Indians Confidential

Cleveland Indians manager Manny Acta talks about injured first baseman Matt LaPorta’s progress, and the calling up of AAA pitcher Carlos Corrasco to pitch in tomorrow’s noon start game…

The Indians failed today in their bid to sweep the Kansas City Royals and get into a tie for fourth place in the Central Division by losing 6-2. Tribe starter Fausto Carmona (11-12, 4.19 ERA) took the loss giving up 3 runs on 6 hits, with 4 walks and 4 strike outs over 6.2 innings.

He was pretty much cruising until the fourth inning when he loaded the bases with no outs. The Royals got two across the plate in that inning with sacrifice flies by catcher Brayan Pena and Mitch Maier. The Indians came back to tie the game in the bottom of the sixth inning on a two run homer by Jason Donald off of winning pitcher Bruce Chen (9-7, 4.76 ERA).

The Royals added another run in the seventh on a RBI double by first baseman Kila Ka’aihue. The Royals scored again in the eighth on a Maier solo home run, then they scored two more in the ninth on two separate plays involving an error to make the final score 6-2. It was a very sloppy game to watch. Overall there were six errors in the game, three by each team.

For the second time in less than a week the Indians closed out the game with at least seven strike outs in a row. Tribe first baseman Matt LaPorta left the game in the fourth inning with a left hip strain. He will be listed as day-to-day, and will be re-evaluated on Monday.

Cleveland Indians manager Manny Acta talks about starter Fausto Carmona’s outing, the injury to first baseman Matt LaPorta, and Royal’s starter Bruce Chen…

It seems that all players at one point or time has stated that all it takes is one hit to start a fire on offense. Well, then Friday night at Progressive Field the Indians did enough hitting to start a forest fire.

Led by no less than three three-run homers, the Indians pounded the team they are looking up at in the standings, the KC Royals, 15-4 at home for their second straight win.

Chris Gimenez, Matt LaPorta and Jayson Nix all hit three-run bombs. Gimenez’s shot made it 3-0 Indians in the 2nd inning, then LaPorta made it 6-1 when he slammed a three-run shot in the 4th. Nix’s three-run blast finished the beating as it made it 13-3 in the 8th.

It was more than enough for scrappy pitcher Josh Tomlin, who improved to 2-3 with the win. He went five innings, allowing three runs on 8 hits, walking four and striking out one. Tomlin has thrown at least five innings in all six of his Major League outings.

The 15 runs by the Indians are a season high, and for a team that scored three runs in four games earlier in the week, it was well needed. The team also crushed seven doubles, the most they have hit in a game since September 12th of last year against – you guessed it – the Royals.

Jason Donald also had a big night at the plate, going 4-for-5 and setting the table for some of the big innings. It is the 2nd time this season that Donald has had four hits in a game.

Overall 17 hits and 15 runs made for a fun night at the ball yard, it’s just a shame that it comes with the team still sitting at 24 games under .500 at 52-76.

Game two of the three game set will be Saturday night at 7:05pm.

For a young team looking for anyway to win a game, Thursday night’s results were just what the doctor ordered for the Indians. Big hits when they needed them followed by a gutsy five-out save for a guy that should be the closer of the future spelled for a 3-2 win over the A’s at Progressive Field.

The win snaps a five-game losing streak for the Indians, and the 11,826 on hand with their dogs for “Puppypalozza” were treated to a night where they saw a good outing for Justin Masterson, and maybe even a better one for Chris Perez.

Let’s start with Masterson. He threw 6 innings, allowing two runs on five hits. He walked two and struck out three. The media continues to pepper Manny Acta with questions about the future for Masterson – on if he will be a starter or closer, but Acta keeps his answers always the same – he’s a starting pitcher now and for the future for the Indians.

Masterson moved to 5-12 with the win, a positive for a good guy who continues to do what he can to get better. On to Perez, who came in with one out in the 8th with the A’s having the tying run on second and go-ahead run on first thanks to two walks by Joe Smith.

Perez, pitching fearless as always, got a strikeout, then a soft groundout to first to end the inning. He allowed a hit in the 9th with one out, but got two strikeouts to end the game with a sigh of relief.

It was the 16th save for Perez, a guy that had to wait his turn for the team to finally trade bust Kerry Wood to the Yankees about a month ago.

As for the hitting, it was Matt LaPorta playing the role of hero, as with the Indians down 2-1 in the 6th he crushed an 0-0 pitch to left for his 8th homer of the season and the two-run shot was the difference as it gave the Indians a 3-2 lead.

LaPorta had been in the midst of a slump, but was able to get a hold of the Vin Mazzaro pitch and make sure it left the park to give the Tribe the one-run lead.

The Tribe are now 18-16 in one run games, and while they don’t win much when they score less than three runs (are just 10-53 in that department), they were able to do enough to get the win tonight.

They start a series with the Royals on Friday at Progressive Field.

Cleveland Indians manager Manny Acta talks about pitcher Hector Rondon’s recent Tommy-John surgery, the state of the team, and Matt LaPorta’s recent slump…

The last time the Indians saw Tigers thrower Armando Galarraga he almost had a perfect game against them. So maybe getting 3 hits in 7 innings against him on Friday night at Comerica Park was an improvement.

Then again, maybe not.

With Galarraga holding the Indians offense in check, the Tribe was no match for the Tigers, as the Indians were sent packing with a lackluster 6-0 loss to move to 1-3 on their AL Central road trip.

Detroit for all purposes put the game away with two runs each in the first two innings off Justin Masterson. With Galarraga holding the Indians to nothing, the game probably could have ended after two innings.

“I guess I’m just comfortable pitching against those guys,” said Galarraga. “Tonight, every pitch was in the zone, every pitch had a purpose and every pitch was on the corner. I just kept getting better and better. The sinker was good, the changeup was unbelievable and so was the slider.”

Galarraga now has allowed no runs and four hits in 16 innings against the Tribe. He retired the first 14 Indians batters, and it started to look like that near perfect game all over again.

Finally though Jayson Nix was able to come through with a hit in the 5th inning to end any drama that would have continued with every Indians batter set down.

With a chance to get a run, it went away quickly as Matt LaPorta grounded to first to end the inning. Masterson allowed 11 hits and five runs in 6 innings, and falls to 4-12 on the season.

The two teams do it again in Detroit Saturday at 7:05pm.

You knew it couldn’t last forever, and Wednesday afternoon at Target Field, the Indians longest win streak in quite awhile quietly went away with a 6-0 loss to the Twins.

Nevertheless, the Indians continue to look like a team that could have a promising second half, as they will get a day off at 40-55 before they play host to two AL powerhouses, the Rays and Yankees in a 7-game homestand.

Wednesday the game was over in basically two innings, a four-run Twins third, and then two more runs that crossed in the 8th off of relief pitcher Jess Todd.

The four run third was against starter Jake Westbrook, as he allowed two doubles and a single in between for the four Twins runs that was more than enough.

Twins starter Francisco Liriano shut the Indians down all day. He went up six hits, no runs, walking four and striking out eight.

Matt LaPorta was the only Indian with more than a hit, five other Indians each had hits, and the team was only able one extra base hit, a double by backup catcher Chris Gimenez.

The team gets Thursday off before they start a series with Tampa on Friday night.