Indians Confidential

The effort was a lot better on Wednesday night in Texas, but the results were the same, as in the end the Indians fell to the Rangers 4-3. The Indians held a 3-1 lead after four and a half innings, but the Rangers, maybe the best team in the AL West, rallied for three unanswered runs for the win.

Up 3-1, Ranger Michael Young hit a two-run homer in the fifth that tied the game off Indians pitcher Mitch Talbot. Julio Borbon’s two-out single up the middle in the sixth put Texas ahead for good, and earned Talbot the loss to put him at 8-8 on the year.

The Indians built the lead after Jayson Nix homered for the fourth time in three games. Jhonny Peralta singled in another run for the Indians to give them a 2-1 lead, and an error that allowed Michael Brantley to score gave the Tribe the two-run lead.

Nix has been a great story for the Indians, coming out of nowhere to being a solid starter at secondbase over the last 10 days. Coming aboard on June 24th, he was batting only .163 with a homer and five RBIs in 24 games for Chicago. He’s been more productive in his 12 games for the Indians with five homers and eight RBIs.

Talbot though could not finish the job after Nix and co. gave him a lead. He lasted 5.2 innings, allowing four runs on seven hits, walking three and striking out four.

Colby Lewis got the win for Texas, he went six innings, allowing two earned runs on six hits. He struck out 8, walking two, and improves to 8-5 on the year. Ranger rookie closer Neftali Feliz pitched the 9th for his AL leading 23rd save.

The now 33-51 Indians will head east to Tampa to play the Rays starting on Thursday.

The road to Texas has not been an easy one in years past for the Indians, but Monday night they used the long ball along with a good outing from pen to top the first place Rangers 8-3.

Not all went well though for the Tribe, as first basemen Matt LaPorta, who has been hitting well since his return from Triple-A, left the game after getting elbowed in the head playing first.

All LaPorta had done to that point was walked and scored in his first at-bat, then in the third hit a two-run bomb, his 5th of the year, to give the Indians a 4-0 lead.

“He was actually feeling nausea and he threw up a little bit too,” Indians manager Manny Acta said. “It was a no-brainer to take him out of the game.”

LaPorta was taken to a hospital for a precautionary CT scan. LaPorta suffered a concussion when he was hit in the head by a pitch while playing for Team USA in the 2008 Olympics, and the Indians didn’t want to take any chances with one of their top young players, and right now, maybe their best offensive threat.

His teammates picked him up though, as Carlos Santana hit a second deck homer, and recent pickup Jayson Nix hit two bombs in the five-run win.

Nix did it in front of family and friends, as was born and still lives in Dallas in the offseason. “It’s a special night,” said Nix, who had 15 family members and friends at the game. “It’s great to be here at home and playing here. To be able to do that in front of them is special.”

Laffey had a 6-2 lead, but could only go 4.1 innings, and gave way to the pen. Sinkerballer Joe Smith got the win to move to 1-1, he allowed two hits in 1 2-3 innings of scoreless relief for his first major league victory.

The Indians are now 16 games under .500, not bad considering it was just over a week ago they were a season high 21 games under the .500 mark.

Tuesday night their series in Texas will continue, as they play the Rangers once again.

Fausto Carmona knows all about having quality starts but losing none the less. He did it again on Sunday, as the A’s pitching once again shut down a shell shocked Indians offense in Oakland’s 3-1 win at Progressive Field.

The A’s have toyed with Indians bats all season, throwing two shutouts and now in this season in which they took two of three, they held the Indians to one run in the two games they won.

Sunday it was Oakland starter Vin Mazzaro topping the Tribe, he threw a season-high 7.1 innings, allowing just the one run on 7 hits with one walk and seven strikeouts.

Carmona, who was named to the AL All-Star team prior to the game, went 7 innings, allowing three runs on seven hits with three walks and three strikeouts.

Indians pitching coach Tim Belcher says despite falling to 7-7 on the year, there is no doubt in his mind that Carmona deserved to make the All-Star team.

“He’s 7 and 7 now, which doesn’t sound all that impressive, but after today that’s four losses with quality starts, and three no-decisions with very quality starts,” Belcher said. “He could very easily have as many as 13 wins, but even quite conservatively should have 10-11 wins.”

The Indians offense tied the game in the third when Austin Kearns singled with two outs to score Carlos Santana, but otherwise it was a quiet day all the way around for Indians bats.

“He (Mazzaro) threw the ball pretty well today, you can’t take anything from him,” Indians CF Michael Brantley said. “He kept us off balance.”

The homestand was a success, as the team finished 5-2, but now they will face up to two months without the teams other All-Star in Shin-Soo Choo, who is out with a thumb injury.

“He’s our all-star, we know he’s been playing at an all-star level for us, and we know every year there’s going to be a few guys snubbed whether you like it or not,” Acta said of Choo not being voted on the team.

The Indians will take their show on the road before the Mid-Summer classic, as they will play in Texas starting on Monday night, then travel to take on Tampa Bay.

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.

Looking for their longest win streak of the 2010 season on Thursday afternoon, a great outing by Justin Masterson combined with some long ball power by Matt LaPorta and Shelly Duncan was more than enough to earn the Indians their 5th straight win, topping Toronto 6-1.

Masterson, coming off a tough outing in Cincy on Saturday, was about as good as the shutout he threw earlier in the season against Boston. He went 8.1 innings, allowing 8 hits, 1 run, 0 walks, and 5 strikeouts. He moves to 3-7 on the season, but clearly has turned the corner from almost being bounced from the rotation earlier in the year.

His slider was excellent, and he was able to avoid a bad inning, unlike what happened against Cincinnati last week. Masterson has gone 3-2 over his last 6 starts with an ERA of 3.51.

On the offensive side, it was once again LaPorta’s bat that came through in the clutch. The blast today from Matt came in the 4th inning of a scoreless game. To that point, Jays starter Shaun Marcum had shut down the Indians, but LaPorta came up with two on, and slammed his third homer in as many days.

Then Shelly Duncan came up next and helped the cause as well, hitting a solo shot to make it 4-0. The team batted around that inning, as they scored another two runs to chase Marcum and leave the frame up 6-0.

For LaPorta, it’s the first time in his career he has hit a homer in three straight games.

Frank Herrmann came in for Masterson in the 9th after he allowed a run and some guys on, and got the save after he was able to entice a double play ball.

It is the first time since 2005 the teams starting pitchers have won five games in a row, and the streak means they are 16 games under .500 at 31-47.

They have a shot to keep their winning ways up as they play the Oakland A’s Friday night for the first of three at Progressive Field.

It’s been a long time it seems like since the Indians have been able to celebrate a win.

Over a week, actually, but Sunday afternoon in Cincy the team finally got back in the win column with a hard fought and very sticky win over the Reds 5-3.

They had to wait nearly an hour and a half for the game to kick off, but once it did it was Shin-Soo Choo with two homers and a great outing for starter Mitch Talbot that was enough to earn the win.

Choo homered twice off Reds starter Bronson Arroyo – the second time he’s done it this season. Carlos Santana also homered for the Indians, helping out starter Talbot who threw 7 strong innings.

Talbot allowed just one run on three hits over 7 frames, and even after Chris Perez gave up a two-run homer in the 8th, Kerry Wood closed the door in the 9th for his 6th save.

The rare Tribe win, only their second in 13 games, wrapped up a dismal interleague showing. Cleveland went 5-13 this year against NL teams, including 2-4 against the intrastate rival Reds. Cincinnati has dominated the series lately, going 13-5 over the past three years.

Matt LaPorta, fresh from Triple-A after the Russell Branyan trade, went 0-for-4 with two K’s and he also grounded into a double play.

The team will be back at home Monday, as they start a good old AL homestand with the Blue Jays.

I’ve seen some pretty good ones in covering the Indians over the past 16 seasons, but Thursday afternoons monsoon of a storm in the 8th inning of the Indians-Phillies game was as good as it gets. It started with the Indians going down in the inning of a game they were losing 12-3, and once it was over the crowd had emptied out and the groundscrew had major issues keeping the tarp down. While it was a short storm, it was one of the most intense we’ve seen in some time.

Last season Kerry Wood had a couple of meltdowns in Chicago against his former team the Chicago Cubs. Wednesday night was another meltdown to a National League team, this time though it was a one-pitch meltdown that sent the Indians home losers for the 4th straight time.

Wood gave up a meatball homer to former NL MVP Jimmy Rollins in the bottom of the ninth as the Philadelphia Phillies rallied for a 7-6 comeback win over the Indians at Citizens Bank Park.

The homer was Rollins’ first career walk off dinger, and came after the other Indians pitchers had held him in check as he was 0-for-4 going into the at-bat.

“Pretty deflating, even when we didn’t execute, we still got into the 9th with a lead,” Indians manager Manny Acta said. “They had the bottom of the order up, the leadoff walk killed us. We got to the bottom of the 9th with a lead, and we blew it.”

The shame of this latest loss is that the Indians fought hard to take that one-run lead in the 9th when with runners on first and third with one out Carlos Santana hit a shot to short, and Rollins tried to go home, but the throw was off and Trevor Crowe scored to make it 6-5.

The Indians though, as has been the case throughout the 2010 season, could not get that all important 7th run home, as Russell Branyan hit a liner to first that was caught and Austin Kearns, who had walked, was doubled up to end the inning and set up Rollins’ heroics.

The loss also ruined a good night for Shin-Soo Choo, who continues to make his case for the All-Star game. He was 2-for-4 with home runs 9 and 10, both no doubters that gave the Indians leads each time.

“He’s been good for us the whole year,” Acta said. “This is a ballpark for a guy like him that hits the ball to all fields it suits him perfect. He did that, he was one of the guys that really executed today.”

Jake Westbrook was shaky all night though, going just 5 innings, allowing four runs on 7 hits with a walk and two K’s. He threw just 75 pitches, but clearly didn’t have his best stuff.

The team though did what they had to do from an offensive standpoint, that is get the lead and give the ball to their closer. It was Wood who couldn’t put Philly to bed.

“It’s frustrating when you walk the first guy, obviously,” Wood said in the postgame. “It’s not worse though than giving up a two-run homer to lose the game, if you make pitches you can get around the walk.”

The Indians have lost the first two games of the series by one-run each game, losing to Jamie Moyer 2-1 Tuesday night, and now losing in a shootout 7-6.

They have lost four in a row and drop to 18 games under .500, their low point of the season. They close out the series at 1:05pm Thursday in Philly before heading to play the Reds in Cincy over the weekend.