Indians Confidential

Um, who exactly are these guys?

Yes, the Indians are actually playing pretty good baseball for the last week, as Sunday vs the Mariners in the great Northwest wrapped up a three-game sweep with an impressive 12-3 win. Maybe if they would have played a little more like this in the first half when they fell 20 games under .500, these big wins wouldn’t mean as little as they do.

Sunday’s win was highlighted by a player that a lot of teams are talking about – Cliff Lee. If it’s not in trade rumors, Lee is still getting some highlights since he’s the best player the Indians have this season. He allowed two runs in the first, but then shut down the Mariners the rest of the way, allowing just six hits in seven innings, not walking a batter and striking out four to move to 7-9.

The Indians offense feasted on Seattle pitching all weekend long, outscoring them 31-5 in the three-game beating. They won games with scores of 9-0, 10-3 and now 12-3. Sunday they pounded out 16 more hits, and every player in the lineup minus Kelly Shoppach who walked twice, got a hit.

Grady Sizemore hit a homer and went 2-for-5 with two runs scored. Asdrubal Cabrera, Shin Soo-Choo, Jhonny Peralta, and Travis Hafner all had two hits. Ben Francisco had three hits in going 3-for-5 and raising his average to .243. Ryan Garko had one hit and is hitting .285.

The Indians had a good time all the way around in Seattle, and have won five of their last 6, their best stretch of the 2009 season. They will get a day off Monday before playing the Angels of Anahiem in a three-game set starting on Tuesday.

In the final home game of the unofficial first half of the season at Progressive Field, the Indians whimpered out to a pitcher they had never heard of, and once again provided their ace, Cliff Lee, with little offense and a severe lack of run support in the teams latest setback – 5-2.

Lee was once again not nearly as impressive as he was earlier in the season, as he went six innings, allowing three runs on 8 hits with four walks and three strikeouts. He threw 112 pitches in the six innings to an A’s team that was losers in 8 of their last 10 games, and had struggled in the first two games at Progressive Field over the weekend.

The Indians offense basically took a day off, as Oakland starter Gio Gonzalez, who entered Sunday with an ERA of 7.27, held them in check for a good portion of the day. Gonzlaez went 6 innings, allowing two runs on six hits. He walked just one and got the free swinging Indians to wiff on a career-high for him 8 strikeouts.

The win for the A’s pitcher was his first of the season, and came at a time where the Indians had found some offense, scoring 20 runs in two games over the weekend to date. Maybe the club had used all their fireworks Friday and Saturday, and couldn’t afford many more runs as they get set to head to the road before the All-Star break.

Lee has had two tough outings in losing two in a row after two straight no decisions. Against the White Sox June 30th he allowed 7 runs on 11 hits in just three innings. While he clearly was better against the A’s, he still seemed to be a bit off, and the fact the offense did little probably didn’t give him much confidence to work with.

Oakland scored a run in the first off Lee, then the Indians tied it off Gonzalez with a Grady Sizemore double to bring in Jamey Carroll. Oakland put up single runs in the 5th and 6th to make it 3-1, but again the Indians rallied. They got a homer from Jhonny Peralta (5th) to make it 3-2.

The A’s though got a run in the 8th off a double play ball, and then in the 9th sealed the deal with an Orlando Cabrera homer (3rd) to make it 5-2. The A’s lone All-Star, pitcher Andrew Bailey stopped the Indians with 1.1 innings allowing just one hit to close out the Oakland win.

The loss puts the Indians at 33-50 after 83 games. They will play in Chicago on Tuesday after a day off Monday.

The homestand that stated so badly appears to be headed for a bright ending, as for the second straight day the Indians nicely dispatched the awful Oakland A’s, topping them with a 5-2 win to improve to 33-49 on the season. It’s the teams second straight win after a five-game losing streak that had the entire organization pulling its hair out.

The long ball was the teams best friend on this 4th of July night, as Ben Francisco went deep off of A’s starter Vin Mazzaro in the third inning to give the Tribe a 3-1 lead. Grady Sizemore went deep in the 6th to pad the lead to 4-1. The Indians allowed a run in the 7th to make it 4-2, but then Sizemore got a RBI ground out in the 7th to push the lead to the final of 5-2.

For Francisco, he went 3-for-3 to push his average to .246 on the year. His homer was his 6th of the season and he also stole third. Sizemore’s blast was his 11th of the season, and he went 2-for-4 with two RBI and is batting .230 on the season. The Indians pounded out 10 hits to the A’s 8.

Carl Pavano was not spectacular, but was good enough to get the win to improve to 7-7 on the season. He allowed a run in the first, but then settled down and went 6.2 innings, allowing two runs on 8 hits with two walks and three strikeouts. His ERA drops to 5.36 on the season. Tony Sipp, Joe Smith and Kerry Wood rounded out the night on the mound for the Indians, with Wood earning his 10th save.

If the Indians can complete the sweep of the A’s Sunday, they will wrap up the homestand 4-5. While it’s still under .500, considering they were 1-2 vs the Reds and then were swept by the White Sox, they will take it. Sunday is also a shot for Cliff Lee to get on track after his awful outing last week vs the Sox. He’ll go for the Indians vs Gio Gonzalez (0-2, 7.27).

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.

In a lost season, there are times that there seems to be little good to write about, and Sunday at Progressive Field, that notion was exactly the case. On a breezy, warm day, the Indians were as flat as could be, scoring a run in the first inning but doing nothing good after that in a 8-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. About the only positive from the game is that it wraps up the 2009 version of Interleague play, and considering the Indians, who use to dominate the NL, went 5-13, it’s a very good thing it’s over.

David Huff, who was sharp in his last outing at PNC Park vs Pittsburgh, started good, but quickly went bad. He was on the first two innings, but the Reds quickly got to him in the third, and put up a four-spot as it was all the runs they would need in the win that puts them at .500 on the season at 37-37. Huff suffered his 3rd loss of the year, and the setback snaps his personal three-game winning streak. He allowed 7 runs on 9 hits in five innings. The 7 runs he gave up was a career-high.

The Indians offense started hot with back-to-back hits from returning Asdrubal Cabrera and Grady Sizemore off Reds starter Micah Owinga. A Victor Martinez sac fly gave the Tribe the short-lived 1-0 lead. After that, Owinga settled in, and the team managed just five hits the rest of the day, and never scored again. Sizemore did extend his hitting streak to 9 games, and Jhonny Peralta going 1-for-3 to raise his average over the last 10 games to .333 (13-39) were about the only two offensive highlights.

The Tribe has lost 10 of its last 12 games, and to say that Eric Wedge is on shakey ground at the moment has got to be an understatement. The team is now 31-46, a full 15 games under .500, and they are 17-21 at home. The Mark DeRosa trade seems to be the start of what easily could be a few, and there are already rumblings about moving players like Martinez and Kerry Wood. Let’s just say Progressive Field is not exactly going to be a hot spot this summer after all.

Tuesday night was a classic case of the Indians once again being able to put runners on base, but not being able to come up with the big hit when they needed it most in their latest setback, a 7-5 loss to the Brewers. The team went hitless in 14 tries with runners in scoring position and left 12 runners stranded overall until Travis Hafner hit a two-run homer with one out in the ninth to make it 7-5.

Yovani Gallardo (7-3) gave up two runs and five hits while striking out eight to earn the win for the Brewers. He twice worked out of bases-loaded jams as the Tribe was snake bitten by the bug of not getting that big hit when they needed it.

In the 5th, Chris Gimenez struck out with the bases loaded after Milwaukee had scored two runs in the top of the inning to take a 3-2 lead. The key to the close game though was again the Indians soft bullpen, which allowed the Brewers to score three key runs in the 8th inning to turn a 4-3 game into a 7-3 game.

To blame was Jensen Lewis, who allowed a big triple to Mike Cameron and then a run scoring single to Jason Kendell. Then Rafael Perez, Monday night’s goat, was able to get out of the inning, but by then it was too little, too late.

Mark DeRosa got the team off to a good start, hitting his 13th homer of the season in the 1st inning to give the team a 2-0 lead. Jeremy Sowers crusied through 3 innings, then per usual allowed a run in the 4th and then two in the 5th to suffer his 4th loss of the year. Overall Sowers went 5 innings, allowing 3 runs on 5 hits, with two walks and two strikeouts.

Wednesday the 9-game homestand concludes as David Huff (2-2, 7.39) goes for the Indians vs Jeff Suppan (5-4, 4.58) for Milwaukee at 7:05pm.

While Sunday nights game vs St.Louis was a pitchers duel in every stretch of the word, Monday’s matchup with the Brewers was more like a bad beer league softball game. Walks, blown leads, six homers, and 26 runs later, the Indians again have only themselves to blame for a sickening 14-12 setback to a Milwaukee team that looked like more than once they were ready to pack it in for the night. The Indians blew some big leads – 8-3 in the 4th and 12-7 after 6 innings.

They still lead 12-8 heading into the 8th, when the bullpen from Hell, who had been doing much better as of late, went back to the form that gave the team this lousy record in the first place. Luis Vizcano started the inning for the Indians, and got an out but then allowed two walks. Matt Herges then came in and gave up another walk to load the bases, and then a sac fly to make it a 12-9 game. Enter Rafael Perez. The matchup for Perez is one that he probably wishes wouldn’t have happened, as power hitter Prince Fielder took his first pitch, a rather weak attempt at a fastball, and deposited it 400 feet into the stands for a grand slam and a 13-12 Milwaukee lead.

That wasn’t all.

Perez then allowed a single, a walk, and then another single by Matt Gamel to score another big insurance run to put the Brewers ahead by two at 14-12. Perez, was loudly booed by the Indians faithful at Progressive Field as he left the game, and he deserved it. The Indians were able to get out of the inning, but by then the offense was pooped after putting up 12 runs and could do no more, finally settling for the two-run setback.

The offense can’t be blamed, as the team hit four homers (Shin-Soo Choo, Victor Martinez, Mark DeRosa, and Travis Hafner), and had 11 hits. They were able to build those big leads, only to see the pitching staff, led by starter Carl Pavano who has now had two bad starts in a row, give it right back, and then some. Milwaukee seemed dead after they were able to get to 8-7 in the 6th, and then DeRosa and Hafner each homered in the bottom of the inning to build on the lead to 12-7.

The team got just five innings out of Pavano, who allowed 6 earned runs on 9 hits, walking one and striking out two.

The Tribe is now 29-37 on the year, and 4-3 as the homestand enters its final two games vs Milwaukee Tuesday and Wednesday night both at 7:05pm.