Thursday, May 7, 2015

Start of Something Great? Yet?

Hey hey! Everybody Hits today! Thirteen hits and 9 RBI for the Tribe today. Against the ROYALS, man! Wahoo!
This is the Tribe team that Sports Illustrated was talking about, by the way. Great hitting one through nine, a strong starter and competent relievers. This is the Tribe on paper, now realized.

If only, Dear Lord, we can have these guys more than once every 10 games. Is this possible???

Carrasco was the starter tonight, and he didn't have some amazing game but he did have a Quality Start. He went 7 innings giving up just 3 runs and striking out 6. Actually I couldn't believe he only struck out 6! I think they were saying he was getting over an illness too? (like Bauer) Anyway he was perfectly good and got his 4th win out of it. It was his longest start of the season. Against the Royals!

Zep and McAllister came in and did a fine, boring job of pitching the 8th and 9th inning. So boring - no hits, no runs, 3 strikeouts between them. Ho-hum. BALLGAME!

New lineup today - Kipnis, SANTANA, Brantley, Raburn, Moss, Swisher, Aviles, Chisenhall, Catcher (Hayes). No Bourn but he is available for pinch running and hitting, which he did today.

So, how did it go?

Well, they ran the starter out of the game after just one inning, 6 hits and 4 runs scored. Kipnis got 2 hits (including a double) and an RBI, while Santana got a hit, a walk and came in to score 2 runs. Brantley took forever to get himself a hit but finally did get one and came in to score a run. Raburn didn't get a homer but he got an RBI double. So yeah - that 1-through-4 works PRETTY WELL for me!!

Brandon Moss WHAAAAAAT?! Dude is really looking to being a producer for us. Nice to have him tucked in there behind Raburn. Tonight he went 2 for 5 with 3 RBI and 2 runs scored. He got his 7th double, behind Raburn's 8th and his 5th homer. Sploosh! Right in to the fountain!  His average is way up to .241, which seems like nothing but he spent SEVERAL games with it at .000. So yeah - quite a recovery for him!

Handsome Mike Aviles had a nice game there, filling in at short. He went 3 for 4 with an RBI and 2 runs scored. Nothing fancy with him - no extra bases or anything. But dude is still out there grinding away and he's got a .288 average to show for it!

Chisenhall and Hayes rounded out the bottom of the lineup, each with a hit and an RBI. Make Lonnie's a double!

I don't know what else to say other than...let's see more of this! We know they can play like this - but why not every night? Beating the previous-year's league champs and the second best team in the league really counts for something. Doing it two days in a row in their home stadium counts for a LOT!

Tomorrow is Kluber. Dude doesn't have any wins yet!! Someone pointed out on Twitter the other day that his April numbers were pretty much the same last year - if not identical. So he does have ample time to get back to Cy Young form. Of course you can't get a win if you have no run support. So let's hope they get some for the Klubot!

It's an afternoon game - 2:10 to be exact. So don't forget! Klubes goes against RHP 2.10. Nice little ERA dude but we like righties!

See you there!


Friday, May 1, 2015

Draft Day!

Just kidding. My Twitter feed was seriously more NFL Draft yesterday than Tribe game, and I only follow people who tweet about the Tribe! Even today it was Draft-heavy despite it being the later rounds the big Tribe win.

Then again I do follow Bernie Kosar and he is clearly excited about everything related to football, every day. So I can't really complain when he is going on and on about the Draft.

But WOW! What a Tribe game! Soooo many hits and - so many RUNS! Runs, y'all! Like when someone is on base and someone else hits the ball and they come in to score. IT'S A THING!

First off is the pitchers, as per our usual. Carrasco was the man on the hill today, and to my dismay he didn't have a quality start. He went 6 innings and gave up 4 runs. But he can't be amazing every game, guys, which is why we will need people to SCORE RUNS from time to time. Which they did today. See how easy that is?! Carrasco did strike out 6.

Atchison, McAllister and Allen finished out the game with one inning a piece. No relief runs! No relief runs! Allen did give up a double in the 9th, but I'm beginning to think that that is how closers work. At least in Cleveland. It's like how cassata cake works differently in Cleveland.

Ok, maybe a bad analogy because Cleveland cassata cake is superior to other cassata cakes, while Cleveland-style closing (giving up hits, giving up runs, losing games) is clearly not the better option.

WHAT I AM SAYING IS THAT IT IS DIFFERENT.

But whatever - they didn't give up any runs, and Carrasco's 4 runs allowed were already OLD NEWS by the 4th inning!

Oh yeah and it's our first EVERYBODY HITS game! And four guys got two hits. There were three home runs! And NINE RUNS SCORED!

Kipnis is still feeling good in the top spot, it seems, because today he led off the Indians' half of the first with a homer! He got another hit too, but no more RBI. Seems like he's been hitting a ton lately but no streak at the moment. But it does seem like when Kipnis is hot, the rest of the team follows behind him.

Aviles was in at short today and in true Goon fashion, he stepped up with 2 hits including an RBI double which was just a double on replay. But still a legit double that sent a man home! Aviles ended up scoring on both his hits. Once again - always a part of things!

Michael Brantley is still amazing and everyone should love him like they do Lebron. THEY HAVE THE SAME NUMBER, PEOPLE. Today he went 2 for 5 with his first homer of the year (a 2-run shot) and a single. No strikeouts. Fact: Brantley is the only player right now with more than 60 at-bats (64) and fewer than 4 strikeouts (3). His average is .341!

Carlos Santana didn't walk tonight. What's up with that?! Just one hit. He still leads the league in walks though. Ha!

Brandon Moss sure is on the team now, huh?! He started soooo painfully slow but now he's up to a respectable .238 and climbing every day! Today he had a huuuge 2-RBI double in the 3rd inning to bring the Tribe within one run of the Jays! That's 14 RBI for him in his last 10 games!

And Ryan Raburn? Sheeeeeet. He is so hot now that he was intentionally walked after Moss's double! He definitely has days where he gets no hitting done - alongside all his teammates - but dude had 2 more hits tonight giving him 11 hits in his last 10 games. He's batting .342! Not bad for the guy that no one really cared about having on our team this year.

Lonnie seems to be coming around! Both at the plate and in the field. Is May the month of Lonnie? No particular reason to feel that way - I always just feel like Lonnie is just about to crack it open! Today he went 1 for 3 with a single, an RBI and a run scored. And no errors! Golf clap.

Brett Hayes was not doing anything of note, other than being our third-string catcher. Then he snuck up on everyone and hit a goddamn 3-run homer today! BOOM!!! So that's two homers for Hayes, who hit a total of 2 homers from 2012-2014. Secret weapon!!

Bourn is still at the bottom of the lineup, working out whatever. Today he got on base with a single in the 4th, then tried to come home on Aviles' double and really almost got there, and slid on his face, and was called safe. Except the replay showed he was out. Sigh. Let's hope he didn't hurt his dang face! The good news was that in the next at-bat, Brantley hit a 2-run homer. HA HA BASEBALL!!!

The Tribe had 9 runs on 13 hits today! Great just like last Friday! Now let's hope we have a better Saturday and Sunday than last week...it could be our month, guys!!

Tomorrow it's a 4:10 game with Kluber going against an RHP. Kluber is going to be f'n mad at himself so he is going to throw everything fast and not give up any runs. So all our guys need to do at the plate is one or two runs. Got that?!

See you there!

Radio Chatter:
"Carlos Carrasco has been on thin ice this inning, and finally the Blue Jays push him through that ice."
- Tom Hamilton