Indians Confidential

When Cliff Lee walked two of the first three hitters on Sunday night, it looked like it was going to be one of THOSE nights for the Indians and last years Cy Young award winner. What we all didn’t know was that 8 innings later, Lee would still be throwing without allowing another walk, and even better, not allowing a hit.

For the first time in quite awhile, an Indians pitcher flirted big-time with a no-hitter, as Lee took a no-no into the 8th inning as he finally got some run support as the Tribe won another series, topping St.Louis 3-0. Lee finally allowed a hit with no outs in the 8th, giving up a clean double off the wall to Yadier Molina.

The funny thing is that Lee wasn’t phased by the hit, and knew that he had to keep throwing zeros, as the Indians held the three-run lead, but he wasn’t secure in thinking that the game was over by any means. He was able to get the last six outs, and ended up allowing two walks and three hits in the shutout win.

For Lee it was his 3rd career shutout, 8th career complete game, and he’s now 4-4 with a 2.07 ERA over his last 12 starts. The club has won 12 of their last 20 games, and have won 10 of their last 15 at home, which is a nice sign for a team that couldn’t win anywhere early in the season.

The offense didn’t let Lee hang on for some runs too long, as Mark DeRosa hit a two-run homer in the first off of Chris Carpenter for a quick Tribe lead. Kelly Shoppach, was was thrown out at the plate earlier in the game, hit a solo homer in the 5th to round out the scoring.

Carpenter was no pushover for Indians hitters, as coming in he was 4-0 with a 1.23 ERA. The Indians should be proud with the fact they have won games the past few days going up against two of baseballs best – Carpenter and KC’s Zack Greinke.

Back to the offense, DeRosa is hitting .340 in his last 12 games and has hit safely in 10 of his last 12 games, with three homers and 10 RBI. Over his last four games he has gone 6-for-1 with a homer and two RBI.

The Indians will look to keep the wins at home going on Monday, as they start a three-game set vs the Milwaukee Brewers. Now at 29-36, the club is in last in the division, but just 6 games out.

While the Indians have finally gotten to .500 at home at 15-15, the bigger thing that came out of Friday night’s game is the maturation process continued for pitcher David Huff. The Tribe topped St.Louis 7-3, and with it Huff again was impressive, going 7.1 innings, allowing three runs on six hits. He walked two and struck out five.

The offense did a solid job against Cards starter Joel Pineiro, getting to him for three runs on 7 hits in 6.1 innings. The key though was the Indians 7th, as against Pineiro, Jason Motte, Dennis Reyes and Kyle McClellan the team pushed three runs across, the biggest hit a Shin-Soo Choo single that scored a pair of runs.

St.Louis started to rally in the 8th, as they got runners on against Huff, then put two runs across to make it a 5-3 game. Joe Smith and Rafael Perez were able to get the last two outs of the inning though, and then the offense again was able to get some runs, scoring two to make it a 7-3 game for Kerry Wood in the 9th.

The Tribe closer was able to pitch a 1-2-3 inning and gain the team their 11th win in 18 games, and have won 9 of their last 13 at home. The bigger stat is that the bullpen is finally doing as it’s being paid to do, as they have allowed just one run in their last 14 innings covering the last four games.

On offense, the team was patient, putting up 11 hits, and again seemed to get the big hits when called upon. Mark DeRosa was 2-for-5, and Jamey Carroll as 2-for-4 and is hitting .359 over his last 11 games. The team moves to 28-35 overall.

Saturday the team will play a 4:10 game at home vs the Cardinals. Tomo Ohka (0-0, 5.40) goes for Cleveland vs Brad Thompson (0-2, 4.50).

C.C. Sabathia’s first 7 and a half seasons were spent hearing cheers from fans at Progressive Field, as he helped the Indians do their best to win games. Saturday night for the first time in his career, he was back in Cleveland in another uniform, the uniform of the New York Yankees.

Sabathia got some applause, but no matter how the crowd reacted, it really didn’t matter, as the Yankee offense did more than enough for him against Fausto Carmona to earn his 5th win of the season as the Yanks beat the Indians 10-5. C.C. went 7 innings, allowing three runs on five hits, walking three and striking out eight.

Carmona was pretty awful. He threw four innings, and never showed much, allowing 7 runs, four earned, on 8 hits, walking two and striking out two. He was supposed to be the number two man in the Tribe rotation, but has only one win in his last 8 outings, and falls to 2-5 on the season.

New York put up a pair in the second on two long homers that began their hit parade. The first homer was from Jorge Posada, the second a bomb from Nick Swisher that gave the team the 2-0 lead. The undoing of Carmona was the 4th, as he allowed nine Yankees to the plate as Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon and Robinson Cano all got RBI hits to make it a 7-0 lead.

After not putting up a hit in the first four innigs, the Tribe finally got on the board with two runs in the 5th. Ryan Garko and Jamey Carroll each had RBI hits to make it a 7-2 game. New York though answered right back, as Damon hit a ground out that scored Brett Gardner to make it 8-2.

A Grady Sizemore homer made it 8-3, and then the teams traded two runs each in the 9th, with the Tribe runs coming from a Shin-Soo Choo homer and Ben Francisco double to close the scoring at 10-5.

The bright spot for the Indians was the relief throwing of Tomo Ohka, who was able to save the bullpen by throwing five innings, allowing three runs on five hits with a walk and three strikeouts.

The team has lost two in a row after their four-game win streak. Sunday now at 21-30 they will put out Carl Pavano (5-4, 5.50) vs Phil Hughes at 12:40 p.m.

On a day when Mother Nature once again did her part to try and stop baseball, the Rays simply seemed to want to get out of town, and for the Indians – they’ll take it. David Huff started for the Indians, threw four shutout innings till the rain, and then three other pitchers held the Rays pretty much in check as the Indians swept the Rays with a 2-1 win at Progressive Field.

The sweep is the first four-game sweep for the Indians since – well, the Rays – last season July 10th through the 13th at Progressive Field. To say that the Indians have the Rays number at home is an understatement. They have won 17 in a row vs Tampa Bay at home, it’s the Rays longest losing streak against one team in their history.

From the Indians standpoint, they finally seem to be playing with a little bit of confidence. Despite some rain delays this homestand vs the Rays, they were able to hit, get some timely pitching, and didn’t make the big defensive mistakes that really put the team behind the 8-ball early in this 09 season.

The only Indians runs came in the 3rd and the 5th, and both came from Victor Martinez. The first was a groundout to score Asdrubal Cabrera to make it 1-0, and the second was a single that allowed Kelly Shoppach to score to give the team a 2-0 advantage.

Tampa Bay’s only run came from Willy Aybar, who homered in the 6th off of Jensen Lewis to make it a 2-1 Tribe lead. From there, the Indians pitching took over. Matt Herges went 1.2 innings, earning the win and allowing just one hit and striking out three.

Rafael Betancourt pitched a scoreless 8th, walking one and striking out two, and Kerry Wood pitched a scoreless 9th to earn his 8th save of the season.

The team is now 21-28, 11-11 at home, where they will stay for four more games as they welcome the Yankees starting on Friday night.

The Indians first trip in 2009 to the Queen City on Friday night saw their short lived two-game winning streak snapped, as they fell to the Reds 3-1. The team got a rather crazy outing from starting pitcher Anthony Reyes, who went just three innings, walking a career-high six batters and hitting another and then leaving with an inflamed pitching elbow.

Jensen Lewis did a nice job in long relief, going three innings and allowing just one hit, walking one and striking out two. Aaron Laffey took the loss, as in 1.1 innings he gave up two runs on two hits. Adam Rosales doubled home the go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth to put the Reds ahead for good.

The Indians on offense were shut down by Bronson Arroyo, who went 8 innings, allowing one run on five hits with two walks and two strikeouts. The only Tribe run was a solo homer in the first from Grady Sizemore (8th), as he hit in the number two hole.

Cleveland now sits at 16-27, and they have the worst winning percentage in the American League. Saturday they will throw David Huff against the Reds at 7:10pm.

When your the worst team in baseball, defeats usually come easy. Even with that said, Tuesday nights 6-5 loss to the Royals easily could have been the toughest loss the Indians have had to swallow in a number of years.

Yeah, I know, you could have said that about the loss the other night in Tampa Bay when the team was up 7-0, but Tuesday night vs KC, the loss was as stunning as any we’ve seen for some time.

Why did it hurt so much? Well, the team took a 5-2 lead in the 9th after another solid outing by Cliff Lee, and turned it over to their biggest offseason pickup – closer Kerry Wood. Even though he had not had many save chances this season, Wood is a player that probably most Indians fans thought they could count on.

Not anymore.

Wood was as bad as any other bad Indians relief pitcher, as he allowed Mike Jacobs and Mark Teahen to hit back-to-back homers, then gave up a walk, a triple to tie the game, then a sac fly to end the shocker with a 6-5 setback. It happened just that quick.

How bad is this team right now? The bullpen has nine blown saves in 16 opportunities. Wood has blown two saves and has an 8.31 ERA. They flat out stink. The team is now 14-26, and is 8.5 out of first. It seemed like with the teams slow start they would be out of the AL Central race by Memorial Day…right now, it could very well be sooner.

Lee was very good – again. He went 8 innings, allowing two runs on 8 hits with no walks and three strikeouts. With the way things are going, he could be the second straight Cy Young award winner to be traded by the Indians before the trade deadline even hits. After all, if the team can’t feel they can re-sign him in two years, why not deal him now and rebuild.

All your doing is wasting him here, with a club that clearly is going nowhere.

This years Indians are so bad, they even allowed a pitcher on Sunday to drive in a run in what became their 25th loss of the season. That pitcher was Andy Sonnanstine, who due to a lineup mixup by manager Joe Maddon was forced to hit in the 9 hole, and of course against new Indians pitcher David Huff he had an RBI double.

It was just one of a couple of crazy things to happen to Huff and the Indians as they fell to the Rays 7-5 on Sunday. It was the third straight loss for the Indians, and after a brief winning streak they now find themselves 11 games under .500 at 14-25, and are 7.5 games back in an AL Central that is quickly slipping away.

Huff, who got the call-up to start on Sunday, wasn’t very good. He allowed 7 runs on 7 hits in 3.2 innings, walking four and striking out two. “He was erratic,” manager Eric Wedge said. “You could tell he was a little nervous early on. I don’t think we saw his ‘A’ game today. I think he was just fighting to control the baseball with most of his pitches. It still stems off the fastball command, and it was tight up there today.”

Wedge tried to shake-up the lineup a bit, sitting struggling Grady Sizemore, and putting hot hitting Asdrubal Cabrera at the leadoff spot. Jamey Carroll hit second and played second, while Cabrera played short and Shin-Soo Choo hit fourth. Ben Francisco did a great job playing in place of Sizemore, hitting two homers and putting up four RBI.

The Tribe did get screwed in the 8th, as a ball hit by Ryan Garko that should have been a double was ruled an out. The fly to left hit the top of the padded portion of the wall and bounced back into Carl Crawford’s, who was playing left, hand. The umpires ruled that the ball hit Crawford’s glove before bouncing into his hand, resulting in an out, but replays showed that it hit the wall.

Just another thing against the Indians in what is quickly is starting to be more and more of a frustrating season. “It’s been frustrating for a while,” Kerry Wood said. “I don’t think it can get a whole lot more frustrating than where we’re at right now. At least I hope not.”

Drop a couple more games in KC this week, and we’ll see how those calls to talk shows asking for Wedge’s head grow louder.