Indians Confidential

Indians today sold the contract of RHP TOM MASTNY to the Yokohama Bay Stars of the Japanese Central League.

Mastny, 27, split the 2008 season between AAA Buffalo and Cleveland. He went 2-2 w/a 1.78 ERA in 28 games for Buffalo (35.1IP, 26H, 7ER, 12BB, 43K, .206AVG) and with the Indians he was 2-2 w/a 10.80 ERA in 14 games (1GS, 20.0IP, 28H, 24ER, 11BB, 19K, .318AVG).

The Indians 40-man roster is now at 38 players.

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.

As the Indians attempts to turnover their bullpen continues, their losing streak Saturday night at the HHH Metrodome continued. After taking a 5-2 lead after the second inning, and getting five ho-hum innings from Aaron Laffey, the bullpen imploded again, allowing five runs in three innings in the teams 7th straight loss, 9-6 to the Twins.

The bullpens culprits on this Saturday night included Tom Mastny, who allowed four runs on two hits in just 0.1, and Rafael Perez, who gave up one run on one hit in 1.1. The Twins moved to 5-4 after five innings, and then put the game away with a five run 6th to move to 49-38 on the season.

The Indians fall to 37-50, 13 games under .500 and 13 games back of the White Sox in the AL Central. The offense was highlighted by Grady Sizemore, who went 2-for-5 with his 22nd homer and RBI. Andy Marte showed signs of life at the plate, going 2-for-4 with his first RBI of the year, he’s batting .150.

The loss means that the Tribe, who were one game away from being the AL reps in the World Series just 8 months ago, now have the second worst record in baseball. “You can’t think about that now, ‘cause we’re here,” Grady Sizemore said. “You can’t be frustrated with the way things started because of the success last year. You have to move forward and find a way to make this year positive.”

It’s not getting easier to watch this team, and with C.C. Sabathia and probably at least 1-2 other players, like Casey Blake heading out the door to other teams in the next three weeks, it’s probably not going to get much better.

From: The Indians

CLEVELAND, OH — The Cleveland Indians today announced the club has recalled RHP TOM MASTNY from the AAA Buffalo Bisons. To allow room on the Major League roster for Mastny the Indians have placed RHP SCOTT ELARTON on the Restricted List (personal reasons).

Mastny has split the season between Cleveland and AAA Buffalo. He was with the Indians from April 15-May 11 and again from June 2-4, making a spot start in Texas on June 3 (1.1IP, 6H, 5R/ER). With the Indians he has made 3 appearances (3.0IP, 8H, 7R/ER, 21.00ERA) over his two stints. Tom has been sharp at AAA Buffalo, going 1-0 w/a 1.71 ERA in 19 relief appearances (26.1IP, 20H, 5ER, 8BB, 34K) and has limited Triple A hitters to a .211 average against with 1 HR allowed. He has not allowed an earned run in 9 June appearances (13.0IP, 7H, 1R, 2BB, 17K, .159AVG). He wears #40.

Elarton has been with the club since May 24 and has posted a mark of 0-1 w/a 3.52 ERA in 8 relief appearances (15.1IP, 16H, 6ER).

The Indians made a pair of expected roster moves today to get some fresh arms in the bullpen. Below is the press release from the team sent out about 5:20 this afternoon.

CLEVELAND, OH — The Cleveland Indians today announced the club has recalled RHP BRIAN SLOCUM and purchased the contract of RHP RICK BAUER from the AAA Buffalo Bisons. To allow room for Slocum and Bauer on the Major League roster the Indians optioned RHP JENSEN LEWIS and RHP TOM MASTNY to AAA Buffalo.

The Indians 40-man roster now stands at 40.

The Indians were in a tough spot last night in Arlington, as they needed an emergency start from someone who could hopefully step in and give them a few decent innings on the mound. Instead of making a move to bring up a pitcher like Jeff Harris or Brian Solcum from Triple-A, the team threw out normal reliever Tom Mastny. Let’s just say the results were not good. The Rangers batters smelled blood early, and with back-to-back homers in the first setting the tone, Texas pounded the Indians 12-7.

The offense actually for the second straight night showed signs of life, but this time it was the pitching staff, now with 2/5’s of its starting rotation on the DL, that could not give the team any support. Mastny was downright awful as the starter, going just 1.1 innings, allowing five runs on six hits, allowing the two homers. Four other Indians pitchers did fare all that much better, as they allowed a combined seven runs on 10 hits over the final 6.2 innings. The only pitcher to not be charged with allowing an earned run was Scott Elarton, and he went just 0.1.

Down 5-0 after two innings, the offense tried to rally, scoring single runs in the 3rd and 4th, then after Texas scored three more between the 5th and 6th innings to make it 9-2, the Tribe again tried to rally with three in the 7th and one in the 8th to make it 9-6. That would be as close as it got, as a three spot in the bottom of the 8th for Texas put the game away.

The offense put up 15 hits, and combine that with the 16 hits on Monday and maybe a trip to Arlington was exactly what the offense needed to get itself on track. They also have scored 20 runs in the last two games, this after scoring 21 runs in the last five games before Monday night. Also they had a stretch in May, when they hit .218 as a team, that they scored 31 runs in 10 games, going 1-9.

Five players in the lineup had at least two hits, with Grady Sizemore, Ben Francisco, Ryan Garko, Franklin Gutierrez and Shin-Soo Choo all having good nights at the plate. Choo hit a solo homer in the 9th, while Garko went 3-for-5 with a RBI to move his average back up to .244. And to think the offense did this without Travis Hafner, on the DL, and with Victor Martinez playing only late for starter Kelly Shoppach.

Tonight the series continues, as Cliff Lee at 8-1 with an ERA of 1.88 will go for the Indians vs Sidney Ponson (4-1, 3.83) at 8:05pm. The team is now 26-32, 5.5 back of the White Sox in the AL Central.

In a move that is sure to be short-term, Tom Mastny will start tonight for the Indians vs the Rangers.  The Indians sent out a quick one sentence presser announcing the move:

RHP TOM MASTNY will start for the Indians against the Texas Rangers at 8:05PM ET in Rangers Ballpark in Arlington… Will be his 1^st Major League start.

The team for whatever reason will go with Mastny over calling up Jeff Harris or Brian Solcum from Buffalo.  Both those pitchers would also though have been guys that would have been lucky to give you more than 5 innings.

The Indians have made a roster move to put another arm in the pen, as today they called up Tom Mastny and sent down Michael Aubrey. Here is the official presser:

The Cleveland Indians today announced the club has recalled RHP TOM MASTNY from AAA Buffalo. To allow room for Mastny on the Major League roster, the Indians optioned INF MICHAEL AUBREY to AAA Buffalo.

Mastny is 1-0 with a 3.14 ERA (14.1IP, 14H, 6R/5ER, 6BB, 17K) in 11 appearances out of the bullpen for the Bisons this year. He will be joining the Indians for the 2nd time this season as he was with the club from April 14 thru May 11 going 0-0 with a 10.80 ERA (1.2IP, 2H, 2R/ER, 3BB, 3K) in 2 appearances. After being optioned back to Buffalo on May 11th, he allowed just 1 run/earned in 9.0 innings (7G, 5H, 2BB, 8K) for the Bisons. He wears #40.

Aubrey hit .185 (5-27) with 2 runs scored, 2 home runs and 2 RBI in 9 games with the Indians. Each of his first two Major League hits were home runs.