Thursday, April 21, 2011

Another Nice Start

What an icky game tonight. Not the gameplay, but the weather. It was 54 degrees and rained most of the time. When I saw Choo go for a ball and sort of slosh around in the outfield I thought "No! Don't get wet! You can't work right if you're wet!" Or something. Just didn't seem right, all that rain.

But, they played on. Tomlin was our starter tonight and went all the way into the 8th, only giving up one run. Pretty good for this sort of weather for him to go so far. Here's a stat from the Indians.com wrap-up that I brought up during Tomlin's last start, but has now changed a bit:

"In each of Tomlin's 16 career starts for the Indians -- a franchise that was founded in 1901 -- Tomlin has logged at least five innings for the club. He is the only pitcher in the team's long history to have at least that many frames in each of his first 16 career appearances."

I decided pretty early on that the Royals and the Indians are going to be matched up pretty evenly when it comes to starting pitching and batting, and it will come down to the bullpen. Of course, I meant that our bullpen had the stuff but that wasn't the case tonight. But, at least they got some time in and for all intents and purposes didn't do that bad, so it's ok. And you know what? We STILL have given up the fewest home runs in the AL, by 2.

Grady, Grady! Is the kid back?! Three more hits tonight, hitting .421. How many ABs do you need to be legit? Thirty or so? He's got 18 I think.

Hafner got a hit tonight too, keeping his AVG well over .300. That guy is DEFINITELY back, for sure. Ok maybe not the home-run-hitting Pronk but to be honest we've faced some serious pitching lately.

How about Hannahan there at third in the 9th? Made a nice stop then got the runner out at home, although Aviles sort of tip-toed in. Not like Carlos Santana did in the 8th, when he was out by a mile at home but gave it the ol' college try and barreled in to the catcher to at least try to knock the ball out. It didn't work but at least he tried. And didn't break any bones.

Some crazy stuff going on in the middle of the diamond too. Orlando Cabrera was out and Everett (Everett!) was at 2nd. Nice move, because he's got some stick right now. Lots of guys falling over and stepping on each other out there around second, and Everett got an error. I wonder if the Royals' ground crew isn't quite as good as the Indians'? I'm sure Everett will be happy to have Orlando back tomorrow.

So far we've only had one injury (Mitch Talbot) which is good...and possibly due to Acta not over-playing anyone. I did hold my breath watching the tackling at home and the tumbling at second. Hopefully we don't find out a week from now that somebody's knee is bruised.

I was out at my "Neighborhood Bar and Grille" (ugh) tonight during the game and right afterward people were moaning and groaning about how we lost. Like, angry stuff, too. WTF people? Do you not realize we just lost to the third best team in the AL? It's not like we gave up 7 runs to Seattle and didn't score any ourselves. We lost by one run in the ninth after winning two other games against the team that's on our tail. Oh yeah and we also have a winning percentage over 600 so...boy, are people weird about Cleveland baseball.

If nothing else, it was a good game tonight. It was a tough game and someone had to lose it. Our bullpen can't pitch 0.00 all season. I can see maybe spouting obscenities when your starter gives up 8 or something but all of this bellyaching when your first place team loses a game is shameful.

I guess I'm not quite familiar about what it's like when your team is in first. One thing that I know to be true is that being chased all the time is no fun! Hopefully the Tribe can ease everyone's fragile hearts this weekend when they roll over the Twins and the Royals get served by the Rangers. Then we'll have a nice comfy lead when we meet the Royals AGAIN next week (seriously - did anyone at the MLB Scheduling Committee see this coming?) and then on to squash the Tigers.

More "late" baseball tomorrow, and probably more icky baseball as we go deeper in to the midwestern cold snap.

Hey! Who has off work tomorrow? Me too!

Radio Chatter:
"If you talk to the Royals they are happy as heck that Zach Greinke is gone from Kansas City. He was a bit of a Negative Nellie in the clubhouse..."
- Tom Hamilton

I also heard Hamilton pronounce picnic as "pick-a-nick" which was just darling.

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