we were up 3 games to one. we had three chances to end the series and turn our attention to the rockies.

we lost all three games. the combined runs of those three games yields boston 30, cleveland 5. with a score like that, one who only looks at those numbers would be hard pressed to believe that any of those three games were close. by the way, our number one and two starters, who won a combined 38 games in the regular season, started two of these three games.

now, joe borowski has been with two teams that blew a 3-1 lead in an LCS series. his first was with the cubs (against the marlins of course) in 2003, the other being this year of course.

there were records set, both good and bad.
bad: travis hafner's 12 K's tied two others for the most by an individual player.
good: our defense did turn a record 14 DP's. i did not look up what the previous record was.

despite everything, here is the telling stat. this is the one that makes one want to quit being a cleveland fan:

'The Indians have now lost 9 of their last 10 potential series-clinching postseason games.'

boston is responsible for at least 6 of these losses. this series reminded me greatly of another red sox comeback against us. the year was 1999. we were up in the ALDS 2-0. we were leading in game 3 at fenway. then dave burba left the game. he was cruising, but had to leave with an injury. the pen could not hold the lead. we got pummeled in games 4 and 5.

yes, cleveland fans are accustomed to loosing. this one really hurt.

game 5 came, and it went. it went badly for us. analogous to game 1. appropriately, the starters were the same, and so were the pitching results. actually, both starters threw better.

there was 'mr postseason' josh beckett. he pitched very well in game 1. in game 5, he was outstanding. one first inning run, way too many strikeouts. the game started out well for us. grady sizemore hit an opposite field bloop hustle double. drubie followed with a rocket shot single that was hit too dang hard to score grady. two batters, two hits, and thoughts of a sore back beckett dancing through my head. up comes ALCS offensive party pooper travis hafner. pronk had 4 strikeouts the prior game. in this case, striking out would have been advantageous; because victor martinez singled after pronk's AB. but the bases were empty, and not because of a 3 run jack into pronkville. no. beckett did permit pronk to make contact, and pronk grounded into a DP. after martinez's single the final out was made. and we did not have a serious scoring threat until the ninth against papelbon. i cannot recall a runner reaching second since grady's lead off two bagger.

then there was c.c. . he did make it through five innings last night. he was only down 2-1 after 6 actually. but i finally have to question wedge for letting c.c. come out in the 7th. leaving the starter in is one mistake wedge constantly makes. he was over 100 mostly pressure packed pitches. he had only given up the two runs to that point; but manny was thrown out at the plate in the first, he escaped a bases loaded no out jam, and seemed to have bases runners on in every inning. c.c faces two batters in the second, and both reach base on extra base hits.

so, this really was a team loss. c.c. did not pitch to his potential. wedge made a managerial mistake. we made a big error in the knockout 7th (7 haven been a good number for us). and the bullpen did not pitch well collectively for the time in the postseason. the error was actually made by raffy perez from the bullpen. he threw away what could have been a potential double play with an errant toss to second. and mastny's wildness also hurt. grady even failed to make two extraordinary plays. i cannot recall the last time i saw a ball bounce out of his glove, regardless of the effort he exudes.

there was some drama. kenny and beckett almost got into it. kenny prematurely performed his patented bat flip after a ball four. only thing, it was called (and was) a strike. the mayor flew out to left on the next pitch, and words were spoken by each on kenny's way back to the dugout.

now kenny has performed the bat flip since his hey days with us. i remember a co-worker teaching another co worker's child the technique at an employee softball game. this was in the late 90's. but kenny's bat flip is nothing compared to manny's new found penchant for HR watching from home plate. this was evidenced in game 4 when he acted like his solo bomb was a game winner in extra innings of game 7 of the world series. instead, it only cut boston's lead from 5 to 4 runs. it was also evidenced last night with his 390 plus foot two out single that scored the slow and leg injured david ortiz from first.

now it is back to boston. anything is possible.

lucky 7's.

Wow!

c.c. has the chance to redeem himself and pitch us into the World Series in a match up that i quite like with the colorado rockies.

boston pitchers have gone 4-2/3 innings pitched their last 3 starts. all left following a victor martinez RBI single.

we are one game away!

wOw!

lucky 11 :)

wow, game 1 was bad. it was c.c. vs beckett. i expected a pitchers duel worthy of two pitchers who will be #1 and #2 in the cy young voting. good thing last night does not decide who gets number 1. most say c.c. will win the award. beckett won last night. c.c. had his worst outing of the season. he probably had 1 or 2 outings that were worse statistically speaking; but when the importance of the start is weighed into the equation, it was hands down his worse. he pitched nothing like the workhorse ace of the staff that he has been all year. similar to his bad start against the yankees, only worse. he had his chance to redeem himself after barely eking out a W against NY. it was a W, but it was ugly and it was nerve wracking. not nearly as bad as the whole of game 1 against boston though. we are on the road, but still, it was horrible. one of the worst games of the year, both for c.c. and for the tribe. but mastny was a bright spot. he was in a mop up role. he did not pitch in the new york series. initially, i was pissed this was the case. i wanted mastny to be brought in in game 1. i thought he, not bentancourt, should have ended that blowout game. so thought my father. after a couple of days, i realized the genius of eric wedge. i realized my want to have mastny pitch that inning was personal, not baseball related.

now i realize wedge put raffy in because he wanted to keep the yankees bats in check. do not jump start their bats. a few meaningless runs to end game 1 could run over into a few big runs early in game 2. if this was the case, we would have lost game 2. as it was, bugs from heaven were the only reason our offense scored a run through the first 9 innings. thankfully, these bugs only affected yankees pitchers.

and as of the fears that mastny would be rusty, not true. he was the only effective indians pitcher last night. and he 100% without a doubt earned the W tonight. he faced the roughest part of the red sox order tonight. the part that gave c.c., fausto, and raffy perez major problems. the part that lewis wnd raffy betancourt figured out tonight. the fearsome threesome of hot hitting and walk drawing big papi, manny, and lowell. and tom blew through them tonight. our post season record 7 runs in extra innings gave tom his first post season W. and hopefully also restored eric's faith in him. raffy perez has had consecutive bad outings. mastny stepping up is huge. just what a team in the playoffs needs to help beat an equally talented team. boston has the two best offensive hitters, hands down. as indians fans know, when manny is on, look out. he will do ridiculously good things. it just happens that now he is doing them against us, not for us. a monstrous home run is always a fear when he swings the bat. victor and hafner have that potential though. and they are holding their own in the series. but i really believe we have them overall. we have depth, and it is all quality. the fact that mastny got the victory and trot got the go ahead single are proof. even barfield contributed with a stolen base. although we did not score that inning, that stolen base set up a chain of events that nearly won us the game. lowell made a nice play on a hard hit shot by garko to end the 9th inning though.

but tonight was huge! now it is a best of 5 series, with more games at the jake than in boston. i feared schilling would provide a quality start, or even a dominant start. but neither was the case. he did not make it through 5, and gave up 9 base hits, 5 runs, 3 extra base hits, 2 doubles, and a homerun. the thing i like series-wise is that c.c., fausto, and raffy perez's bad performances were not injury or age related, hopefully. they can and hopefully will come back to pitch well. and old and injured schilling would most likely not do so.

major props to jhonny. he had one bad K, but other than that he had a walk, a single, a double, a 3 run home run, 4 total RBI, and made some nice plays on D. i believe trot was the team player of the game. not to dis trot. his go ahead pinch hit single was AWSOME! but it would have never been possible if not for the constant efforts of jhonny. if i were wedge, i might think about moving swapping garko and jhonny in the order. pronk, hafner, and jhonny would be our match to boston's big 3. if garko can stay hot and get more hits when it counts, then we have the edge with our big 4. actually, jhonny excelled in the 3 hole in '05 before apparently succumbing to the dreaded sophomore slump. a pronk of '06 demands to hit in the 4 hole. a.c. has to stay in the two hole, just based upon his bunting abilities shown in the NY series, and his clutch hitting in the regular season. blake for the most part has not been hitting. he had a 2 run double in game 1 versus NY, and a good game last night. other than that, hitting wise he has done nada. that's why he stays in the 9 hole. the thing i do like about him though: he continues to play the best third base he has ever played with us and until tonight he was making 'loud' outs. hard hit balls right at people. or nice plays made on them.

and, lastly but not least, the man eric wedge. every time i second guess him, it always seems he is right. he managed the game beautifully tonight. actually, tonight should not be a surprise. he had done so throughout the playoffs.

now we are on to the jake. tied at one game a piece. i can't wait for monday.

cleveland rocks!

WoW! last i posted, all was good. now, all is better!

we just beat the new york yankees in game 4 in yankee stadium to earn the right to take on the boston red sox in the ALDS! what an awesome game, what an awesome series.

each game should have justifiably had a posting, but with my parents in town, time did not allow. i should have posted before the season even ended, but what can you do? anyway, the series was definitely a microcosm of the regular season. no one hero, a team effort.

game 1 was a blow out. 12-3 was the final score. the game was very atypical for c.c. he only went 5 innings. he walked a career high 6. he never walked more than 3 batters in a game all season. he led the majors in innings pitched. but he came through when it mattered most. he got out of a bases loaded and one out jam to preserve what was at the time a one run lead. we then preceded to ice the game with 5 runs in our half of 5th. kenny lofton was huge. he had 3 hits all with 2 outs (to join omar vizquel as the only other player to do so in playoff history) which drove in 4 runs. of our 8 rookie playoff-wise starters on offense, 7 got their first playoff hit of their careers.

game 2 was even better. fausto was absolutely amazing, giving only a solo shot in 9 dominant innings. despite his brilliance, he was loosing 0-1 in the 8th. then some bugs descended and we tied up the game on a lead off 4 pitch walk to grady, a wild pitch, a bunt, and another wild pitch on which he barely got home. as clutch as we were in game 1, we were as unclutch in this game. we blew chance after chance after chance to score runs. finally, pronk came thru with the bases loaded and 2 down in the 11th, on a 3-2 count of course.

so we win a blow out, and we win a classic pitchers duel. we are off to NY up 2-0.

game 3 was sort of a bummer. we score single runs in each of the first 3 innings to go up 3-0. roger clemens is out of the game. then the bankees offense finally shows some life, and phillip hughes shuts us down to get the W. johnny damon's 3 run homer was the shot that gave the yanks the lead that they would not relinquish. of course, the boss stole the headlines before the game. he was quoted as saying that if new york did not go deep in the playoffs, torre would not be back. so he was given a temporary stay of execution. on the plus side, little used pie in the face instigator trot nixon had a solo HR and an RBI double. those runs were negated when he let a ball by him that allowed 2 unearned runs to score. final score 8-4, bad guys.

then there was today, game 4! paul byrd got into trouble, then got out of it. grady started things off on a good note blasting a lead off homer off game 1 starter and looser wang, who for the first time in his career started on 3 days rest. he recorded just 3 outs, allowing 4 runs. asdrubal had a 2 out single, victor had a key bases loaded 2 run single. kelly shoppach started and had 2 doubles. raffy perez lasted a nerve wracking 2 innings, the only damage though was a solo homer to a-rod. raffy betancourt breezed through the 8th. then joe b came on. he allowed a towering solo blast to bobby abreu, and almost did the same to jorge posada. but it was foul. jorge swung and missed at the next pitch. BALLGAME! SERIES!

now i will be smiling till friday. :)