paybacks are great! so is travis hafner getting the clutch double to tie it up, coupled with the HR last night. the first in 68 AB's, i believe. another miracle come back win.

i love the second time pinch hitter kelly shoppach hit the HR. as the announcer said: it was NOT a walk off home run, it was a run off HR. on a night that rafeal betancourt actually gives up a run, on his first HR allowed all year, to shannon stewart of all people, the tribe gets a remarkable win.

i was starting to curse the most remarkable comeback of the year, the one on june 1 against the tigers. we have not played consistently well since that game. especially the offense, as a whole. scoring only 5 runs in three games against the lowly nationals was the exclamation mark on our offensive woes since. maybe tonight will end our funk, and we will run off on a consecutive win streak. with just two left with the A's and then four against the rays, that potential is huge.

but hafner is starting to come through, i hope. i thought he would do it in the seventh, when he was up with the bases juiced and 2 down. but the rookie right handed pitcher he was facing had only given up one hit in 12 chances to a lefty before pronk's hard hit fly ball CF that ended that inning.

garko seems to be pulling out also. his hits have not come in bunches, but al least they are now there, and mostly driving in runs.

as bad as trot he has been lately, he still draws walks, even (incredually) intentional.

i would write more, but it is late.

well, we got our revenge. we beat the marlins thursday night to wrap up the road series win, on the night the fish honored members of the '97 championship team and the players wore the jersey's form that year. take that fish.

more importantly, jason stanford pitched awesome. the d-train was good, stanford was better. not bad for the number 9 starter in the organization.

so, on to another team we lost to in the world series, the atlanta braves. right now, i am watching game one. c.c versus buddy carlyle. through the first six innings, they are equals, in the earned runs allowed department. 3-3 is the score. the braves have 10 hits. each and every one has been a single. most have had eyes, just barely evading a pursuing indians' defender. on at least two of those singles, the bat did not survive, shattering into pieces. the indians only have six hits themselves. no extra base hits for them either. so in the hits allowed department, buddy has the edge.

after 6, buddy is gone though. enter taylor yates. 1-2-3, 7 pitches. so does c.c. in the 8th.

casey blake just extended his hit streak to 24 games. with a lead off homer in the 8th off of the inhittable rafael soriano. my perception of casey has changed so much this season. when the season started, i thought he should be a bench player. i thought andy marte should be the starting third baseman. i thought casey not playing third base regularly since '04 would only weaken his already shaky D over there. the opposite seems to be true. he looks better than ever over there. although he has been batting in the 3 hole lately with DD in the 2 spot, i love casey as a 2 hole hitter. he is number two in the AL in number of pitches per at bat. grady is number four and pronk is number 5.

the 8th is over, and c.c. seems to be coming out for a third straight 9 inning outing. that seems amazing after the 2 run, 4 hit inning in the sixth. grrrrr. the braves have the lead. their first two extra base hits of the night, sandwiched around a jhonny error, have given the braves the lead. i am curious, why was mastny, not borowski warming in the pen? i know joe had another shaky save last night.

mastny is in. once again, he is NOT throwing strikes. what up, dude? the bases are now loaded, one out, andruw jones up. not good. a huge out. jones ground out to casey, who throws home for the second out. wow, mastny recovers. he gets jeff f to ground out to second to end the inning. now we need a run off our old closer to tie up the game. two would be great. we should do well against wicky. we shall see. bob did blow a heartbreaking game for atlanta last night in minnesota. i believe he gave up 3 runs in the ninth to negate 8 scoreless innings by tim hudson and the braves. that took johan off the hook.

it is all up to casey right now. 2 on, 2 out. dang! typical wickman save. one hit, one walk, but in between he struck out the side. i knew garko did not stand a chance. i knew grady and casey both were susceptable.

speaking of K's... we seem to strike out, alot. tonight was no exception. i did some research, here is what i found. of the 21 batters who lead the AL in strikeouts, 5 of them are indians. the offenders are grady, pronk, casey, jhonny, and josh (in that order). because RF and LF platoon and garko does not start every day, that means 5 of our 6 every day players are on the list. the team with the second most players in the top 21 were detroit and tampa bay with 3 a piece. texas, KC, oakland, and the yankees each had two. the angels and seattle each have one. of the 5 teams without a representative, boston is the only team that has a good record. and they only have one player, manny at number 34, in the top 48. i definitely would like us to cut down. but at least we see all those pitches.

i just got done checking ESPN's and the cleveland indian's website.

first, i found out cleveland won today! they finally won in florida, for the first time since game 6 in '97. see, i told you, conjuring up the nightmares about, er memories of, '97. thanks to cliff lee 'settling down' after a three run first and a wild and crazy 6th inning, we have a chance to win a road series. we are back in first place. detroit, one night removed from justin verlander's no hitter, lost to the brew crew. that puts the indians one game ahead of detroit. not that long ago, we were 4-1/2 games up, but who is counting? like i have said many times, there is alot of season left. thankfully, only more one make up game against seatlle at the jake remains. two 'off days' down, one to go.

on to the second thing i learned tonight from the internet. it will be jason stanford that determines if we get a rare road series victory. it was just announced today. ESPN had not yet learned this, as they did not list a starting pitcher for cleveland in regards to tomorrow's game. for the longest time, it was a BIG mystery. who would it be? sowers just had got sent back down, thankfully. 7th starter and stud pitcher adam miller and buffalo's number two starter brian slocum are both on the DL. if stanford gets called up and sent back down, he will be exposed to waivers where he will no doubtably get picked up. so it couldn't be him, i had hoped. akron starters were mentioned. option 3 is not a bad one. stanford has pitched here before, AND has done well. he has a 3.4 something ERA so far. i believe has has had one or two bad starts /outings. so if you subtract those bad starts / outings, 3.4 something could easily be 2 something. he is up against a worthy, but maybe overhyped, opponent in the d-train. i say overhyped because the d-train has an ERA of 4.something. i believe a number one pitcher's ERA should start with a 3, maximum. if a pitcher's ERA is in the 3's, he could still be an awesome pitcher, one who just had a couple of bad starts (earned run-wise). if it starts with a 4, then he is not consistently giving his team great starts. a high powered, typically patient as hell, type offense like the one we do posses could potentially knock you out before the 5th and overall give up enough runs to allow a number 9 starting pitcher for the indians to give up 3 runs in five or six innings and get a lopsided 'walk-in-the-park' W. the offense always has that potential, especially when travis hafner gets hot at the plate. right now, that potential the has lived up to ever since the comeback 'miracle' victory over the tigers. since that amazing W, we have gone 3-5 with 2 shut out losses. in 9 days. besides pronk and garko performing badly during that stretch, c.c. and fausto have been the only good starting pitchers of the 5. one of those guys is gone, which brings me back to stanford and his future with the tribe. it sounds bleak. westbrook is probably 2 or 4 starts away from being called back up. best case scenario seems to be stanford having 3 decent to good starts and westbrook continuing to struggle in the minors. after 3 to 5 starts, the tribe will call up westbrook, irregardless of his results. wedge indicated he will not add stanford to the 'pen. wedge does not commit to much; but when he does, rarely are exceptions made. so stanford must get sent down, which means he gets put on waivers, which means another team grabs him, which means he is once again a major league starter, which means he is no longer a cleveland indian. but as number 7 and 8's: miller has no major league experience and slocum has 3 starts and maybe a few relief outings. stanford has at least 14 starts and some relief outings, and as stated earlier, the results were good performance-wise. they do not show up well in the W-L column. those appearances though were backed by alot less potent offense then the one that will be backing him tomorrow. now only if they live up to that potential AND stanford pitches as he did before, we will have that road series victory. the better stanford pitches, the better his slim chances of sticking around. although we definitely have depth, which is a wonderful and fabulous thing no doubt, number 6 and number 9 on the depth chart is not that big a difference. i have always liked stanford. injuries AND being on a team with pitching depth have been the only factors that have kept him out of the majors. for that reason, i hope he does not become another good prospect to join the ranks of brandon phillips, jeremy sowers, and jason davis to leave cleveland because they were put on waivers.

go figure. the tribe wastes 11 innings of shut out ball yesterday. they cannot score a single run in 12 innings and loose the game and the series to the reds. tonight, the offense is vintage. the starting pitching is not. down 7-0 enterring the 5th against the M's, the indians manage to tie up the game in the 8th. and they still loose. paul byrd must have been too rattled still over the snow out game where he was one strike away from a 5 inning no hit victory, because he struggled to get through 4 innings of work, giving up 7 earned runs. now we have lost 3 of our last 4.

i usually do not like to single out tribe players, but ryan garko needs to get back to form, and quick. last night he was at the plate in the 8th with the bases loaded and two out. he struck out. tonight was more of the same.

in the 1st, he comes to the plate with the bases loaded and two out. he flies out to left.

in the 5th, he comes to the plate with runners on first and second, once again with two out. he flies to left.

in the 8th, he comes to the plate with the tribe having just tied up the game, the bases loaded, and two out. he strikes out.

he also made outs with nobody on in the 4th and 7th innings.

why is it when one is struggling, they never have more oppurtunities to drive in runs and win ballgames? now he probably will not play for at least two games as cleveland heads down to florida where they surely will revive memories of the horror of '97 and game 7, even if they sweep the marlins.

another extra inning game. no runs have been scored thru 11 complete innings.

trot is up. trot does not look comfortable at the plate. since a double back in game one of the series, i cannot recall him putting a ball in play. lots of half swings and weak foul balls. but he walks to start the 12th. jhonny is up. he has yet to collect a hit so far today. wow, a scarafice bunt. holy cow. now it is up to the defensive hero from last night's game, franklyn gutierrez. michaels to third on a wild pitch! the rook has been in some pretty tough, late game AB's lately. thrown out at the plate! inning ending double play. what a game! still no score.

i will give cincy major props for their D. not just today, but all series. that was josh hamilton's second nice play in center today. he made a diving catch on a liner off the bat of pinch hitter travis hafner, extending pronk's hard luck series at the plate.

now the defensive hero is up to bat, with runners at first and second, one out. wow. a deep fly to our defensive hero, franklyn. and the runners did not tag. but there are two out. and matt miller is making his '07 debut.

it is not a good debut. first pitch, single. game over. we loose the series, being shut out by the reds in 12 innings. and no off day. instead, we are off back up to cleveland to make up game #2 against the mariners. then we get to go down to florida to play the marlins.

sigh.

for post #30, i will start off with a trivia question.

it is not too often that a starting pitcher goes 7 innings against the tribe. most often, it seems a starting pitcher against us has 100 pitches or more in the fifth inning, if they make it that far. but there has been four pitchers this year who went at least 7 innings against us, AND did allow a walk. do u know who those four are?

answer at the end.

now on to today's game. it is saturday, and cliff lee is matched against matt belisle at great american ballpark. norris (?) hopper just led off the bottom of the fifth with a lead off triple. we are down 4-3 already. we have worked belisle well, but have only scored 3 runs so far. 2 of those were solo shots via the bats of grady and jhonny.

it is now 5-3. what is up with jeremy sowers? westbrook is starting his rehab. the train is coming jeremy. it will be dropping off jake, and then taking you back to buffalo. the game is now in the hands of the bullpen. we need 4 quality (aka scoreless) innings to be able to mount a rally. if we do not do so today, we will have lost another road series. young rafael perez starts the pen's day. striking out ken griffey jr is definitely the right way to start things off, rafael.

brandon phillips is killing us. he just stole a base. thanks to victor not catching brandon though, we just recorded an out that probably would have been a base hit due to where josh barfield was.

so, i have heard how cincy's pen is so atrocious. in 4 games, i have not seen it though. they went four innings last night with only a solo bomb by pinch hitter garko to preserve the victory for phenom homer bailey. belisle has come out to start the 6th. he just retired jhonny on a groundout. now dellucci is gone. and so is barfield. sigh.

back to the pen. almost a 1-2-3 inning. the error by perez removes belilse from the game. the first two balls to pinch hitter david ross were more like perez's throw to first, wild. but he recovers to get another soft comebacker.

now it is officially up to cincy's pen. the first to try the hold the lead is rookie right hander marcus mc beth. this dude just made his debut earlier this week. grady is on, that is good. grady is now on third, that is better. pronk is up, which could be great. mc beth will not face him. the man facing pronk is lefty john coutlangus. pronk almost grounds into an inning ending double play. instead, a run is in and he is at second thanks to a wild pitch. i thought victor had the game tying hit. but it was right at the shortstop, alex gonzalez. dang!

perez is on again for his third inning. i know he was a starter in buffalo, but since he was recalled, i believe this is the fourth time he has pitched into his third inning of relief. ( vs boston, KC, det, and today). once again, ken has hit a solo HR. he did so last night, and that run was the difference in the game. hopefully the same will not be true tonight. earned run numero uno for perez. conine strikes out, but the damage is done, reds back up by 2.

majewski now in, leading off against pinch hitter ryan garko. a basehit by jhonny follows a K by garko. you gotta believe! speaking of dellucci is up. the count is now 3-2. DD is due. c'mmon. he is fouling off pitches. lets hope he gets one to hit. HE DOES. tie game! home run number 3. he starts off in a 0-2 hole, takes three straight close pitches for balls, then fouls off a couple, then BAM. barfield is now on. ygb! michaels is out and the lefty stanton is on to pitch to grady. stanton pitched 2 fairly easy innings last night. grady has 3 hits today, a HR, a 2B, and a 1B. dangit. brandon makes a nice play on a rocket shot by grady. but we have a whole new ballgame. and the reds have used more pitchers than we have.

betancourt is in for us now. so is franklyn gutierrez. a good inning for rafael #2, 1-2-3.

hopefully the tribe will score here in the 9th, and i can start grilling my steak. i have everything ready to go.

interesting, a tie game, yet reds' closer weathers is in again. even the reds' broadcasters are concerned that weathers is 'running on fumes'. we shall see. casey is out one on a nice play by gonzalez. pronk is now up. what a moment this would be for him to break out of his 'slump'. he has been driving the ball today, except for the almost DP ball. darn. fly ball to centerfielder hamilton. two gone. ygb, baby! let's go victor. wow, a pop up on a 3-0 count. what the heck, victor?

the bottom of the ninth. wow, norris just hit a foul ball that sorta scared me. he is really working betancourt well. c'mom strike out the side! it is now 2-2. i say throw that same pitch tha victor just somehow smothered. this has been quite an AB. end with a K. pitch 10. you do not want phillips at bat. 3-2. pitch 11 on its way. out, out, out. c'mon! THAT WAS STRIKE 3. i guess we are now even. hopefully, the result will not be. nope, no run will score. finally, onto extra innings. that was a scary inning. what an AB by hopper. i thought i was watching grady bat.

now a three run or more 10th should be in order. victor santos on. victor goes a quick 1-2-3.

mastny is on. he walks griffey. the way griffey has been swinging, that might have been a good thing. a sacrafice, a K, and a IBB ensue. now it is up to alex g. thank god for franklyn! what a ctach! i thought the game was over. wow!

a good start. barfield leads off with a single. a nice sacrafice by rouse puts grady at bat with a runner in scoring position. what a nice time it would be for that triple. ball four. just as good. two on, one out for casey. bases loaded for pronk. i like it. talk about being due. ok, i will take it. another RBI fielders choice. victor is putting up a nice AB. full count. 2 on, 2 out. YES! RBI single. 8-6 score.

that is your final! what a game. i am out. oh yeah....

the answer to today's trivia question.
1. kelvim escobar
2. joe blanton
3. curt schilling
4. brian bannister

with the 13th pick in yesterday's 2007 first year player draft, the cleveland indians took infielder beau mills.

on the 13th picth in the 8th inning of yesterday's game against KC, casey blake ripped a 2 out, 2 run HR that capped off the days scoring.

- this could mean absolutely nothing at all, a mere coincidence.

-this could be yet another indicator that this is / will be a special year for the indians.

-for triskaidekaphobiacs and many long suffering die hard cleveland fans, this probabaly is a sign that disaster is imminent. to them, our success (to this point) only further proves hard times are near.

-i say ride the wave, and enjoy it. do not worry about the future, just enjoy the present. the one true weakness i see right now is the pen. cabrera, mastny, and roberto are all struggling right now. roberto has been all season. and who knows what joe blow will do. i believe all four can turn it around. i believe matt miller will help out later in the season. i believe we will trade for a reliever. that is the bottom line: you gotta believe.

there were three shut outs pitched today. one was a complete game gem, 'a dandy', thrown by c.c. in a 1-0 game against the K.C. royals. the only run was a solo shot by franklyn gutierrez. he also made a nice sliding catch in foul territory for the first out of the ninth. special mention should go to victor. he had 2 of the tribe's 5 hits, both singles. much more importantly, he threw out both baserunners who tried to steal second. a 2 for 2 night for him.

there was another 1-0 game today, it was the dodgers versus the padres. jason schmidt versus chris young. san diego had 2 hits for the entire game, and won. one of those hits was an RBI single by marcus giles. the single in the eighth inning scored pinch hitter and ex indian russel branyan, who was hit by a pitch and then stole second. there were no extra base hits by either team.

the other was a 2-0 win by the A's over boston. it was an ugly win for oakland, as their starting pitcher walked 6 in 6 innings.

WOW! what else can one say, but WOW! the cleveland indians scored more runs than the detroit tigers tonight. they won 12-11, thanks to a 5 run ninth inning. what a wild game. what a comeback. all said, i keep coming back to WOW.

tonight's starting pitchers were mike maroth and fausto carmona. a rematch of the sunday night game a mere five days ago. one might expect somewhat of a pitchers duel between these two. maroth always pitches tough against us, and fausto has been one of the best pitchers in baseball this year. but carmona got hit tonight. in six innings pitched, he allowed 10 hits and five earned runs. but maroth was living up to his cleveland standards through the first five innings. we were down 5-1 going into the bottom of sixth inning after detroit scored 2 runs in the top of the inning. our only run came on a victor martinez solo shot. prior to that, josh barfield smacked a single with runners on first and second and two down in the second. garko (the runner on second) was gunned down at the plate on a laser beam throw from curtis granderson. after this, i figured it was not going to be the tribe's night. but with pronk on first and two down, jhonny peralta came through with a two run shot to cut the deficit to 5-3. there was hope. ryan garko followed with a single. then jason michaels had a green light on a 3-0 pitch. he parked a two run shot that tied the game at 5, and got fausto off the hook. it was a brand new ballgame with 4 innings to go.

in comes tom mastny for the seventh. the strike throwing machine was not with it tonight. by the time the top of the seventh was over with, detroit scored 4 runs. all 4 runs were charged to mastny. the momentum seemed gone, the ballgame seemed lost. we went 1-2-3 in the seventh. fernando cabrera had a quick 1-2-3 8th. that in itself seemed very encouraging, because he has been struggling badly.

the first two outs occurred quickly in the 8th. then jhonny lashes a double. he just barely got in to second base. another perfect bullet throw by granderson almost resulted in the final out of the 8th. but it did not. garko follows with his third hit of the night, sending jhonny to third. jim leyland decides to bring in his closer, the struggling todd jones, to pitch to jason michaels. wedgie counters by pinch hitting with trot nixon. good move wedge, trot singles to score jhonny. up comes josh barfield. he singles. the tribe is content to have the bases loaded, but granderson decides to throw home anyway. he airmails the throw all the way back to the backstop, scoring garko and leaving the tying runs both in scoring position. david dellucci pinch hits for franklyn gutierrez. dellucci for the most part has struggled all season, especially with runners in scoring position. he hits a sinking shot that i am sure is going to fall and tie up the ballgame. magglio ordonez makes a sliding catch to keep this from happening. regardless, the deficit has been halved, the score is now 9-7.

all fernando has to do is repeat his seemingly effortless 8th inning to keep the deficit at a respectable 2 runs. he cannot do so. the bases are loaded via a single and two walks, one being intentional. he strikes out craig munroe on a full count. now all he has to do is get out rookie catcher mike rabelo and the tribe can commence the comeback attempt. rabelo walks on 4 pitches, none of which were that close. wedge brings in another struggling reliever, roberto hernandez. after getting ahead in the count 0-2, an infield single to casey at third scores another run to put detroit back ahead by four, 11-7. once again, all momentum seems lost, if not crushed. also, casey blake was inadvertently nailed in the head by former indian sean casey in a foot race to third on that run scoring infield single.

but we have seen two improbable ninth inning comebacks against us (new york and oakland). they both started with two out. plus, todd jones sucks at the jake. plus, we have our lead off hitter leading off the inning. grady quickly makes an out though. casey blake singles to get something started. pronk follows with a walk. then v mart does his thing. he hits his second home run of the game, a three run shot. the first tribe batsmen to hit two home runs in the same game. he hit one from each side of the plate. of course, if not for the two runs scored by detroit in their half of the 9th, that home run would have been the game winner. still only one out, only down by one. jhonny is on fire tonight. he lashes a second consecutive double. mike rouse pinch runs. garko is up, but strikes out for out number two. in a surprise move by leyland, he puts the winning run on base by intentionally walking trot! now we can truly appreciate the move some questioned when we signed trot late in the off season. leyland did not want to take his chances with the crafty veteran. instead, he rather face the .230 something hitting josh barfield. josh spoils that plan by driving in the game tying run with an RBI single. 11-11! bobby seay is warming up in the pen. todd jones was very distraught over josh's single. he has thrown 42 pitches. he has faced 11 batters, getting 3 outs while allowing 6 hits (4 singles, a double, and a home run) and walking two. yet he is allowed to face david dellucci. the count is 2-1 when delluucci sends a rocket back up the middle for the game winning hit.

what a way to start the month of june. best start in home games, ever. ever equals 107 year. because the mets lost, we now are tied with them for the second best record in baseball. now we have taken the first five from last years world series representatives. now we have a 4-1/2 game lead. now we are 19-4 at the jake. now detroit has lost 7 of their last 8. now their closer is out for the last two games of the series (most likely). now, i am still smiling. WOW!