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.