Dealing With It

Hello! Welcome to The Positive Tribe - the blog where we only say positive things about the Indians and thank God every day that there even is a thing called baseball! John Adams is the patron saint of this blog because he goes to every home game, rain or shine, and cheers on the team, winning or losing.

If he can do it so can we!

All right, just gotta get that reminder out there. It's hard to remember if the team doesn't come back fighting after the break. Even harder when they dip below .500 for the first time since April. And it's seriously hard when they lose 4 in a row to the 2 worst teams in the AL.

Hey, guess what! Nobody was traded away today! Awesome move - I'm very happy. There was NO ONE out there who would be able to replace the hittiness of Choo or the closingness of Perez. No one. Everything we need is right here. Every single one of those guys in the lineup, excepting Johnny Damon, has the ability to be awesome and maybe somewhere else they'd be awesome and that'd be the worst of all. Getting rid of a guy who's not doing well and replacing him with a guy who was sell-able is not going to cut it. Kicking some asses in the clubhouse would be a much more effective and much cheaper idea.

Won't talk about starting pitching today other to say that YAY Tomlin was sent to the bullpen and now Corey Kluber is going to take his spot in the starting rotation. Derek Lowe is done, it would seem, but we probably won't know to what extent for another 3 or 4 days. Let's hope Kluber is all McAllister-like and can wow them in the bigs!

Accardo and Smith pitched 3 innings with 3 strikeouts and only 3 hits and NO RUNS! Way to go, other bullpen guys!

Asdrubal had a good night at the plate tonight, going 2 for 5 with a run scored (on a wild pitch!) and a double. His double was just about a home run, grr! He's been a little bit streaky lately since being declared "BACK!" but if he can get back into a groove perhaps everyone will follow.

Kipnis has been struggling but he ended up going 1 for 3 with a walk. He didn't steal any bases, but he had this monster play. I love great second baseman-ing!!

Brantley had another Ahmad Abdul-Rahim catch today AND he went 2 for 4 with a run scored. He hit his 29th double and is tied for 3rd in the league. Kinda funny we're scared about Choo getting traded - and don't get me wrong, he's wicked awesome - but Brantley seems to be Cleveland's little secret! Don't forget to let Fresh Brewed Tees know that Brantley should be on a t-shirt!

Santana didn't have a multi-hit game, which is probably the real reason why we lost (joke!) but he did go 1 for 3 with a walk. Not sure if I count that as a multi-hit game in my little brain log or not. One of his hits was a double, which he had 7 of in July. Not bad!

Johnny Damon, who is still on our team, went 1 for 4 and got an RBI.

Good ol' reliable Casey Kotchman - you know he got a hit. And an RBI. Because that's what Casey Kotchman will do for you. He'll also help Jason Kipnis make the highlight reel by catching that off-the-mark Alomar-style throw from the Kid and hang on to the ball too. What a guy!

Unfortunately our hitting was only decent, not spectacular, and definitely not enough to overcome our starter. Same ol' same 'ol, right? Oh well.

Tomorrow's another 8:10 game, which I love because it's just enough time to get everything done and not have to scramble around after work. Gotta get to the gym and all.

It'll be our best pitcher (really) McAllister versus RHP. No problem, right?

Since we all love baseball, I'll see you there!

Radio Chatter:
"Here you earn your home run."
- Tom Hamilton on Kauffman Stadium

"Hosmer is basically a guy who has never failed at any level. This is a growing experience for Hosmer."
- Tom Hamilton

"It's not going to take any kind of a baseball genius for someone to look at the numbers and see that Corey Kluber is the Indians best minor league pitcher."
- Tom Hamilton

"Never go with a guy golfing who finds more golf balls than he loses."
- Tom Hamilton went golfing with Jim Rosenhaus

"I do believe that everyone is ok, but the only reason they are is because of an act of God."
- Tom Hamilton's reaction to a broken bat flying in to the seats

"You call up your wife Carol every night and say 'Oh yeah I went jogging.' You jogged around your room because the batteries went out on your tv remote and you had to get up to change the channel!"
- Tom Hamilton on Jim Rosenhaus jogging in the heat

"If this woulda been Yankee Stadium it woulda been called an out."
- Tom Hamilton on a foul ball just barely going in to the seats