I could have probably named this blog "Exciting Things Asdrubal Cabrera Did Tonight" but in an effort to appeal to a wider audience, I decided to include the entire team.
But anyway - now that I possibly have a larger audience, I strongly urge everyone to pay attention to Asdrubal Cabrera. He's where he should be defensively - at short. He also is appearing to be stronger this season than ever before and I predict he'll get double-digit homers, as well as continue to be a solid hitter and steal bases.
Might he be an all star? I don't know...people still don't seem to know him. It depends on how the team does as a whole, and whether we get more than one player sent up. Little brother is not winning any popularity contests. People just don't know.
So on to tonight's game. It's pretty normal for a Tribe fan to feel unhopeful against the Red Sox. Almost all of those names are names that have really crushed us in the past. If you're going in to a Red Sox game with no trepidation, you are just fooling yourself.
That makes it all the more sweet that we're playing good baseball against the Red Sox. All of the tooth gnashing and hand wringing about how much we're not paying our players blah blah blah WELL WE BEAT THEM TWO IN A ROW.
We beat Josh Beckett and we beat Dice-K and we beat Jenks and Yook and Big Poopy and Pedroia and JD F'n Drew. All of 'em, our little team of boys.
Thanks in part to Asdrubal, with his RBI single and 3-run homer (#1!) And also CHOOOOOOOOOO with his first hit of the season and his first homer of the season.
Very cute - was with my niece again tonight, and we practiced saying "CHOO!" for a bit before the game. Then she was upstairs with her mom when Choo got his homer, but I said "You missed it! Choooooo with a homer!" and I hear a lovely, crisp "CHOOOO!" coming from upstairs. Trained Baby Winning!
There was also the "what just happened there?" scoring play. Youkilis dropped a grounder with bases loaded, picked up the ball and touched the base, thus removing the force of the man on third (there was now no one behind him, thus no force). The man on third went home, as did the ball (which beat him by 20 feet) but instead of tagging the runner (which you need to do when there's no force - tagging the base won't do) the catcher sauntered to his "hold the runners" position in the middle of the field. And our runner scored.
Yet another example of why every game is exciting, whether we win or lose. After the game, Acta said that they had to explain what happened to a lot of players. Because this isn't stuff you see every day in baseball. You know, just like the triple play the other day. Five games in and we're already in the Appendix of the rule books!
Also homering tonight was Matt LaPorta (Gator4God!) Impressively so, as it came off knuckleballer Tim Wakefield (yeah now he's in the bullpen. I would want to be in the bullpen too if I were a knuckleballer). Wakefield smoked everyone else he faced, so nice work Matt.
My brother would also like me to point out that Brantley is doing well and if he continues to do well he should stay in the 1-spot when Grady returns, with Grady in the 2-spot. This means Asdrubal needs to move down to 7 or 8. Ok, I can feel it. Brantley has to keep up, tho. I'm really warming to him but I think he will lose his luster if he's benched and unless Many Acta is an evil genius I don't see him making that move (Grady at #2).
I can definitely see moving Brantley to LF and basically shedding what might be the weak link in our lineup (Buck/Kearns/Duncan - which are NOT bad names to have on your bench!) Ahhh...but it's such a risk. Glad I am not Manny Acta!
Whew! Pitching...I think we saw a nice NORMAL start from Mitch Talbot today. He gave up some runs but didn't melt down. He didn't go 7 but Acta deftly used our relievers, doing some righty/lefty matchups and holding the Sox to only 2 more. Raffi Perez got the win, and looked sharp. Hermann slipped a bit but instead of one bad reliever after another, Sipp and Pestano came in and got it done.
I'm looking for Sipp to play a bigger role this year than last year. So far he's looking great!
Orlando Cabrera made the defensive play of the game by fielding a grounder that didn't get to him until after the head of Jacoby Ellsbury's broken bat, and still managed to get the speedy Ellsbury out at first.
Check out the wrap on MLB.com, which includes a large pic of Asdrubal's tattoo, as well as a link to a video of his homer. And, finally, some info on his tattoo from The Tribe Daily (scroll down to "Random Rundown"), a cool blog that I just found and will be adding to my links list. That blog kicks this blog's ass (they have nice graphics!), but they seem to do more outside reading than I do. I might be thin on facts and photos but I am full of love!
I am so excited for tomorrow. I really believe Fausto is going to come out as Good Fausto and the Sox will go home for their opener at 0-6.
Speaking of the Sox and their losing streak, I hear tell that LeBron James just signed a deal with the Red Sox's owners to buy a stake in Liverpool FC (Football (soccer) Club (team) (in England)). No, I am not messing with you, it's true. I don't even know what to say about that but that just sounds like bad karma to me, boys. I don't think the people of Boston like LeBron either. Oh and since LeBron is such a Yankee fan I don't know what he's doing cozying up to the Red Sox owners. That dude has absolutely no sense of loyalty, does he?
I know the above sounds negative, but it's not. You should read it while laughing!
Noon game tomorrow!
By the way, if you ever see a sign in the stands that says "OMG ASDRUBAL!" that's me.
"There's no love lost between the Koreans and the Japanese. [...] And for the first time ever, Daisuke Matsuzaka has given up a run at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario."
- Tom Hamilton (talking about the national baseball teams not the nations)
- Tom Hamilton (talking about the national baseball teams not the nations)
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