Indians Confidential

Another day, another bullpen disaster. Yes, welcome again to the Indians 2009 season, as today, it was Rafael Betancourt’s turn to implode in the Tribe bullpen, as he turned an 8th inning Indians 7-6 lead into a Tigers 9-7 victory. Thanks to Betancourt allowing a Curtis Granderson two-run homer, followed by a sack fly by Carlos Guillen to tack on an extra run in the latest Indians loss.

The setback was most frustrating as the Indians came back from a 4th inning 5-0 deficit, tied the game at 5, lost the lead a 6-5 in the 6th, got it back with two runs in the 7th, then Betancourt gave it right back as the team fell to 9-15 on the season, allowing the Tigers to escape to improve to 12-11.

This tune is getting old. The bullpen that has been the worst I have seen in awhile is never going to allow this team to get back to .500, much less be a true contender in the American League. Eric Wedge said it all in the post game when he said that they simply have to find a way to get past the 7th and 8th innings in order to get to Kerry Wood with a lead in the 9th.

Here’s an idea – put Wood in the game in the 8th. Why not at this point? What’s the worse that can happen? If Wood allows the lead to be given up, at least your best is the one that gave it up. I’m sick and tired of seeing the following bullpen throwers blow the lead – Betancourt, Rafael Perez, Jensen Lewis and Joe Smith (at least we won’t see him anytime soon as he’s on the DL).

About the only two arms that seem to be able to get anyone out are Vinnie Chulk and Tony Sipp. Problem is – that’s only two relievers, and you need a lot more than that in order to get the job done. On the offensive side, six players each had two hits, as the team put up 13 hits, 7 runs, and still found a way to lose.

Aaron Laffey, who had been the best starter on the team as of this point, wasn’t very good. He couldn’t get his slider down, and paid for it as he couldn’t get the ball over the plate. He lasted just 3.1 innings, gave up 5 runs on six hits with five walks and one strikeout. The big blow was a grand slam he allowed to Adam Everett that made it 5-0 in the 4th.

Cliff Lee will look to win the series on Sunday for the Tribe at 1pm.

The month of April has come to a close for the Indians, and just like the past few seasons, the team has come out of the gates very slow.  With a mark of 8-14, the club is 4 games back in the AL Central, which could be worse if one of those teams like the Tigers or White Sox had gotten off to a better start.

The club was 5-7 at home, 3-7 on the road.  They ended the month losing 6 of their last 10, and were 4-6 vs the East, 4-5 against the Central, and 0-3 vs the West.

Here are some highlights and grades from the first month of the season:

Best Win: 4/18 at New York 22-4 – By far this was the teams shinning moment of the month.  They put up a crazy 14 runs in the second inning, and on the day scored 22 runs on 25 hits.  The sad part, they lost the next day after Carl Pavano’s best start could not be closed out by the bullpen.

Worst Loss: 4/29 vs Boston 6-5 - Fausto Carmona was dominating the Sox through five innings, but the wheels started to come off, and by the time Rafael Betancourt left the game, it was tied at 5.  Then in the 10th inning former Indian farmhand John Van Early hit a towering homer off of Jensen Lewis to win the game.  Sure would have been nice to win this game to start getting some momentum going for May.

Grades:

Offense – C-: The team was so inconsistant this month, it’s hard to give them anything better than this.  They had their moments, like the 22-run game vs the Yankees, and a couple of games vs Texas (8 runs), KC (8 runs), NYY (10 runs) and Boston (9 runs).  The problem right now is you just simply don’t know what your going to get.

Some of the key players on the team that were being counted on for offense did nothing.  Jhonny Peralta is lost at the plate (.211 this month, 0 homers, 6 RBI).  Kelly Shoppach is hitting just .231, 2 homers, 6 RBI, and one guy that was starting to show some life – Travis Hafner, .270 with 4 homers and 8 RBI, is on the DL for at least the next two weeks.

Starting Pitching – C: The starters had their major issues early, but did start to come on late, with Cliff Lee (1-3, 3.94) and Fausto Carmona (1-3, 6.28) pitching a bit better.  Lee threw 8 scoreless vs the Red Sox Monday, but the offense couldn’t score.  Who would have known that Aaron Laffey, who didn’t even start the season with the club, would be the best starter in April.  He’s 2-0 with a 2.41 ERA.  Carl Pavano (0-3, 9.50) and Anthony Reyes (1-0, 7.58) have done little to give much hope for the rest of 2009.

Bullpen – D: If it were not for Tony Sipp and Kerry Wood, this would have been an F for sure.  Sipp has been outstanding in 3 shots out of the pen, not allowing a hit and walking one and striking out 6.  Wood has 4 saves and an ERA of 6.75, but seems to have the look of the closer the team has needed.  Vinnie Chulk threw away a possible win in NY, but otherwise has been good in 6 outings, throwing an ERA of 1.93.

Jensen Lewis has allowed 5 homers in 12.1 innings, Rafael Betancourt has given up 11 hits and 6 earned runs in 10 innings, Joe Smith has been pretty bad, and Rafael Perez is awful, with an ERA of 11.70 allowing 13 earned runs in 10 innings.  If this unit does not get better, this team is going to struggle all of 2009.

Leave it to a former Indian minor league player to end what was yet another awful April for the Tribe. You probably don’t remember Jon Van Early, but he was in the Tribe’s minor league system for a number of years, only to never get a shot. Tonight, he took a shot against his former team, sending a Jensen Lewis pitch 420 feet into centerfield for a game-winning homer that sent the Indians to a 6-5 loss.

The loss hurt in a number of ways. The team blew what seemed to be a safe 5-0 lead entering the 6th. They had a shot in the bottom of the 10th down 6-5 as Mark DeRosa hit a long out to center that could have tied the game, and once again, Lewis couldn’t keep the ball in the park, sending the team to their toughest loss of the season.

Fausto Carmona started and looked great for the Indians. He at one point set down 12 straight Red Sox, but then with a 5-0 lead started to wither away in the 6th, as Boston got two back to make it 5-2. In the 7th, he got the first two outs, but then a single and a walk and he was out of the game.

The Indians got out of that inning, but in the 8th, the Sox made the terrible Tribe bullpen pay once again, this time in the form of Rafael Betancourt, who allowed three runs to cross, which eventually tied the game at five. Lewis saved Bentancourt that inning, but the Indians couldn’t mount a rally, and eventually Lewis gave up the game-winning HR to his former roommate in Van Early.

The game started out great for the Indians, as they looked like they were ready to win a home series, go 5-4 on the homestand, and get out of April with two straight wins. That of course is before the roof caved in on them. DeRosa and Kelly Shoppach each homered for the Indians to help them get to 5-0, but it was all for not.

The Indians outplayed the Red Sox in the three-game set much like they outplayed the Yankees before the homestand started. Just like that series though, the team was unable to pull out some tough wins, that would now have their record look a lot better than 8-14.

So about the only positive is that April is now over. The team cannot start over, but they can start fresh on Friday night in Detroit against the team that is tied for first in the division with the White Sox at 11-10.

If May is as bad as April, it’s going to be quite the long summer for Indians fans.

On a positive note, the Indians at least seem to play well in the finale of series’ where they lose the first two games. Problem is, that’s going to mean they are in for a long season. Ok, let’s keep the positive thoughts up for now. Sunday in another steam bath at Progressive Field, the Tribe got some great starting pitching from Aaron Laffey, and even better relief pitching from Tony Sipp as they beat the Twins 4-2.

For the first time in the three games against the Twins, they were able to get some big hits, the biggest of which was a one-out single by Ryan Garko in the third that gave them a 4-0 lead. With Laffey getting lots of first pitch strikes and ground ball outs, it seemed like it was one of those games where it all came together for the Tribe.

Laffey was in control till the 7th, when he left with the bases loaded and one out. Jensen Lewis allowed a single to make it 4-2, and Eric Wedge turned to Sipp. The youngster, making just his 2nd outing as a member of the big league club, came in and was awesome, striking out Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel to end the inning and get things back to normal for the Indians.

Kerry Wood cleaned it up in the 9th, as he did allow a hit and walk, but got a huge double play and then a strikeout looking to end the game and collect his fourth save of the season in four chances. What was nice is that was a spot where Indians fans were use to seeing Bob Wickman or Jor Borowski allow the tying runs to score over the course of the past few seasons. Not Wood though.

The win puts the team at 7-12, and while they didn’t gain any ground in the division (still 3.5 out), they have to start getting some momentum with the Red Sox coming in for three games to wrap up the homestand. That series starts Monday night at 7:05, as Cliff Lee takes on Tim Wakefield.

I’m declaring that I will be bald at the end of the 2009 season.

That is because I am going to pull my hair out every time Eric Wedge has to go to the bullpen to bring in a relief (and I use that term loosely) pitcher that is WAYYYY overpaid to simply blow a game that a starting Indians pitcher has given them a chance to win.

While I write this with 6 outs for the Indians left in Sunday’s finale with the Yankees, the team has yet again gone to the bullpen in a critical spot, and again, the bullpen has stunk up the joint to the point where two pitchers quickly turned a 3-1 lead into a 4-3 deficit.

Right now my enemy number one is Rafael Perez. Why does Wedge continue to go to Perez, when it’s obvious he cannot get anyone out?! Tom Hamilton and Mike Hegan said that team was “working things out” with Perez, and they didn’t want to go to him Sunday. SO WHY DID THEY?!

Oh – and if Perez has “things to work out” – WHAT WAS SPRING TRAINING FOR?! Going into Sunday, Perez has appeared in 6 games, allowing 8 hits, 11 RUNS, 9 walks and two strikeouts with an ERA of 14.14. Sunday, he faced two batters, quickly allowed a double and single to make it 3-2, and just like that was ushered out of the game to have Jensen Lewis, who’s had his own issues come in and give up the rest of the lead, plus one more.

Lewis, who has developed the speciality of allowing homers, gave up his FOURTH bomb of the season to give New York a 4-3 lead. Lewis, who looked so good late last season, has been pretty below average to start the season, and is another reason this team had better develop leads like Saturday.

The team thought they had adressed the issue of the pen this offseason with Kerry Wood. Through the first two full weeks of the season – they don’t have the horses to get to Wood, and are paying for it.

The red-hot Indians continue to put the heat on 3rd place Detroit, and Monday night in Comerica Park they flexed their muscles for a couple homer homers in a 4-3 win that took 10 innings.  The game-winner came in the 10th as Franklin Gutierrez hit a solo homer for the win to give the Indians their 8th straight victory.  Grady Sizemore hit two homers to join the 30-30 club, just the second player to have 30 homers and 30 steals ever in a season for the Tribe (Joe Carter in 87 was the other).

Sizemore is the first American League player to join the 30-30 club since Alfonso Soriano did it for Texas in 2005.  The Indians built a 3-1 lead after scoring single runs in the 1st, 3rd and 4th innings to give starter Zach Jackson a cushion.  He gave the runs back to the Tigers as Edgar Renteria hit a solo homer in the 5th and then Brandon Inge singled in a run in the 7th to make it 3-3.

Jackson went 6.1 innings, allowing three runs on seven hits, striking out six and allowing two homers.  Four other Indians pitchers held the Tigers in check, as Masa Kobayashi, Rafael Perez, Brenden Donnelly and Jensen Lewis combined to go 3.2 innings, allowing no runs on two hits, walking one and striking out two.

The win means the Indians are now just a half game out of third in the AL Central at 63-67, the Tigers are now 64-67.  They have their ace going on Tuesday as Cliff Lee looks for win #19 as he takes on former Cardinals first-round draft pick Chris Lambert (first start) at 7:05pm.

When it comes to the return of pitcher Fausto Carmona, it will go down as a return he and the Indians will want to forget.  On a day when the team made a bunch of roster moves, the biggest trading veteran locker room guy Casey Blake, Carmona was rocked hard by the Twins for nine runs in just over two plus innings in the Indians 11-4 loss at Progressive Field.

Carmona was up in the zone for most of the 69 pitches he was in there, and went just 2.1 innings, allowing nine runs on seven hits.  He walked three, which all came in the first to get him in trouble, and struck out one.  The Twins batted around in a six-run first, the big hit being a three-run homer by Brian Buscher to make it 6-0.  After a 1-2-3 second, he ran into more trouble in the third, allowing a run scoring double to Mike Lamb, then a two-run single to Buscher to knock him out of the game.

Down 9-0, the Indians got a solo homer from Andy Marte in the 5th to make it 9-1, then a Jhonny Peralta single to left in the 6th scored two more to make it 9-3.  The Twins made sure there would be no miracle comeback, as they piled on two runs in the 8th off of Jensen Lewis to make it 11-3.  A Kelly Shoppach single in the 8th closed out the scoring to make it 11-4.

The Tribe used five pitchers, with Tom Mastny going 2.2 innings, allowing just two hits and a walk.  Lewis went 2.1, allowing two runs, and Rafael Betancourt threw two outs and Edward Mujica also got two outs in relief.  As far as the offense went, the team managed eight hits off of five pitchers, with Scott Baker going five innings for the Twins to get the win to improve to 7-3.

Just called up Andy Gonzalez did manage to get a hit in his first at-bat for the Tribe, a harmless single in the 9th off of Matt Guerrier.  The loss puts the Tribe back at 12 games under .500 at 45-57.  The Twins improve to 56-47, breaking their five-game losing streak.

Sunday in the finale of the three-game weekend set it will be Jeremy Sowers (1-5, 6.44) vs Nick Blackburn (7-6, 3.83) at 1:05pm.

The Indians bullpen has been underachieving all season, and today the team made it’s first major move to rebuild and look ahead for the 2009 season. The moves comes as follows: the team has recalled relievers Brian Slocum and Jensen Lewis, and designated relief pitchers Joe Borowski and Rick Bauer for assignment.

The biggest move in the bunch is finally calling it quits with Joe-Bo. This season has basically been a nightmare for Borowski, as he went 1-3 w/a 7.56 ERA in 18 games (6SV, 10OPP, 16.2IP, 24H, 14/RER) with the Indians this season. His real undoing came early in the season in blowing a save to the Red Sox when he allowed former Indian Manny Ramirez to blast a homer to lose a game it appeared the Indians had in hand.

It is uncertain who the closer will be from here, but right now that’s the last of the Indians problems. I guess they will throw Rafael Betancourt in there again, if and when the Indians ever have another save situation. They could also use Masa Kobayashi, but he’s struggled a lot as of late just in the bullpen role he has now.

Bauer posted an ERA of 13.50 in 4 relief appearances (8.0IP, 10H, 9R/ER). Lewis has split the 2008 campaign between AAA Buffalo and Cleveland. At Buffalo he has gone 1-2 with 1 save and a 3.60 ERA in 11 relief appearances (20.0IP, 16H, 8ER, 8BB, 18K) and has not allowed a run on 2 hits in his last 4 outings (6.0IP, 5K). Triple A hitters have hit .219 (16-73) off him with right-handed hitters batting .189 (7-37). Over the first two months of the season with Cleveland he posted a mark of 0-2 w/a 3.82 ERA in 21 games (30.2IP, 32H, 13ER). He will again wear #50.

Slocum has spent the majority of the season at AAA Buffalo and has flourished since being converted to a relief role three weeks ago. At Buffalo he has gone 3-5 w/a save and a 4.62 ERA in 18 games/11 starts (62.1IP, 59H, 32ER, 33BB, 55K). As a reliever, he has 1 save and a 0.69 ERA in 7 outings (13.0IP, 8H, 1R/ER, 3BB, 10K), limiting Triple A hitters to a .182 (8-44) average out of the ‘pen. Overall left-handed hitters have batted .206 (27-131) off him on the season at Buffalo. This will be his second stint at the big league level in 2008 as he did not appear in a game during his first stint with the club from June 4-6.

Make no mistake, this will be the first of many roster moves as the team begins to officially declare 2008 over and start looking ahead to 09.