Indians Confidential

Just imagine if the Indians played the rival White Sox 162 times a year. They could find themselves in a race for the AL Title. Instead, the Tribe only gets 18 shots at Chicago, but again on Saturday night they made the most of it, beating the Chicago team from the South side for the 8th time in a solid 3-1 win.

The victory puts Cleveland at 8-3 against Chicago this season, and much of it was due to another strong outing from starter Mitch Talbot. The starter earned his 7th win of the year, and went 7 innings allowing one run on six hits. He walked three and struck out five to move to 7-4 on the season.

The bullpen also did their job, as Chris Perez allowed a single to start the 8th, but got out of it with a double play, and then Kerry Wood pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to earn his 4th save of the year.

Sox starter and former Cy Young award winner Jake Peavy (4-5) breezed through the first three innings, not allowing a base runner for the Indians, and making those in the stadium press box start to wonder if this was going to be another near perfect game like last Wednesday in Detroit.

That though quickly went away in the fourth, when Trevor Crowe lined a single to left, then on the next pitch Shin-Soo Choo blasted a single to left-center. Austin Kearns then singled in Crowe, and after Russell Branyan walked, Peavy was called for a balk that gave the Tribe their second run.

They added an extra run in the 8th when Branyan drove in a run to make it a 3-1 game.

The two teams wrap up their series on Sunday, and the Indians have a shot with a win to go .500 on the 10-game road trip. They come home for four vs the Red Sox starting on Monday night.

From Jenna at JRocksWorld.com

The Cleveland Indians bounced back from yesterday’s loss against the White Sox in a 7-3 win at Progressive Field Tuesday night.

Indians rookie Mitch Talbot deserves much of the credit in the win as he outpitched White Sox starter Jake Peavy. Talbot, who is now 6-3, allowed two runs and six hits over seven innings to win for the third time in four starts.

Tribe rookie shortstop Jason Donald got his first Major League home run early in the third inning to set the tone for the Indians. One out after rightfielder Shin-Soo Choo hit his seventh homer of the season to make it 2-0.

Talbot has earned a decision in each of his nine starts this year, and became the first Indian since 2001 to earn six wins in his first ten start. He is the only rookie in the Majors to have six wins in 2010.

The righty threw 77 pitches, 57 of which were strikes. Talbot did not walk a batter and struck out four in the win.

The Indians will wrap up the homestand against the White Sox tomorrow at 12:05. Jake Westbrook, who is 2-2, will go for the Indians against the White Sox’s Mark Buehrle who is 3-5.

You have to wonder if the White Sox have nightmares about the Indians at this point. The Sox, a team expected to be right in the thick of things in the weak AL Central, were dispatched again by the Indians Sunday, as the Tribe earned a three-game sweep with a 7-4 win to move to 6-6 on the young season. Cleveland is now 5-1 against Chicago less than a month into the season.

The Indians pounded White Sox starter Gavin Floyd, as Shin-Soo Choo continued his torrid week with a grand slam in the second inning to put the Indians up 7-0 after they had gone up 3-0 in the first inning. In that first inning the Indians got a key two-out hit by DH Mark Grudzielanek, who was hitting .091 entering the game. The single brought in a pair of runs to give the Indians the 3-0 lead.

In that second inning, a pair of walks around a single by Asdrubal Cabrera loaded the bases for Choo. He crushed Floyd’s pitch over the Key Bank sign in left center for the teams second grand slam of the season. In the last week, Choo has four homers, 11 RBI and 12 hits.

Fausto Carmona worked 6 innings to move to 2-0 on the season, both wins coming against Chicago. He ran into trouble in the 5th when the Sox sent 8 batters to the plate, scoring three times. Carmona went 6 innings, throwing 96 pitches. He allowed three runs on 6 hits, walked two and struck out four.

Rafael Perez, Aaron Laffey, Joe Smith, Tony Sipp and Chris Perez all came on in relief, with Sipp giving up a run in the 9th. Otherwise, the rest were able to shut down the Sox and help Carmona earn the win. Perez earned his 4th save, his second in two days.

“Whenever you get 6 or 7 quality innnings from your starters and the offense today spotted us a nice lead early, we’re finding ways to win, and that’s the sign of a good team,” Perez said. “I’m not saying we’re good yet, but we’re getting there.”

The first homestand for the Indians is in the books, and after two poor games against the Rangers, they rallied to win four in a row to go 4-2 in their first six games at Progressive Field. They head to the road for a 9-game trip, as they will play three in new Target Field in Minnesota, then three in Oakland against the surprising A’s and three in LA against the Angels.

One more time – how’s that Chris Perez trade working out?

Yes, the Indians latest bullpen fall guy was at it again Tuesday night in Chicago, as he gave up a grand slam to Indian killer Paul Konerko as the White Sox scored 9 runs in their last three at-bats to top the Tribe 10-6.

Konerko hit three bombs on the night, driving in 7 runs. Per usual, Jeremy Sowers was pretty good through 5 innings, holding the White Sox to a single run as the Indians led the contest 2-1 entering the bottom of the 6th. Ah but alas, Jeremy would not let us down, as he gave up a double, single and a walk all with one out to load the bases for Konerko.

Enter Perez, who at least this time didn’t hit anyone like in his first Indians outing vs Chicago last week. Instead, he just allowed the worst possible thing to happen, a bases clearing bomb that quickly gave the Sox a 5-2 lead. Of course Perez wasn’t the only comedy act out of the bullpen Tuesday – we also got a chuckle from new Indian Winston “don’t call me Bobby” Abreu.

All he did was allow 80 percent of the batters he faced to score. He gave up a walk (a steal of second), a homer to Alexi Ramirez, a strikeout (his only out recorded), a single, and then Konerko’s third homer of the night, a two-run blast that made it a 10-2 route.

Abreu’s line – 0.1 innings, three hits, four runs, one walk, one strikeout, and two homers. While he couldn’t top Perez’s ERA of 23.14, his whopping 11.25 fits in nicely with the crap that is otherwise known as the Tribe bullpen in 2009.

About the only bright spot was Grady Sizemore, who hit two homers to bring his total to 13 on the season. He went 2-for-4 with three RBI and the two dingers. Shin-Soo Choo also homered (13) and Travis Hafner went 2-for-4 with a RBI and is now batting .281.

Other than that, it was once again the joke of a bullpen and the usual 6th inning meltdown of Sowers that made this outcome one that we’ve seen all too often in 2009.

Boy, that Chris Perez-Mark DeRosa deal sure looks like a winner.

Not.

At least not on Perez’s first night as an Indian, as the teams newest “pitcher” hit two batters and allowed four runs on two hits in his Indians debut in the latest version of the Bad News Bears – a 6-3 loss to the White Sox. Don’t let the final score fool you, as the White Sox never really broke a sweat after going up 2-0 after two innings.

They held the Indians offense at bay, and then in the 9th up 2-0 the team turned to Perez, who came over in the DeRosa trade late Saturday night. He started the inning by plunking Alexei Ramirez in the head, then hit Jermaine Dye on the hand. He then walked Jim Thome, a proceeded to allow a force out for a run, and a Chris Getz double to score a run, a wild pitch to bring a run home, and a single to finish off the fiasco.

Let’s just say the few thousand that were left at Progressive Field were not all that nice to Perez when he was pulled, showering him with a well deserved round of boo’s as he took his rightful place in the Indians dugout. The Indians did
avoid the shutout with three runs in the 9th (Shin-Soo Choo and Ryan Garko homers), but the game was well over at that point.

Of course Garko did have a chance to make it a game with the bases loaded and two outs in the 7th vs Gavin Floyd, but he ended the inning with a dribbler down the first base line that Floyd picked up and threw him out. One ump at first ruled it foul, but after a conference they made the correct call as it was fair, but just to hit the showers early, Eric Wedge argued the call and got booted.

Carl Pavano started, and allowed two runs on five hits in 7 innings, and wasn’t bad, but got no support at all. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out six, but was outdone by Floyd, who gave up five hits as well in 7.1, walking two and striking out five.

The Indians are now 31-47, their worst record this year in terms of being a full 16 games under .500. They have lost 6 of their last 7 at home, and 11 of their last 13. They will continue the homestand in front of a few friends and family on Tuesday night.

It’s been awhile since Cliff Lee has been able to gain a victory, but it hasn’t been his fault for the most part.  Lee has been having issues with the Indians offense, but Wednesday in the finale of a 6-game homestand, Lee was on like last season, quickly and with great success shutting down the White Sox as the Indians wrapped up the homstand with a 4-0 victory.

Friday Lee got no runs at all, and lost 1-0 to the Tigers.  While he’s just 2-5, he had not won a game since the opener in Yankee Stadium back on April 16th.  It had to be pretty frustrating for him, as he has a 1.70 ERA in his last five starts, but was getting litte run support.  The teams four runs today doubled its output in Lee’s previous four starts combined.

So it was nice to see Victor Martinez hit a solo homer in the first inning off of Mark Buehrle to give Lee a little support.  It was even better when the team got a two-run shot from Ryan Garko to make it 3-0 in the 4th, and then another run crossed to make it 4-0 in the 5th.

Not like beating Buehrle was an easy task.  The Indians were the first team in 2009 to do it, as entering Wednesday he was 5-0.  Matched up against Lee, those four runs were more than enough.  Lee went 7 innings, allowing six hits with 1 walk and 9 strikeouts.

“He’s been about as good as we’ve seen him. He’s been very consistent,” Eric Wedge said. “He’s gone through a stretch here where we haven’t scored any runs for him, but he hasn’t given in to that.”

Maybe the most important numbers were 2-1, which is what the Indians win to loss total the last three days vs Chicago, meaning they have won a series.  It was just their 2nd series win over the season, the first was against KC back April 21st to 23rd at Progressive Field.

It was also the Tribe’s first shutout of 09, last season with at one point Lee and C.C. Sabathia on the roster, the team ended the season with 13 shutouts.  The team now sits at 13-22, and will head out on their longest road trip of the season, starting with a game Thursday night in Tampa Bay.

No matter what uniform he wears, there’s no denying that Jim Thome loves to hit in Cleveland. The Tribe’s all-time leader in homers, now playing for the rival White Sox, turned back the clock on Tuesday, slamming two homers as the Indians lost to Chicago 7-4.

Thome isn’t the player he use to be, as even after going 2-for-3 with two homers, four RBI and two walks, he is hitting just .227. It was his first multi-homer game since March 31st, 2008, against (who else?!) the Indians. He may not be the same player, but he sure looked like the old “good old boy” that Tribe fans cheered for a number of seasons at Jacobs/Progressive Field.

Enough of Thome, the Indians once again were a team that looked like one of the leagues worst. Starting pitcher Jeremy Sowers got rocked for 5 runs on 7 hits in four innings, and while he struck out three, he also allowed three homers. He has an ERA of 12 after two losses, and is fooling no one. There’s a reason he was in the minors, and he’ll have a quick ride back probably after this loss.

The Indians did make this a game for sometime, as they fell behind after Thome’s first homer, but came back with a run in the 2nd to make it 2-1, then two in the third that tied the game at three. They took the lead for a brief time with a run in the fourth on a Asdrubal Cabrera ground rule double.

That lead was very short lived, as Thome’s second homer put the Sox back in the lead for good at 5-4, and then per usual in crunch time, the bullpen couldn’t keep it within striking distance, as Tony Sipp gave up a two-out single with the bases loaded to Corky Miller to score two runs to put it out of reach at 7-4.

The team has been void of power as of late, as they have not hit a homer in 6 games (53 innings), and they are 1-4 on this homestand with only a shot to go 2-4 with a win in the afternoon game tomorrow. On a positive note, a win tomorrow and they would win a rare series.

The loss drops them to 12-22 on the season, a full 7 games out of first. The homestand wraps up with a noon game on Wednesday.