Indians Confidential

Who do you think breathed a bigger sigh of relief after Mark DeRosa made the final out Tuesday night in Pittsburgh – Eric Wedge or Kerry Wood? Either way, they probably both did, as Wood once again put the fear of another loss into Wedge and Indians fans across the country, only to finally get the final out as the Indians broke their 6-game losing streak with a 5-4 win over the Pirates.

The Indians built a 5-0 lead going into the 9th, only to see Matt Herges and then Wood allow 10 Pirates to come to bat, putting up four runs and running the bases loaded with two outs. On a 3-2 count, Wood got Adam LaRoche, who homered to start the inning, to fly out DeRosa to end the contest.

Wood came in and allowed a double, single and walk to make the Tribe dugout sweat once again. He blew two games in Chicago over the weekend, and another blown save could have destroyed his confidence for the rest of the season. Instead, he was able to gut it out and get the final out to push the team to 30-42 on the season.

The game was highlighted by the return to the lineup of Grady Sizemore, who showed little rust in his time on the DL. Sizemore went 2-for-5 with two RBI and he did K twice hitting in the two hole behind Jamey Carroll. He did though get the Tribe offense going in the 3rd with a two-run triple that made it 2-0.

Jhonny Peralta then singled to center to score Victor Martinez and Sizemore to give starter David Huff a 4-0 cushion to pitch with. Huff didn’t disappoint, as he pitched his best game as a pro, going 8 shutout innings, allowing four hits, walking two and striking out two.

Peralta finished off the offensive night for the Indians with a homer to the opposite field to make it 5-0 in the 6th. Huff earned the win to improve to 3-2 on the season, and Wood earned his 9th save of the year.

The two teams will continue their series on Wendesday in Pittsburgh.

Maybe Kerry Wood is secretly still playing for the Chicago Cubs?

How else can you explain how Wood, who had blown two saves in 10 chances entering Friday, has already blown two saves in two games in Chicago, as Saturday he basically threw the game away, allowing the Cubs to rally for two 13th inning runs in beating the Indians 6-5.

It was much the same for Wood Friday, when he allowed a homer to Derrick Lee in the 9th to turn a Tribe 1-run lead into a tie game. Chicago then won the game an inning later. Saturday, the teams battled all day in the hot Chicago sun, only to once again go extra innings with the game tied at four.

The Indians scored a run in the 13th as Luis Valbuena, who has been a bright spot in a rather dark strech, homered to give the Tribe the 5-4 lead. Valbuena is starting to hit much better, as he was 3-for-5 with a pair of homers, and is now hitting .223

The bottom of the 13th saw Wood enter, allow a single to Kosuke Fukudome, he stole on a strikeout, then an error allowed him to go to third. A single by Andres’ Blanco tied the game, then after a Arron Miles single put runners on the corners with one out, Blanco came home on Wood’s final meltdown – a wild pitch.

Since the team is going nowhere, and is now 12 games under .500, about the only bright spots were Valbuena, and Jhonny Peralta also homered, his 3rd. The pen actually did a nice job till Wood, as Jensen Lewis, Matt Herges, Joe Smith and Rafael Perez went a total of 6 innings allowing no runs on just three hits with a pair of walks and 5 strikeouts.

Of course Wood’s awful inning erases all that, and once again, there’s not much you can say about how this team simply has shown nothing to not start thinking about tearing the team down and going in a totally different direction. Let’s just say if this team loses Sunday and then doesn’t play well vs Pittsburgh, could we possibly see a change at the top when the team comes home Friday? Stay tuned.

Yeah, this is yet another one that hurts.

The Indians looked like they were in cruise control Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field, building a nice 7-0 lead vs a Cubs team that wasn’t exactly an offensive powerhouse. Instead with ace Cliff Lee on the mound, the club (as they have done oh so often this year) allowed the Cubs to come back, and with a Derek Lee homer in the 9th to tie it off Kerry Wood, the Tribe eventually lost in 10 to the Cubs 8-7.

There was plenty of talk in Cleveland on Thursday during the off day about Eric Wedge being shown the door, and nothing that took place on Friday afternoon in the Windy City is going to change that. The team is now 11 games under .500, and they have no answers whatsoever to solve all the issues that are making this one long summer of baseball.

After a rain dealy, the Tribe built a 6-0 lead with two three-run homers from Luis Valbuena and Victor Martinez. They went up 7-0 in the 4th, and from there it was all Cubs, as they chipped away with runs in the 5th and 6th to make it 7-2. Lee left the game after the 7th up 7-2, and it was disaster from there with the bullpen from hell.

Joe Smith allowed three runs, one earned in 0.2 in the 8th, and then Wood allowed the solo homer to Lee in the 9th to tie the game at 7. Luis Vizcaino was the loser, as he got to two outs in the bottom of the 10th, but then allowed a bad-hop single to Ryan Theriot to score the winning run.

There isn’t much you can say right now, other than the Wedge Watch is hotter than ever, and the team is simply going to be forced to make a change sooner rather than later. “It’s hard, but you can’t give in to it,” Indians manager Eric Wedge said. “Obviously, our bullpen has really been struggling on and off all year. When you have games like this, it’s about as bad as it can get.”

He’s right, it’s hard to believe this can get any worse. But then again, there’s always tomorrow.

Don’t let it get to your head – but how good does 4th place feel now in the AL Central?

For at least one day, the Indians can celebrate being out of the Central cellar, as thanks to a solid comeback led by a game-winning grand slam from Mark DeRosa in the 7th, the Indians topped te Royals 8-4 to move ahead of them for 4th in the division.

It didn’t look like it would go that way for most of the night, as the Royals built a 4-0 lead off Cliff Lee with two in the 3rd inning, and two more in the 6th to make it look like yet another long night for the Indians. But the offense finally responded and put together a nice comeback to get the win.

The Indians were able to rally to tie it in the 6th with four runs. Shin-Soo Choo reached on a fielder’s choice, scoring Jamey Carroll. Then Travis Hafner got on the same way, scoring Victor Martinez to make it a 4-2 game. Kelly Shoppach hit a sac fly to make it 4-3, and then a Jhonny Peralta fielder’s choice tied it.

The winning rally saw Ben Francisco single, Martinez walk, then Choo was hit by a pitch, loading the bases for DeRosa vs Jamey Wright. The relief pitcher threw a pitch down the middle of the plate on the first pitch, but then DeRosa got the good wood on the second pitch, putting it over the wall in right for the grand slam to make it 8-4.

The Royals got a hit in the 8th, and then a walk in the 9th off of Kerry Wood, but could do no further damage as the door was closed and the Tribe got the win. Rafael Perez got the win in relief to move to 1-1. The win puts the Indians at 26-34, dropping KC to 24-33, losers of 9 of their last 10.

Carl Pavano who is 6-4 goes for the Indians Wednesday against Gil Meche for the Royals (2-5) at 7:05.

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.

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.

The Indians take it – the Indians give it away. The nice thing about this first game in Toronto, they at the end of the night were able to take it once and for all. And get a win out of it.

They were down to one strike before a loss in the 9th, only to then be saved by a huge hit by Asdrubal Cabrera, followed by hits by Victor Martinez and Shin-Soo Choo to give them a 6-4 lead entering the bottom of the inning. Enter Kerry Wood.

The Indians closer was able to get to two outs with runners one, and then with the game on the line, Jose Bautista was able to tie the game up with a two-run single that made it 6-6. Despair once again.

The nice thing though is on this night the bullpen (other than Wood) was able to do what they get paid to do – get outs when they need them. Rafael Betancourt pitched two scoreless extra innings, then after the team was able to pound out three runs in the 12th, Rafael Perez of course gave up a run, but then Jensen Lewis came in and got the final three outs to earn the save.

The 9-6 win came about with that three-run 12th that included a single by Josh Barfield that scored Mark DeRosa, and then Grady Sizemore doubled to right, scoring Barfield and Lusi Valbuena to give them the lead that would end up finally holding up.

Betancourt got the win to move to 1-1, and Lewis got his first save of the season. The game also featured Matt LaPorta’s first Major League homer, and the team pounded out 15 hits total. Brain Tallet, a former Indian, no-hit the Tribe for the first 6 innings until the team got to him with LaPorta tying the game at two with his first homer, and then the team scratched out another run to take a lead.

The win improves to 10-16 on the season, dropping the Blue Jays to 18-10. The team will play a 12:37pm game Tuesday before heading to Boston for three games to wrap up the road trip.

Ah yes, nothing like a nice 4 hour 19 minute 9 inning game in 40 degree temps to make really appreciate the game of baseball. Okay, I’m kidding. Tuesday night was like going in to get a broken tooth fixed. There was not much good to talk about in the Indians 9-8 win over the Red Sox till the very bitter end, when Javier Lopez (no, not the guy who use to catch for the Braves, the Boston relief pitcher), dropped a routine ball that allowed the winning run to score to send the Tribe home a winner.

The game was anything but pretty till that point. Tribe starter Anthony Reyes and Red Sox starter Brad Penny made the first three innings seem more like batting practice. Add to that a Red Sox defense that threw the ball around enough to end the night with three errors, and you had yourself a 7-7 tie after three innings that officially ended a few minutes after 9pm. Yes, this was a 7pm start by the way.

Reyes was awful. He couldn’t control anything, and the Red Sox offense made him pay dearly. He lasted just two innings, allowing 7 earned runs on 9 hits with a walk and a strikeout. The Indians would have to go to a bullpen for the rest of the night, and up until this night that usually spelled bad news.

Not so, as the combo of Vinnie Chulk, Rafael Perez, Joe Smith, Tony Sipp and Kerry Wood allowed the Sox just one run on 5 hits with five walks and 5 strikeouts over the last 7 at-bats. The run came off of (who else?), Joe Smith in the 7th, but the Indians got it right back in the bottom of the inning when Mark DeRosa homered to tie the game at 8.

Wood, who was the goat Monday night, again got himself into a 9th inning jam, with runners on first and third with one out, but threw three heaters past Nick Green, and got Jacob Ellsbury to hit a soft liner to second to end the frame and get the Indians to the plate in a tie game.

The winning rally came about when DeRosa singled to start the frame, went to second on a sac bunt, and then after Grady Sizemore struck out, Asdrubal Cabrera hit a sharp groundball to Kevin Youkilis who snared it, and then underhand tossed it to Lopez, who played it like a hot potato and dropped it. DeRosa scored, and the Tribe secured it’s 8th win against 14 losses this season.

The offensive heros included DeRosa, who was 4-for-5 with a RBI, Ben Francisco who was 2-for-4 with three RBI, and Cabrera, who went 2-for-4 with a walk and a run scored. Wood got the win to move to 1-1 on the season, both decisions coming the last two nights.

So Wednesday it’s game three vs Boston, and the finale of the homestand. A win and they wrap up the 9-game spread at 5-4, which is okay, but they still have aways to go to get back in the AL Central hunt. For now, a win is a win, and for a team that had scored just 7 runs in four games entering Tuesday night – they will take what they can get.