Indians Confidential

On a rather warm spring night at Progressive Field, the Indians used a little long ball to earn their fourth straight win, a hard fought 6-4 victory over the rival New York Yankees.  It was not as easy as it sounds, as Jason Giambi took Indians starter Paul Byrd deep not once, but twice, and built a 3-1 lead for the Yankees till the Indians did a little long ball flexing of their own in the 5th.

It was in that 5th inning that Jhonny Peralta took advantage of an Andy Pettitte pitch, putting it in the bleachers for a three-run shot that gave the Indians a 4-3 lead.  Then Franklin Gutierrez took Pettitte deep in the next at-bat, giving the Indians a 5-3 lead they wouldn’t lose.  Jamey Carroll added a big insurance run in the 6th after the Yankees made it 5-4 to put the Tribe back up by two at 6-4.

Byrd went 5.2 innings, allowing four runs on six hits.  He didn’t walk a batter, nor record a strikeout, but did enough despite allowing three homers to earn his first win of the season.  The relief staff did a nice job as well, as Rafael Perez went 2.1 innings, not allowing a hit, and then Rafel Betancourt pitched a scoreless ninth, earning his second save.

The win puts the Tribe now at 11-12, and while things didn’t go perfect, they have played better over the past four days, and appear to be well on their way to being the team people thought they were when the 2008 season began.

Looks like the slump of C.C. Sabathia is finally over. Maybe just as important is the fact that the Indians offense on Tuesday night finally showed signs of life, as the team played its best game of the season, a 15-1 trouncing of the KC Royals in Kansas City. The output by the offense was by far the best this season, as they were coming in after scoring just five runs in three games in Minnesota in losing two of three over the weekend.

Casey Blake was the spark plug all night on offense, going 4-for-4 with a grand slam, two doubles a single and six RBI. He had a shot at the cycle late, but after hitting a ball down the line settled for a double instead of trying to go for a triple. The bats also saw David Dellucci, Jhonny Peralta and Franklin Gutierrez also homer in the 17-hit parade.

On to Sabathia, who finally found his control. He went six innings, allowed only four hits, and struck out 11, looking more like the Cy Young award winner from a season ago. He did walk two, but never seemed to get to that point of losing control, which is not something you can say for his previous two starts against the A’s and Tigers.

The Indians will look to win the series in game two tonight, if they do so it will be their first series win since the opening series of the year vs the White Sox. Fausto Carmona goes for the Indians at 8:10pm.

The Indians may only be seven games into the season, but already there has to be some concern about the rotation that the team wanted to use in left field this season between Jason Michaels and David Dellucci, who both have gotten off to awful starts.

Through seven games, Michales is hitting just .056, this after going 0-for-5 last night in Los Angeles with a strike out and five left on base. As for Dellucci, he has yet to get a hit this season, and in six games is 0-for-7 with two strike outs, three walks and two runs scored.

While Eric Wedge is not going to pull the plug on either player, this was a position of concern this past offseason, and it was no secret that the team was looking for a power-hitting corner outfielder to go with Grady Sizemore in center and Franklin Gutierrez, who also is not doing great through seven games, hitting just .182.

The offense is off to a slow start, which is not uncommon for this team, but the duo of Michaels and Dellucci had better start hitting at least somewhat, or this team is going to be in big trouble near the bottom of the lineup.