'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.