So, That Happened

I hope Jose Fernandez wins the Cy Young Award. I hope he wins it soon! Because it appears that he is impossibly awesome and the Tribe needs to be able to point to this outing and say "Clearly that kid was impossibly awesome. How were we to win?"

Also, the Tribe only beats good pitchers after they've won the Cy Young. But drafted-out-of-high-school, three-days-over-21, Cuban refugee phenoms? We're just going to sit this one out.

Ubaldo was shaking in his shoes, too. He only lasted 4 innings against the lowest-scoring team in baseball. He gave up 5 runs on 9 hits...but just 2 earned runs. Because Asdrubal had two errors and three of the runs were attributed to those errors.

Asdrubal should be shaking that Fernandez kid's hand after the game. Because there was no way we were going to beat him, and that fact totally gets Asdrubal off the hook.

What possibly could have been distracting him today? ...

Anyway so Ubaldo only went 4, so they had to go digging in the dirt for someone from our bullpen to cover a ton of innings. Never good news. That someone today was Bryan Shaw, who actually did good - 2 innings, no run.

Next was Marc Rzepczynski, which is pronounced "Zep-chin-ski." Silent R, no joke. He just came over from the Cardinals and is our other lefty who is not Rich Hill. Hooray for that guy! But Vinnie had to go to Columbus in exchange for him so grumble grumble for that guy. But you know what? He and Vinnie grew up together and used to play Little League together. Vinnie was the only guy that [heretofore named] Zep knew on the Indians when he came in. Ooops!

But, Vinnie knows what he has to do. He's out there sharpening his skills right now!

Anyway, Zep pitched an uneventful inning. Here's to 40 more!

Matt Albers, who, along with Bryan Shaw, has been the least disappointing addition to the bullpen this year, had an awful awful awful 8th inning. It was awful, guys. It was 5 runs awful! On 7 hits! And NONE of those hits were homers! He had no choice but to finish it out, though - I mean, we weren't coming back from 6-0, or 7-0, or 8-0. 10-0? Well, whatever. Just don't use up any more of the bullpen tonight.

We weren't coming back because we weren't hitting. Fernandez gave up 3 hits and struck out 14. I don't think even Masterson has struck out 14 in a game this season! (13 I think?)

Swisher kept him out of a no-hitter. Asdrubal got a double, which was quite nearly a home run and a home run in any other park. Then Ryan Raburn, who is so good, he's got 11 hits over his last 10 games. Oh yeah and today's hit was off the bench.

That's it, man. The whole story of the day was Fernandez and the sexy, sexy Miami stadium. It was also part of the story was that the Tigers won because Chicago is so crap. Ubaldo and Asdrubal are off the hook, for now. Asdrubal's got to come back tomorrow and totally have an awesome game. People are starting to talk.

Tomorrow is ZMac versus RHP 2.65 and...what? That guy's ERA is even better than Fernandez! The name of the game is going to be bullpen. Hopefully they don't pull that same name out of their hats too.

It's a 7:10 game...see you there!

Radio Chatter: 
"Even a bad offensive club will score if you give them extra outs."
- Tom Hamilton on the error in the first inning

"Nobody's warming in the Indians bullpen - they're all in the pool."
- Tom Hamilton

"Ubaldo Jiminez may be going in to the Indians dugout and telling Tito Francona 'You don't need to get the bullpen busy, you need to find a new shortstop.'"
- Tom Hamilton

"So much for mom, apple pie and baseball in the USA. If you brought your mom to the stadium in Miami she'd probably choke on her apple pie watching the exhibitionists here..."
- Tom Hamilton

"We know one thing for sure - the Miami Marlins aren't sponsored by Disney."
- Tom Hamilton