Indians Confidential

The first half of the 2009 season is officially over.

Thank Heavens.

Justin Verlander has owned the Indians this season, he’s 3-0 with a 0.39 ERA against Cleveland this season.  Sunday it was business as usual, halting what Eric Wedge thinks is a pretty good offense to to no runs on five his with three walks and eight strikeouts over 7 innings.  In the end, Tomo Ohka was no match for Verlander and the Tigers, as Detroit rocked the Indians 10-1.

The first half of hell ends at 35-54, 19 full games under .500.  The team sits 14 games under .500, they are 19-25 at home and 16-29 on the road.  They have used used 26 different pitchers to date, including Tony Sipp, Matt Herges, Mike Gosling, Vinnie Chulk, Luis Vizcaino, Greg Aquino, Rich Rundles, Winston Abreu, Chris Perez and Ohka.  Yes, it’s been a tough season.

“It’s been a disappointment,” Eric Wedge said. “There’s a long way to go, and I still feel good about the lineup we are putting out there every day, but we’ve got to improve the rotation and our bullpen.”

Improve our rotation?  How about give it and that bullpen which is flat out awful and find a way to get some runs across against the AL Central teams that are pounding the Indians night after night.

The team is going nowhere fast, and if the second half is as bad as the first, you can bet there will be plenty of changes this offseason.

The Cleveland Indians today announced RHP WINSTON ABREU has reported to the club and been activated onto the 25-man Major League roster. To allow room for Abreu the Indians designated RHP MATT HERGES for assignment.

Abreu, 32, was acquired on Thursday, July 2 from the Tampa Bay Rays for RHP John Meloan and cash. He spent the majority of the 2009 season at AAA Durham where he went 3-0 with 10 saves and a 1.41 ERA (32.0IP, 14H, 5R/ER, 10BB, 49K) in 23 appearances. He was recalled to Tampa Bay on June 14th and appeared in 2 games (2.45ERA, 3.2IP, 3H, 1R/ER, 2BB, 3K) for the Rays before being designated for assignment on June 27th. This year at Durham he was a perfect 10 of 10 in save opportunities. He limited AAA hitters to a .128 (14-109) average, including a mark of .061 (4-66) against right-handed hitters, while averaging 13.8 strikeouts per 9.0IP. His last appearance w/TB came on June 23 vs. Philadelphia (2.2IP, 1H, 0R).

Herges has been with the Indians since May 6 and was 2-1 w/a 3.55 ERA in 21 appearances out of the ‘pen (25.1IP, 24H, 10ER, 6BB, 18K).

Abreu will be wearing #59.

The question now should not be IF the Indians are going to make a change at the manager spot – it’s WHEN.  Tuesday night not even their Cy Young award winner from a season ago, Cliff Lee, could stop the bleeding of a losing streak that just keeps growing, as Lee allowed a season-high-tying 7 runs in three and a half innings as the Indians fell to the White Sox 11-4 in a rain shortened game.

The team has now dropped 12 of their last 14, and 7 of their last 8 at Progressive Field, which saw another sparse crowd of just 14,793, most of which left during the second rain dealy.  The Tribe should really thank Mother Nature for ending this debacle, as there was a 32 minute waste of a dealy to start the game, a 30 minute dealy at about 8:45pm, and then the final dealy which was 57 minutes starting in the top of the 7th which in the end was the nail in the coffin.

You have to wonder just how many runs and hits the White Sox would have had off Indians pitching, as off of Lee, Mike Gosling and Matt Herges, Chicago put up 11 runs, 17 hits and pounded out three homers.  They scored in every inning except the 2nd and then the 7th, when the rains hit again and the game was called.

The only thing the team has left to do is get rid of manager Eric Wedge and GM Mark Shapiro’s spot with the franchise should also be carefully looked at, as this team is in one of the ugliest tailspins we’ve seen for some time.  Lee, their MVP from last year, was awful.  He got pounded for 7 runs on 11 hits with one walk and three strikeouts.

The Indians offense was paced by Travis Hafner, who homered, and Asdrubal Cabrera, who hit a double to score three runs to make it a 9-4 game in the fifth.  Hafner has hit in 9 of his last 12 games and has three homers and 9 RBI over that stretch.

The likely White Sox sweep will come Wednesday night at 7:05pm as Jeremy Sowers tries to follow up his solid previous Friday night outing vs the Reds.

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.

You have to give the Indians some credit for fighting it out against maybe the best pitcher in the American League in 2009 – the Royals Zack Greinke. Thursday night the Indians fell behind Greinke, who came into the game with a 1.55 ERA, 3-1, but put up a fight, tied the game in the 8th, then won it in the 10th 4-3.

The win means a 27-35 mark, which again puts them ahead of the Royals in the AL Central, and means that they now are suddenly in striking distance of the White Sox and Twins, and with another couple of wins on this homestand, could start to make things interesting in the divsion.

Thursday they scrapped in that 8th, and again took advantage of the fact KC’s defense is pretty bad. A double error on KC in the inning really opened the door for the Tribe, who pushed two runs across to tie the game at three.

The winning rally in 10th with seagulls circling the ball park again came as Mark DeRosa singled, Victor Martinez walked, and then Shin-Soo Choo hit a ball that some say hit a bird to center to score the winning run.

The win goes to Matt Herges, who continues to do a good job out of the pen. He moves to 2-0. Jeremy Sowers started and went 5 innings, allowing two runs on 6 hits with a walk and two strikeouts. Greg Aquino allowed a run in three innings, and then Kerry Wood pitched a scoreless 9th to keep the game tied.

The Tribe stays home to start a three-game series with the St.Louis Cardinals on Friday night.

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.

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.

The Indians today announced they have purchased the contract of RHP MATT HERGES from AAA Buffalo. To allow room on the Major League roster for Herges, the Indians have optioned LHP RAFAEL PEREZ to AAA Columbus. To create room on the 40-man roster for Herges, the Indians released RHP JUAN SALAS.

Herges, 39, was assigned to AAA Columbus on April 4 and so far this season with the Clippers he is 1-2 with a 5.40 ERA and 4 saves in 11 appearances (10.0IP, 12H, 6R/ER, 5BB, 7K). He was invited to Major League camp this spring after signing a minor league free agent contract in January and posted a mark of 0-0 w/a save and a 5.63 ERA in 8 exhibition outings (8.0IP, 10H, 6R/5ER, 4BB, 9K, .286AVG). Matt owns a career Major League record of 40-34 with a 3.94 ERA and 34 saves in 537 career appearances (656.1IP, 701H, 287ER, 447K). He wears #40.

Perez made 13 appearances this year for the Indians going 0-1 with a 15.19 ERA (10.2IP, 19H, 18R/ER, 9BB, 5K).