Outpitched

That's pretty much it. Yeah, Gomez gave up a ton of runs and Accardo tacked on more but even if our pitchers only gave up 2 runs we still would have lost. This kid who pitched for Houston smoked us in a 1-run 6-hit complete game. Although I still contend our batting wasn't up to snuff yesterday either, against a RHP. We almost had no chance against a feisty LHP.

I listened to the game on the audio archive today and it was sort of sad to hear the guys talking so highly about how well Gomez was doing early in the game, myself knowing that there'd be an implosion in the 5th. I think it's time to switch it up and say Jeanmar's had too many chances to prove himself. Yeah he's had a couple of good games here and there but he's 4-7 and has given up 42 runs in 14 games. He looks especially bad today after Tomlin, Masterson and Jiminez looked SO good the lest 3 games.

Also, all our other starters were hitting an Jeanmar didn't get a hit today.

The Twitterverse already has a nickname picked out for Zach McAllister - EZ Mac. I like him, let's bring him.

On the flipside, Tony Sipp surprised everyone by going 1 2/3 and not giving up any runs, or any hits for that matter and actually striking out 2. Keep it up Tony or we're going to Jeanmar your ass.

Jeremy Accardo - 3 runs. Unreliable. He's either giving up no runs or 3 runs. What gives?

Since we were severely outpitched, there isn't much to say on the offensive side except maybe OMG ASDRUBAL!!! Three homers in 4 games!!  He's only 2 away from Kipnis who leads the team and is the only guy in double digits. Love it when Asdrubal's hot! Definitely definitely vying for your vote in the All Star Game! Hey, if you vote 25 times, they'll email you a coupon for half-off tickets for a bunch of games. Limited games and limited seating of course but if you're watching your pennies - cheap tix!

Can't forget Choo, though. He got another goddamn double today! He is tied for first in the league with Kinsler (23) and leads Gonzalez, Gordon, Ortiz and Cano. w00t!

Kipnis is back to being awesome again. He's as unpredictable as Accardo but I guess when you're 1 of 9 you can hide it. He went 3 for 4 today after going 0 for his last 12. *BOGGLE* Is that an inexperience thing? Whatever, tho - I'm still a Kipnises. Poor guy tripped over first base on a single and looked super embarrassed about it. He also spent all 3 of his on-bases not coming home, because no one hit after him.

Well of course Brantley hit after Kipnis, once. He went 1 for 3 and has a 6-game hitting streak. He's had 68 hits in his last 51 games. He's hitting .333 in June. HE ROCKS YOUR FACE!!!

Our top 4 guys (minus the variable "cleanup hitter") - Choo, Cabrera, Kipnis and Brantley - are hitting .284 right now. They are slowly climbing up to complete awesomeness. O, IF ONLY ... the rest of the lineup was sorted out (and by the rest I mean Santana and hurry-up-already-Hafner). And if we had SHELLEY EVERY DAY.

Do we need Kevin Youkilis? He's a rightie. But his average is only .243 versus left and .219 versus right. He's got a .225 overall average with a measly 4 homers and 7 doubles.

Hafner left the game at .246 but he's a lefty hitting .185 versus lefties. Youk would be playing 1st or 3rd, I suspect, not DH. Kotchman and Hannahan are both batting under .200 against lefties. Santana is slightly better at .206. Our third best lefty hitter is Marson, at .273 (after crazy-awesome Asdrubal and Brantley). But he doesn't get to play because of Santana. IT'S ALL MADDENING!


Clearly Youk is still a baseball player, unlike Johnny Damon, but he's still Boston's leftover old man trash (he's 43 days older than me). And he has crazy stupid facial hair.

I don't know why people are talking about Carlos Lee for us. He's even older (between Youk and Damon) and hits .146 versus lefties. No shit. He is batting .299 overall because he hits righties .340. So the last guy we need is Carlos Lee.

If you didn't know, we are last in ALL OF BASEBALL versus lefties at .216.

So I don't know...243 versus lefties is not bad, if that's the best we can get. It would put him 4th on the team versus left. But ugh, Boston. Isn't there someone in our minors who can hit lefties?? Didn't anyone plan for this?

I think instead of signing Youk we need a mandatory 4-day "how to hit lefties" clinic over the All Star break. Asdrubal and his .325 average versus lefties won't be available at that time, but Brantley and his .291 can tell the guys the secret to being smooth.

I'm not wanting to shake stuff up right now. I think we've got a lot of good stuff going on. Except for Johnny Damon - he was an awful, awful acquisition and he has done nothing but hurt the lineup. And the defense. And caused us to do a lot of shit to accommodate him and keep some good players from having a chance to develop.

AAAAAANNNNYYYWAY....tomorrow's the rubber match against Houston at 2:05 and it's on WKYC, yay! Too bad I won't get to see the seriously awesome starbursty Astros throwback uniforms that they wore Friday. Don't lie - that uniform the first thing you think of when you think of Nolan Ryan! Well maybe now you modern kids think of him this way:

[From the Pop Culture Has AIDS blog]

But the alternateens among us think of this when we think of Nolan Ryan. Or the Astros. Or "weird baseball uniforms":

[From the Hipster or Athlete blog]

Anyway, the Astros have nothing to do with Nolan Ryan any more, except for next year when his Rangers give them a sad welcome in to the American League.

Sorry for veering so far off topic but I TOTALLY LOVE THOSE UNIFORMS! Why can't our marketing department do something stupid like faddish disco uniforms to get fans in the seats, instead of insisting we sign Johnny Damon?

OK FINE. Baseball tomorrow, 2:05. See you there!

Radio Chatter:
"Keuchel could have easily thrown it away, or hit him in the coconut."
- Tom Hamilton on a nearly missed move to first

"This just came out of the blue. He retired 12 in a row then started giving up rockets."
- Tom Hamilton on Jeanmar Gomez

"The Indians are making some awfully soft outs here today."
- Tom Hamilton has identified the problem

"You ever weed-whack your weeds with one of those weed-whackers? That's what it looked like with Rosie going through his 14th cup from the frozen soft serve yogurt machine. [...] They've re-named it Rosie's Rustic Inn. A lof of folks have tried to get to that machine with no luck. Rosie's had that baby locked up."
"If I had 13 cups you had 20 then."
"You know, I was eating fruit. Your fruit came in the form of carmel, chocolate, sprinkles..."
- How Tom Hamilton opened the bottom of the 6th

"I bet this marriage isn't going to see the end of 2016. This is the best they could do?"
- Tom Hamilton harping on a bride and groom at the ballpark

"You've probably never heard of Keuchel before [...] but after today the Indians will never forget him."
- Tom Hamilton

"What's interesting now is that Shelley Duncan isn't playing, even against left-handed pitching."
- YES THAT IS INTERESTING TOM HAMILTON!

"Boy it's easy to play GM from the broadcast booth isn't it?"
- Tom Hamilton ponders signing Youk

"9-1, 8-1, 10-1 - whatever it is, it's not pretty."
- Tom Hamilton can't figure out the score

"If Choo tried to score, we'd be in the wrap-up show."
- Tom Hamilton on not testing Bogusevic's arm