Indians Confidential

1. Injuries: Jake Westbrook (elbow surgery) out for a year, catcher Victor Martinez (elbow surgery), Josh Barfield (finger surgery) out for a few months, Travis Hafner (shoulder) out for who knows how long, Adam Miller (finger surgery), Fausto Carmona (hip) having another “setback,” his return time is now the middle of July.

2. Bullpen: Currently ranks second worst in the American League in Earned Run Average. Once was a stable entity in the past. They are also last in the A.L. in saves.

3. Hitting: Indians currently sit last in the American League in hits and 11th out of 14 teams in the A.L. in on-base percentage. The injuries have taken there toll on the offense!

4. Void fillers: Guys like Peralta, Blake, and Garko have continued to struggle in the absences of Hafner and Martinez. In the past these players have stepped up when others were slumping, which has not been the case this year. None of these three players are currently hitting over .270.

5. Can’t win the Close ones: The Indians are currently 6-8 in games decided by one run. To be a contender these are the games you must win. (See Bullpen above)

6. Slow Start: With the high expectations for this team going into the year the Indians needed to jump out early. With the team being fairly young in age it was imperative for them to have some success in the early months of the season. March-May their record was 25-30.

7. Streaks: The Indians have gone on 2 runs this year in April they won 5 straight, however in May they lost 7 straight.

8. Struggling Ace: C.C. Sabathia has since turned his season around, but he began the season 1-5. His earned run average was 7.51 at that time and this did not bode well for the Tribe, nor the reigning Cy young Award Winner. His E.R.A. is currently 4.06.

9. Can’t Capitalize: The Indians are in the second worst division in all of baseball, yet they can’t seem to make ground on the other teams in the Central. The Detroit Tigers also came into the season with high hopes and they got off to an even worst start than the Tribe, but they now sit a game and half ahead of Indians in the standings.

10. Consistency: This team has not found any one thing that they are good at and consistent at. This has made Eric Wedge’s job more difficult and even more impressive.. If the team is good at one aspect of the game, then he could rely on that one thing and dwell on the many others. When it is all said and done, this could be Wedge’s best year in terms of managing because of the way that he has dealt with all of this teams obstacles.

When Omar Vizquel played for the Indians in their glory days, scoring runs was not much of a problem.  Fast forward to the Indians of 2008, and this edition of the Indians have offensive issues, and once again in Omar’s return to Cleveland those issues reared its ugly head.  The Indians put up a bland two runs on Tuesday night, allowing Vizquel and the Giants to win game one of the two teams three-game set 3-2 at Progressive Fied.

Omar was the story, first with an extended highlight film before the first pitch to getting a standing ovation in his first at-bat, to laying down a perfect bunt that got a huge third run over in the 9th, this night belonged to possibly the most beloved Indian in franchise history.  Oh, he also made a great play in the 9th with the game still in doubt.  Same old Omar.

As for the Indians, it was a bitter pill to swallow as they return home for an interleague homestand that hopefully will keep them fighting in the AL Central.  This was not the way to start it.  They got a first inning run from the bat of Ryan Garko who drove home the run with a two-out single, but from there were shut down till their run in the 9th that got them close, but not close enough.

Three Giants pitchers, starting with Jonathan Sanchez, shut the Tribe down for a majority of the night.  Sanchez went 7.2 innings, allowing one run on five hits, walking two and striking out eight.  Aaron Laffey was okay, allowing one run on 6.2 innings.  He gave up four hits, walked three and struck out one.

The Giants plated a run each in the 8th and 9th for the win, the run in the 8th scoring on a silly throw from catcher Kelly Shoppach trying to nail a runner at second trying to steal with two outs.  The ball came in low, and he was charged an error, at the same time allowing a run to score to make it 2-1.

The ninth inning run off of Masa Kobayashi came when he allowed a walk, a single, then a ground out to put runners on second and third.  Omar then laid down a bunt that Casey Blake couldn’t handle, and it allowed the winning run to cross the plate.  In usual Indians fashion, they had the tying run on first with two outs in the 9th when Shoppach on a full count struck out to end the game.

The loss puts the Indians back at 7 games under .500, at 35-42.  Wednesday night it’s Jeremy Sowers (0-2 6.57) vs Barry Zito (2-11, 6.32) at 7:05pm.

On a day that had its share of downs with Victor Martinez and Josh Barfield finding themselves on the DL, the Indians put all that behind them and put on an offensive explosion in pounding the Twins 12-2 at Progressive Field. They put up a season-high in hits with 18, hit two homers, and everyone in the starting lineup minus Ryan Garko had a hit and scored at least one run.

Aaron Laffey made it a laugher as well, going six solid innings to improve to 4-3 on the season. He allowed just one run on five hits, walking one and striking out four. He also dropped his ERA to 2.83 on the year. Laffey is a player that will have to pitch great the rest of the season if the Indians want to contend the AL Central.

As for the offense, they hit early and often. They pounded Twins starter Livan Hernandez, hitting him up for 7 runs on 12 hits in just three innings. He also allowed two homers, one to Grady Sizemore in the 4th with no one on, and a three-run blast to Shin Soo-Choo in the 3rd and put the Indians up 6-0.
The Tribe scored a single run in the 2nd when Kelly Shoppach punched in an RBI single. They put up five in the third, with Choo’s blow being the biggest of the inning. Jhonny Peralta also had a big hit, a two-run RBI single that scored Jamey Carroll and Ben Francisco.

Carroll was impressive at the plate, going 4-for-4 and raising his average to .273. Francisco went 4-for-5 with three RBI, he’s hitting .309. Choo went 2-for-3 with three RBI and is hitting .333. Poor Ryan Garko could not share in the fun, as he went 0-for-4 with six men left on base. I’m sure he’s not all that upset about it.

The win wins the series for the Indians, as they get set for interleague play with the Padres coming to town for a three-game set over the weekend. Cleveland is now 31-36 on the year, closing in on the Twins for second, who fall to 32-35.

Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia has lost games like this before, which is why Tuesday night’s 1-0 shutout over one of the two teams the Indians are looking up at in the AL Central was extra special.  Looking as good as he has all season, Sabathia retired the last 17 Twins batters, and used all his pitches in moving to 4-8 on the season.  He allowed five hits, didn’t walk a batter and struck out five.

The Tribe offense was held in check by Twins starter Scott Baker, but they got the only run that mattered in the first, when Ben Francisco doubled in the two spot, then two batters later Ryan Garko singled him home for the only run of the game.  Garko’s hitting trend continued, as he was 2-for-4, and has now hit safely in his last 7 games, with an average of .321.

The rest of the night was all Sabathia.  He threw 95 pitches, 59 of which were strikes.  It was his first complete game shutout since the Indians were playing much better ball back on May 14th, when he stopped the A’s cold 2-0.  He moves to 12-8 lifetime vs the Twins.  He now has three complete games this year, and did the bullpen a favor after last night’s rain delay win in Detroit by giving them the night off.

The Tribe moves to 30-35 on the season, and drop the Twins to 31-34, just a game back of them in the division standings.  Tomorrow at 7:05 the teams play game two of the three-game set, as Paul Byrd (3-5, 4.46) goes for the Indians vs Nick Blackburn (4-4, 3.94).

It’s amazing to think that Cliff Lee is the Indians MVP at this point of the season, but that fact came back to the forefront last night in Detroit as he pitched well enough to earn his 10th win of the season as the Indians topped the Tigers 8-2. The win wraps up the teams longest road trip of the season, an 11-game outing in which they went 5-6, hitting KC, Texas and Detroit.

Lee is the first AL pitcher to win 10 games, he went 5 innings, allowing two runs on six hits. The reason for the short outing was the fact the game was hit by a 57-minute rain delay. The bullpen finally did a nice job after blowing a game Saturday, as Rafael Perez, Rafael Betancourt and Masa Kobayashi went a combined four innings, allowing one hit total and walking three, striking out two.

The offense got off to a fast start, as Ryan Garko hit a three-run blast to deep left off of Tigers starter Dontrelle Willis in the first inning to give the Tribe a quick 3-0 lead. The team chased Willis in the second, as Kelly Shoppach hit a two-run homer to make it 5-0, then Garko got hit by a pitch to bring in a run, Jhonny Peralta singled to score a run, and Shin Soo-Choo hit a sac fly to make it 8-0.

Willis lasted just 1.1 innings, allowing 8 runs on three hits. He has been a big bust so far for the Tigers, has he’s been hurt, and is carrying an 0-1 mark now with an ERA of 10.32. He has started just four games, and has pitched only 11.1 innings, allowing 13 earned runs on seven hits. The Indians only had six hits, but were on cruise control most of the night due to the early lead that they carried as well as their bullpen.

New second basemen Josh Barfield batted ninth, and did little at the plate, going 0-for-4 with a fly out to center, foul out to right, fly out to deep left, and ground out to third. Grady Sizemore got a rare night off, as Franklin Gutierrez started in center and hit lead off.

Tonight the Indians come back home for the first time since late May, as they start the first of six at Progressive Field vs the Twins and then a weekend interleague series vs the Padres. C.C. Sabathia, who’s 3-and-8 with a 4.81 ERA, will start for the Indians. The Twins will send out Scott Baker, who’s 2-and-0 with a 4.03 ERA. First pitch is set for 7:05 p.m.

The back and forth from Buffalo to Cleveland that has been the season for pitcher Jeremy Sowers continued on Sunday, and it seemed to drag on him, as he was ineffective and somewhat wild as the Tigers topped the Indians 5-2 at Comerica Park.  Sowers went over 90 innings in just four innings, giving up five runs on seven hits, walking two and striking out two.  He was 4-3 with the Indians Triple-A club, but that did not translate over Sunday in the heat in Detroit.

“[The Tigers] made him work all the way through,” manager Eric Wedge said. “A big part of that was he just wasn’t throwing his fastball where he wanted to. They’re a veteran club, a club you need to be aggressive with. You put them on the defense early in the count if you can.”

Armando Galarraga, who had already topped the Indians once this season in Cleveland, did it again on Sunday, keeping Indians bats silent most of the day.  He allowed just two runs on four hits in 5.2 innings.  Grady Sizemore had a RBI single in the 3rd that made it 2-1, and then Ryan Garko singled to center in the 6th to score Sizemore, but by then the team trailed 5-1 and the wind was out of their sails.

The only other Indians batter that really showed a pulse was Shin Soo-Choo, who went 2-for-4 with a run scored and is now batting .333 on the season.  If your looking for bright spots on this steam bath of a Sunday, the Indians two relief pitchers, Scott Elarton and Edward Mujica came up and only allowed one hit over the last four innings for Detroit while striking out four.

Monday the four-game series concludes at 7:05pm as the team, now 28-35, will try to at least get out of Motown with a split as Cliff Lee at 9-1 takes on Dontrelle Willis (0-0, 4.50).

It seems to be that every other year the Indians bullpen is very good.  The problem with that is that means this year is one of those “off” years for the pen, and that fact reared its ugly head again on Saturday as the bullpen allowed six runs in the teams latest setback 8-4 to the Tigers.  Aaron Laffey had done a solid job getting the Indians to a 3-2 lead in the 7th, going 6.2, allowing only a two-run homer to Carlos Guillen.  It was after he left that the wheels simply came off.

Starting with the 8th, Masa Kobayashi allowed two runs in just 0.1, giving up a homer to Marcus Thames, to tie the game at 3, then allowing a double to Mags Ordonez.  Enter Rafael Betancourt, who threw a meatball to Miguel Cabrera who singled to deep left to score Ordonez.  Betancourt, who has continued to take major steps back this season, then allowed another single, a sac to put runners on second and third, and then after an intentional walk to load the bases he struck out Ryan Raburn to give them two outs.

As has happend all year long though, the pen was unable to get that all important third out, and Betancourt again threw one over the plate, this time to Edgar Renteria, who didn’t let him get away with it, putting it out for a grand slam to make it 8-3.  The line on Betancourt, 1 inning, four runs, three hits, one walk and one strikeout.  Last season Rafael was 5-1, three saves, and an ERA of 1.47.  After 27 appearences in 2008, he is 1-3, 4 saves, and has an ERA of 7.27.

While Laffey was the bright spot, the offense did what it could to try and give him a win.  They put up three runs, one on a Franklin Gutierrez fielder’s choice in the 2nd, and then a Kelly Shoppach double to make it 2-0.  Guillen’s homer made it 2-2, but the Indians responded with a Ryan Garko sac fly in the 6th after an error by Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers opened the door.  It looked as if it would be enough until Masa and Betancourt gave it away.

The loss puts the Indians at 28-34 on the season.  They will throw Jeremy Sowers (0-0, 5.23) vs the surprising Armando Galarraga, who is 4-2 with a 3.76 ERA.  He beat the Indians back on April 16th in Cleveland going 6.2 innings, allowing two runs on one hit.