that gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead in the second inning.

The Indians offense was hamstrung by Phil Hughes, who moves to 6-1 on the season. In 7 innings he allowed just two runs, giving up 5 hits, striking out 8 and walking one. His only mistake was a Russell Branyan blast that put the Indians within 4-2, which is the closest they would get.

Sipp came in and quickly allowed the bases to get loaded, and then threw a fat ball to Cano who crushed it to make it 8-2 Yankees in the bottom of the 7th.

A Jhonny Peralta double in the 4th scored Travis Hafner for the Indians first run to make it a 2-1 game. They were only able to get one more run, and that came on the Branyan blast. Now at 17-29, they are 12 games under .500, which is the low point of the season.

The next ten days can be make or break for the Tribe this season. Tonight is the first game of their longest road trip this season. Right hander Fausto Carmona (4-2, 3.45 ERA) kicks things off in the Bronx tonight against fellow righty Phil Hughes (5-1, 2.72 ERA). T

he Indians have a four game set against the Yankees that will wrap around the Memorial Day weekend. After that, they will be in Detroit for three games and off to the south side of Chicago to wrap things up against the Sox for three games. How they do on this trip could determine what direction they take regarding the upcoming July 31 trade deadline.

Right now they are ten games out of first place in the central division, and are looking up at the whole division in the standings. With six of the ten games on this road trip against central division rivals, the outcome can determine whether they are in the thick of it or are Clevelanders going to turn their attention towards the Brown’s training camp a little early this summer.

Don’t look now, but the Indians are on a modest three-game winning streak. Wednesday night in KC the team once again got a solid pitching performance from Fausto Carmona, and Russell Branyan hit his third homer in two games as the team scored a 4-0 shutout over the Royals to move to 13-18 on the season. Carmona moves to 4-1 on the season, and though he went just 5 innings due to a couple rain delays, he shut down the Royals allowing five hits, two walks and two strikeouts.

Carmona clearly looks more like the pitcher of 2007 than that of 08 or 09. His season ERA is at 3.43, and he has had the most quality starts on the team. He seems a lot more confident on the mound, and has been able to pitch out of trouble when things haven’t quite gone his way either due to him walking batters or the defense not doing him any favors.

From the offensive side, Branyan hit a two-run homer, his third of the year, giving the Indians a 4-0 lead that would be more than enough to help Carmona and company complete the shutout. The other two RBI came from Asdrubal Cabrera in the 5th, as the game was a stalemate to that point after rain halted the game for awhile for the sparse crowd at Kauffman Stadium.

The team put up 11 hits, with Cabrera, Branyan and Jhonny Peralta each with two hits. Branyan is starting to come around it seems, as not only does he have the 3 homers in two games, but he also is up to 7 RBI and is hitting .273. His power numbers are something this team is going to need big time if they are going to continue to try and get back to .500.

The Tribe will look to sweep KC and match their longest win streak of the season of four games on Thursday afternoon.

Sometimes it’s not about how many hits you have, it’s about when you get them. The Indians showed that if you hit at the right time, you don’t always need 15 hits to win a game, as Saturday in Oakland the team took advantage of some big two out hits in topping the A’s 6-1 to improve to 8-9 on the season.

While the Tribe may be a very young team, Saturday it was two of their few grizzled vets that came up with big hits, as Mark Grudzielanek hit a tiebreaking RBI single with two outs in the eighth inning, and Austin Kearns had three hits and three runs batted in to help the Indians gain the win.

On the mound, Fausto Carmona continued his comeback season, as he looked good, going 7 1-3 innings and allowing just one run and striking out four while lowering his ERA to 2.96. He allowed 7 hits in his outing, but none were killers, like when the Indians came up with two outs.

The Indians were down 1-0 when Shin-Soo Choo got a two-out RBI to tie the game at one in the 6th off A’s starter young Brett Anderson. To that point, Anderson had made rather easy work of the Indians, setting down 15 of the first 17 batters he faced.

The offense finally took advantage of good pitching, as after being shut out Friday night they had been held to one run or less in three of their previous four games. They put up 6 runs on 9 hits, and the win also snaps six-game losing streak to Oakland. It is only the Indians’ fourth win in their last 26 road games dating back to last season.

Sunday they will look to win the series with Justin Masterson going for the Indians at 4:05pm.

You have to wonder if the White Sox have nightmares about the Indians at this point. The Sox, a team expected to be right in the thick of things in the weak AL Central, were dispatched again by the Indians Sunday, as the Tribe earned a three-game sweep with a 7-4 win to move to 6-6 on the young season. Cleveland is now 5-1 against Chicago less than a month into the season.

The Indians pounded White Sox starter Gavin Floyd, as Shin-Soo Choo continued his torrid week with a grand slam in the second inning to put the Indians up 7-0 after they had gone up 3-0 in the first inning. In that first inning the Indians got a key two-out hit by DH Mark Grudzielanek, who was hitting .091 entering the game. The single brought in a pair of runs to give the Indians the 3-0 lead.

In that second inning, a pair of walks around a single by Asdrubal Cabrera loaded the bases for Choo. He crushed Floyd’s pitch over the Key Bank sign in left center for the teams second grand slam of the season. In the last week, Choo has four homers, 11 RBI and 12 hits.

Fausto Carmona worked 6 innings to move to 2-0 on the season, both wins coming against Chicago. He ran into trouble in the 5th when the Sox sent 8 batters to the plate, scoring three times. Carmona went 6 innings, throwing 96 pitches. He allowed three runs on 6 hits, walked two and struck out four.

Rafael Perez, Aaron Laffey, Joe Smith, Tony Sipp and Chris Perez all came on in relief, with Sipp giving up a run in the 9th. Otherwise, the rest were able to shut down the Sox and help Carmona earn the win. Perez earned his 4th save, his second in two days.

“Whenever you get 6 or 7 quality innnings from your starters and the offense today spotted us a nice lead early, we’re finding ways to win, and that’s the sign of a good team,” Perez said. “I’m not saying we’re good yet, but we’re getting there.”

The first homestand for the Indians is in the books, and after two poor games against the Rangers, they rallied to win four in a row to go 4-2 in their first six games at Progressive Field. They head to the road for a 9-game trip, as they will play three in new Target Field in Minnesota, then three in Oakland against the surprising A’s and three in LA against the Angels.