When Pronk is Pronky...

And Santana is Supernatural, and Asdrubal is Drooby, and Choo is Choosy, and Grady is Speedy and our pitchers are on their games...well that is 2011 Indians Baseball and that is what we had tonight.

It probably also helps when 38,548 fans + Carlos Baerga are in the stands.

Josh Tomlin has given up 6 runs in each of his last 3 starts. Tonight? One. It was a legit run, after a double. No errors, no homers. Followed up with an inning-ending double play. He went 6.2 innings and struck out 5. Those are the stats he was throwing up all through April and May, before those last 3 starts. You like?

Pestano comes in to face 4, strikes out 2 and grounds out 2. Our man Sipp shows up in the 9th (no Rage?) and faces 3... "And that's your ballgame, folks!" says Jim Rosenhaus, who is filling in for the vacationing Tom Hamilton.

But, we weren't worried about our #BullpenMafia.

We HAVE been worried about Carlos Santana, who got bumped down to 8th tonight. Perhaps the presence of some other big-hitting occasional first-baseman lit a fire under his ass or something, because he got a solo homer. And then a single and another single, that time for an RBI.

That other big-hitting occasional first-baseman I mentioned is Travis Hafner who was batting DH in the 4-spot today for the first time in a month. His first 2 at-bats were ground outs. Sigh. Then a walk. Whee? Then there was this in the 8th which was awesome and looked like a home run, if nothing else his swing was classic Pronk so you should totally watch it.That scored one, then Cord Phelps showed up to pinch run, and he scored so that was just awesome.

I will not fail to mention Asdrubal, who got a double early on, then got a single in that awesome 8th and came around to score.

Choo walked twice - nice! And had an assist at 2nd, which is his 10th assist this season (14 last season) and he's 2 ahead of all other outfielders right now.

Grady looked good walking in the 1-spot, and even better out in centerfield. I hear he made a great Grady-ish catch in the 9th but MLB.com doesn't feel it clip-worthy, so I'll just have to take Rosenhaus's word for it. (Update: They posted a clip as I was finishing up writing. It WAS a great catch!)

Hannahan switch from 3rd to 1st after LaPorta got hurt (sprained ankle, no break, so far so good) and he did all right there. Not sure why they didn't bring in Sweet Lou and put Santana at 1st...but I'm sure Manny knows.

So we seemed to have all of our pieces and parts tonight. Pitching, batting, fielding, Baerga. Is this all due to Pronk's return? I guess I don't care what it's due to. LOVE IT! So nice to see the huge crowd there, which I hope is duplicated all weekend.

Oh yeah and beating Pittsburgh? Priceless (to which Pittsburghians say "Youns still follow baseball?")

Tomorrow night is our new favorite starter, Carlos "Cookie" Carrasco against a guy who's "record continues to be deceiving because of a lack of run support and blown saves." Hmm...so, we can pitch like that. Can we beat that?

See you then!

Radio Chatter:
"The Indians as a team hitting .500 with the bases loaded."
- Jim Rosenhaus

"I called it the Yake. Yacobs field, that's how I remember it."
- Carlos Baerga

"He has my name so that is why he had to hit a home run today."
- Carlos Baerga on Carlos Santana's home run

"Michael Brantley...stay with it! He's hitting it as hard as he can but has nothing to show for it so far."
- Jim Rosenhaus

"I used to have to write in 'Mike Hegan' 300 times each season."
"I got 301 votes. Three-hundred from you and one from my wife."
- Jim Rosenhaus and Mike Hegan on All-Star voting

"Wood putting the drama back in to the intentional walk."
- Jim Rosenhaus on Tim Wood's sort of wild intentional balls

"All the ingredients that made this team so successful earlier in the season were on display tonight."
- Jim Rosenhaus