dammit! i don't care if it 20:40 and i have to be up at 04:30. tomorrow will be two weeks since i last posted. i was amazed it has been that long. two weeks ago the tribe was finishing up a somewhat disappointing road trip. then they got hot at home, of course! especially grady. now back to the somewhat slightly just barely disappointing road trip. although they came off it with a 5-4 record, i was hoping for 6-3. it could have easily been so. going 1-2 against the royals was obviously the worst part of the trip. but the royals were hot, at the time. since they have come back to reality (their loosing ways). the pen blew a game that was winnable. but the royals really beat our starting pitchers in the series. cliff lee and fausto took the mound for the first time with a multi run lead. at least sowers finally had a good start, and it was a game that kept KC from getting the sweep. then there was a totally awesome and surprising sweep of detroit. paybacks are many bad things, eh detroit? first time swept this season. their bullpen is where ours was at last year, when we still had wicky. despite going 1-2 against the best team in baseball (boston), the series was ok. the red sox just finished sweeping texas in texas. they had their 1, 2, and 3 starters going against our 3, 4, and 5 starters. the two losses were both close, well played (dare i say play-off type almost) games. and we beat diceK to prevent the beantown sweep. it was just about as 'best case' as loosing a series gets.

now we host detroit for 4 games. the tigers just got done loosing 2 of 3 against tampa in tampa. they will want revenge, but they are still hurtin. then we can get some revenge on KC. then off to cincy. this is considered an easy part of the schedule. i hope we continue our hot streak at home. they finally will have some warm weather to play in. hopefully grady's and pronk's good games at the plate today are indicators of more to come. and how about kelly today? he now has the highest average on the team! outstanding.

there were 5 shut outs in 15 games today. 4 occurred in the NL. starting pitchers were sergio mitre, derek lowe, erik bedard, barry zito, and chris young.

chris young and jake peavy might be the best 'one two combo' in baseball. only if fransisco was healthy would they be second. i take san diego's dyanamic duo over beckett and schilling. hudson and smoltz, no doubt. bonderman and verlander, although this as a tough choice. any two the four the white sox would offer as their best. any two of the three (when healthy) that the A's would dangle. halladay and burnett. zito and the second best (lincecum, cain, lowry?) from san fran. ben sheets and chris capuano. bedard and cabrera, not even close. shields and kazmir. oswalt and jennings. zambrano and lilly. c.c. and carmona, hmmm. what were the rangers thinking?

arizona is hot, again.

elijah dukes should be sent back to the minors. come on tampa.

who the hell is germano for SD?

the brew crew is falling back down to earth, as is jack cust.

well, baseball has been crazy as ever. mostly good for the tribe. despite a less than impressive 4-6 road trip. half of those wins belong to the hottest pitcher in baseball, fausto carmona. just ask torri hunter. we are back home, and just got done beating up on the twins for three games. fausto capped things off today with his first complete game shut out, a 4 hit gem. in doing so, he beat the best pitcher in baseball in johan santana, for the second time this month. i wish i could have listened to today's game. it was scoreless going into the seventh. victor martinez and ryan garko than hit back to back jacks. btw, it was the first time johan allowed back to backs in over 3 years. fourth time overall. that was all the tribe got, that was all they needed. game over man. in comes cincy, a below .500 team. those are always the scary match ups.

well, the season is over one quarter through now, so i thought i would look at some stats. i admit, i am a stat geek.

you always hear how important it is for pitchers to get ahead in the count. the numbers SCREAM this adage. here are some batting averages. the low number for each player is always their average with a 0-1 count. the higher average is when the count is 1-0.
kelly shoppach .188 / .412
ryan garko .260 / .376
jason michaels .161 / .353
jhonny peralta .182 / .345
trot .184 / .340
grady .219 / .321
pronk .230 / .314

some home and away batting averages that stuck out.:

casey blake, like alot of tribe batsmen, is hitting poorly at the jake at .222.
pronk is worse at .173.
jhonny loves it at home, as indicated by his .322 average. he loves the jake so much, he only hits .197 when not there.
josh barfield misses the jake so much, he only hits .157 when not there.

i was shocked to see turf versus grass batting averages.:

the non speedy travis hafner is hitting .500 at turf field stadiums and only .231 on grass. david delluci is a .375 hitter on turf.
although barfield has been struggling in general, he does not utilize his speed on turf at all, batting only.143.
jason michaels on turf, .056.

day vs night batting averages also had some seeming anomalies, and some amazing consistency.:

trot must see better during the day. he crushes at a .409 clip during the day, and must be blinded at night where he is an .200 'hitter'.
double 'd' and mike rouse should not play day games, batting .200 and .077 respectively. it is a good thing that trot and david platoon in the outfield.
then there is barfield and kelly shoppach. between the two of them, there is a .004 point differential. josh is .220 day / .221 night. kelly is .273 day / .276 night.

averages versus lefties and righties.:

most hitters are doing fair to well against lefties. josh (.161) and shoppach (.111) are not. casey blake loves the lefties (.333). not as much as jhonny (.370).
kelly shoppach was one of the better hitters against righties at .323.
everyone knows left handed batters should struggle against left handed pitchers. pronk bucked that trend last year, and is continuing to do so this year (.289 / .259. the really surprising thing is jason michaels is trying to follow suit. he his batting .278 against his usual nemesi.

lastly, and most importantly, the RISP of the 12 regulars. sorry (andy marte).:

.459 - victor (unbelievable); .417 - jhonny ; .313 - jason ; .303 - trot ; .276 - grady ; .268 - barfield (one of his better categories) ; .267 - kelly ; here is the sad part, both pronk and garko are tied at .200 ; .160 - dd ; .146 - blake (he IS doing much better now) ; .125 - mike.

it was sorta disappointing to see grady is only hitting .235 from the seventh inning on.

some final thoughts:

what is wrong with fernando?

what is up with teams scoring five or more runs in the ninth inning to win the game? the indians have lost two games like that now, both on the road. thanks joe blow. it happened a record five times this week! in 1979 and 2003, it only happened 6 times all year! makes me feel a little better.

i bet jason davis does well with seattle. i hope he does.

what happens when newly signed jake westbrook comes back? i say go with a six man rotation. but since i am not eric wedge, jeremy sowers best start pitching well.

cliff lee should be due for a great pitched game. so far (in just three games) that has been his pattern.

i never thought i would want casey blake to be the starting third baseman again. but he has done awesome, both offensively and defensively, at third. plus, that means garko gets more AB's. sorry andy.

with all the comments made by bewildered twin players that were in espn's recap of today's tribe game, why was fausto not featured in that's nasty portion of baseball tonight??? scott kazmir throws over 100 pitches in just 4 innings, and they show him striking out a washed up and over the hill sammy sosa on low 90 mph fastballs.

is fred lewis for real?

lincecum seems to be.

it is late.

go tribe!

peace

'good luck with your game tonight'.

my buddy sean said those parting words as he was walking to his car. thing was, those same words were on the tip of my tongue. he just beat me 'to the punch'.

that game tonight is the tribe vs the angels, of course. cliff lee vs ervin santana.

it is 2-0 now. the wizzard of o.c. just made a nice play on a hard hit ball off the bat of ryan garko. the out ended the top of the 4th inning, and saved a run. the angels have made some nice plays tonight defensively. against any other team, i bet at least half of those outs would have been base hits. cleveland has made some plays also. major props to casey blake, who has made two nice plays. barfield looks steady. peralta turned a DP. and just try hitting the ball to center. please. i want to see grady make a catch. this is the type of game i love. pitching and defense, and cleveland is winning. one has to wonder though, will cleveland's outs stop being outs and become base hits? that is the vibe i am picking up. coincidentally, it is now 3-0. i just hope cleveland is the only team that makes the turn.

so, we are still tops in our division. and the second place team, the tigers, just lost a vital piece of their bullpen in joel zumaya. the thing that sucks is the loss of three of our off days. they instead will be spent making up three of the four snowed out games against the mariners. the other game will be made up in a seattle based doubleheader. the tribe will be the home team, of course.

another nice play by blake on a catch of a foul ball. plus he had a RBI single to plate the third run. a hit with a runner in scoring position! i bet his average in that category just skyrocketed.

damn. the no hitter is gone, the shut out is gone. thanks to a two out reggie willits single passed a diving jhonny. it was an ugly dive. omar probably-most-likely would have made that play. ditto for o.c..

right now is a key at bat. pronk is up. he struck out three times in a row. including an ugly swing at strike three that hit travis on the leg in the first. like sean stated, at least he got the runner to second. that runner, casey blake, ended up scoring. damn. travis, once again, struck out. hope that doesn't turn out to be a key play of the game.

another quick inning by lee. the angel commentators were making it sound like lee was getting tired after he opened the inning throwing back to back balls to start the 7th. three pitches later, the inning was over. all they had time for was to ask incredulously 'what was that, five pitches' before a commercial commenced.

so, last i posted, we were playing texas. we took both of those games. we took two of three from baltimore. we swept toronto. one of those was an amazing extra inning game. we used every pitcher we had. emergency 'plans' were being proposed. that was because our starter, jake westbrook, left in the second inning with an abdominal strain. he is now on the DL. fausto, just sent down after an awesome game against baltimore the prior sunday, is now back up. the loss by the way was under protest because of a scoring error. i never heard what came of that. then we went to baltimore for four. we split, only because rafael bentancourt allowed baltimore to tie the game in the 8th. c.c. got win five to end our two game slide. then fausto pitched a repeat of his game in cleveland.

after plunking napoli, who broke up cliff lee's no hitter and shut out in the sixth, grady made a nice running catch to end the 8th. still 3-1 good guys.

casey is 'getting it going' clutch hitting-wise. gettin er done. now pronk is up again, two runners on, a different pitcher on the mound. first pitch, he brings in grady from third with a RBI ground out. there are now two out, but the lead is four. an RBI is just as good as a base hit, this late in the game. three outs left for the angels.

the game is over! 5-1 good guys. it was all about cliff lee. he got win number 50. he pitched his third career complete game. the three measly hits the angels got tonight was a career low for cliff. cliff usually is a six inning pitcher. one who, last year especially, seemed to tire as the game went on. regardless of his pitch count. not tonight. he did give up a walk and a single to start the ninth. i was wondering. he then retired the next three batters. that group included the always dangerous vlad. and his second strikeout of the game. gary matthews jr was victim number two. all in his second start of the season. his first start was none too impressive. he gave up five runs in six innings to toronto. now he shows he belongs in this talented staff. after getting rocked in baltimore, i hope jeremy sowers rebounds as well in game three of the series. either he will be pitching for the sweep, or pitching to clinch the series win. going back to cliff, he now has two complete games in his last three starts. he kicked things off with a complete game against tampa bay in cleveland. i believe it was cleveland's last game of 2006

good luck indeed to both the indians and d'backs tonight.