Do Not Want

I'm tired, boffins. Not only have I been working late nights and now I have a cold, these baseball games are simply exhausting. Nothing happens, but you gotta stick it out for 9 innings in case something does happen. Because in baseball, something can happen. But nothing ever does.

There wasn't even a slugfest tonight, on either side. Two crummy pitchers and two crummy lineups resulted in a crummy mediocre score of 3-2 Houston.

I wish I could have seen this game on TV - the Houston jerseys would have been the most exciting part of the game.

At least those jerseys are on fire!

Myers, Allen, Hill. Yawn yawn yawn. Joe Smith was back tonight and he looked a lot better than he did on Wednesday night, throwing 13 pitches and striking out 2.

Jason Kipnis was back tonight. He went 2 for 4, doubling his hit count for the season. No joke! He also stole a base, raising his SB total by 100%.

Asdrual and Swisher both went 1 for 3 with a walk. But no runs, no RBI. Both of their hits were doubles, so that's cool. Doesn't make Asdrubal's average any better than a single but whatever. Yay hit.

Mark Reynolds is still impressive! He went 2 for 3 today with two singles and a walk. I was telling my friend the other night that Reynolds doesn't get hits - he just gets home runs. They were saying something on the radio about that tonight too. He's got 12 hits and 5 of them have been homers, 4 doubles and only 3 singles.

Reynolds was on base when Chiz came up and got his second home run of the year. BOOM!

Drew Stubbs, who is going to hit between .200 and .250 no matter how the team does, it seems, went 1 for 4 tonight because that's how Drew Stubbs go.

And that's it. That's all for tonight's game. I at least stayed awake during the entire game today, unlike last night where I admit I fell asleep for a few innings.

I think Meryl Masterson commented on an old blog post the other day, one from August 4, 2012 where I talk a bit about her cookies. What do you think - is it her? I'd love to do a taste test of her cookies for y'all but I don't think I can afford the cookies + shipping. Plus, what if they're bad? The last family in Cleveland I'd want to piss off is the Mastersons. They're holding this town together! But then again what the hell am I saying? I've never met a cookie I didn't like. And Tony Sipp loves those cookies and I trust him.

Anyway, that's a nice thought to end this tragedy of a baseball game. Cookies made with love by Meryl Masterson.

Such a pretty cookie.

Ok, we're back in Houston again tomorrow night, this time at 7:10 for some reason (even though it's the Central Time Zone). It'll be the return of Scott Kazmir versus RHP 2.89. That's great - 2.89 runs. Just about what we're expected to get.

Oh well. See you there!

Radio Chatter:
"Whoever designed these uniforms really likes Halloween. [...] They're like softball uniforms."
- Tom Hamilton on the Houston uniforms

"Looking at the people here you'd say 'Oh my, it must be 40 degrees!'"
- Tom Hamilton thinks the Houston crowd is freeze babies

"We're talking about the Houston Astros. If this is a lineup you can't dominiate, you've got more problems than that. There's a reason this team is expected to lose over 100 games this season."
- Tom Hamilton

"You can't win in the American League scoring 3 runs a game."
- Tom Hamilton

"You don't need to do a whole lot right now to beat the Houston Astros."
- Jim Rosenhaus

Momentum Halted

After the big hitting in yesterday's game, possibly on momentum from the 9th inning of Friday's game, the Tribe was held to just one run and 6 hits today.

It's kinda crazy that our pitching has been reliable for 3 games now and our hitting has been erratic. Granted, Jake Peavy is pretty good but so is Chris Sale and we beat him up! (And so is David Price and we beat him up too).

Brett Myers was the starter today and he looked great! That's pretty awesome because there was nothing remotely great about his last two starts when he gave up 14 runs off 18 hits in 10 innings. Today he went 6 innings and only gave up 2 runs, which came in the 6th. I still don't know what to make of Myers and I definitely don't trust him yet, but today he gets a big pat on the back!

Bryan Shaw came in again today and he looked good, not giving any hits and striking out two, including Conor Gillaspie who has been drinking our milkshake all weekend.

Vinnie Pestano came in for the 8th and had a very un-Pestano-like outing. He gave up a home run and a single before retiring the side. Oh well, I guess no one can have an 0.00 ERA forever! It's weird because they were touting Brett Myers' heroism the other day for pitching half of a blowout game and saving the bullpen. But then today they were blaming the lack of need for the bullpen this past week for making Vinnie rusty. You know I love our bullpen and think they're worth their weight in gold, but sometimes I get tired of how delicate pitchers can be. Or maybe they're not and the media just likes to make up excuses for bad outings.

Chris Perez came in for the 9th just to get his work and he gave up no hits and struck a guy out. So there you go.

Michael Bourn was the big hitting hero of the game today, knocking a homer off Peavy on the first pitch of the bottom of the first. His would be the only run scored of the day. He is definitely a great replacement for Choo in the lineup, with power and consistency. He might not have the same cannon as Choo, in the field, but he can steal. I mean, like, any day now he can steal a base. Soon?

Bourn went 3 for 4. In the 8th inning he hit one to first base and there was quite a scuffle as Bourn slid in to the base. Reports say he got his hand stepped on and was replaced by Mike Aviles. Let's hope having Monday off and a vat of frozen Neosporin gets Bourn back in the lineup by Tuesday!

Brantley was up in the third spot today, with Asdrubal doing nothing of interest in the 2-hole (although he still is fabuloso in the field!) Kipnis I guess is still healing his shoulder, which is cool because you don't want to rush it and make it some season-long issue. Cousin Michael went 1 for 4 at the plate.

Asdrubal struck out 3 times. I am not going to look it up, but I think he leads the team in strikeouts right now. (Ok I looked it up. He does.) Swisher didn't get anything done today either, and he struck out twice, ending his hitting streak at Progressive Field (20 games since 2008).

Swisher started in right field and Reynolds at first. Reynolds went 1 for 3 and got a pinch runner in Drew Stubbs in the 7th. Then Stubbs went to right field and Swisher to first. That's a lot of interchangeability on this team. Is that good or bad? I mean it's good that dudes can play anywhere but are they just half-assed everywhere then?

Carlos Santana pinch hit for Stubbs in the 9th and almost hit one out! It was foul though and he ended up walking. They're saying Tuesday for catching now. Yan Gomes didn't do anything today at the plate but he did catch a guy stealing. I'm ready for Santana's return.

Jason Giambi was in the lineup today as DH. Not very excited about him being on the team but Tom Hamilton keeps assuring us that he is doing the work of Moses in terms of guiding this young team towards greatness. He parted no seas today, though, going 0 for 4. Man, he's old.

Ryan Raburn was in at second again today. He went 1 for 3 with a single. Only one guy walked today, and that was Santana in the 9th. Huh.

I don't know what to say about this stretch of games so far. The team has been amazing or miserable. The weather has been horrible or non-existant (domed). The opposing pitchers have been the league's best or mediocre. Our pitchers have pitched amazingly well or horribly. As far as I can tell there has been no pattern to how the team is doing.

But, at least it's baseball season, right? (Although it's apparently also basketball season. My WTAM broadcast was abruptly cut off right at 3 PM in order to air the Cavs game. Crummy.)

Monday we've got the day off and Tuesday the Red Sox come to town. Hopefully Francona leads us to a sweep, right? Also hopefully Bourn's hand is fine, Santana's hand is fine and Kipnis's shoulder is fine and everyone decides that now is the time to start hitting. If those things happen then we've got quite a ball game ahead of us!

Slated to pitch Tuesday is Jiminez vs LHP 5.40. You know I don't know what to think about that, so we'll just get excited anyway and I'll see you there!

Radio Chatter:
"Ozzie Guillen had the maturity of a 12-year-old."
- Tom Hamilton

"You'll take 6 innings of two-run baseball from Brett Myers any day."
- Tom Hamilton

"If anybody thinks the NFL players are as big, strong and fast as they are because of spinach...then we have a tale for you."
- Tom Hamilton

"If there's a no-hitter going on, usually Tampa Bay is the team getting no-hitted."
- Tom Hamilton

Carlos Carrasco, Your Reputation Precedes You

Boy what a bummer of a game! A score of 14 to 1? I would wager to guess that not even the Yankees saw this one coming in what is considered by many to be an "off year" for them.

We'd like to blame all this on Carrasco and Myers' pitching but no way...I mean, the 14 runs and 5 home runs were all them, no doubt but it's not like the other side of the equation was the Tribe hitting for 13 runs. They didn't even get 10 hits.

It's pretty weird that the Indians are hitting and scoring in spurts. I don't know how much it has to do with the strength of opposing pitchers (no problem with David Price) or the weakness of our bats. But our bats aren't weak...all the time.

I just don't know.

First off though, Carlos Carrasco is back! In case you forgot, in 2011 he gave up a homer then threw at Billy Butler and was ejected. Then he went on the DL and had surgery so he didn't qualify to serve his suspension until he was healthy. He took those 5 days at the beginning of this season. I'm not exactly sure if he was to be part of the opening rotation or if he just happens to be part of it now because Kazmir is hurt but he is here now.

Except today he gave up a home run then threw at Kevin Youklis, at which point we all went "Heh..." and the umpire said "Yer outta here!" and Terry Francona said "Really?" and the umpire said "SRSLY!"

Carrasco had given up 7 runs by then, in the middle of the 4th inning.

For some reason 4th starter Brett Myers was hanging around the bullpen, sort of suspicious-like. Speculation is that they think he might miss his chance to pitch tomorrow if the weather is bad so they planned to throw him out there in relief anyway, since Carrasco clearly was not having an easy time anyway, and also since we seem to need relievers as our starters are uh...ineffective.

So Myers came in and he gave up 7 more runs. The end. At least we didn't use up any relievers?

Hmm what else happened? Oh yeah - we've got a glut of catchers overnight. Lou Marson must not have felt as good as he let on yesterday and he's on the 15-Day DL. Santana is day-to-day with his thumb contusion. Ryan Raburn I guess is not really our 3rd string catcher, so they brought up Yan Gomes and Omir Santos until further notice. They actually both played today - Gomes can play first base. And we saw a lot of both of them in spring training being that Santana was at the WBC.

Neither of them got a hit.

Drew Stubbs was leadoff tonight, with Michael Bourn having his first night off of the season. Stubbs picked up where Bourn left off and went 2 for 4 with a double!

Asdrubal still isn't doing much but he did pop his second homer off the season off Andy Pettitte! The batting average climbed 30 points!

Chisenhall came in to bat for Asdrubal, which we can do now because of good ol' Mike Aviles who moved from 3rd to SS. The Chiz Kid went 1 for 1 but...yeah.

Swisher was looking good tonight, going 2 for 3. Is this the start of something for the top of the order? That'd be nice - and needed!

No one else hit today except Mike Aviles. So, good job Mike Aviles? He also got an error, though. His second on the year! But I won't mention it since A-Cab got his second of the year yesterday and I failed to mention that.

Tomorrow's another day, y'all. We've still got 154 games left! I have no idea who's starting tomorrow. I guess McAllister against RHP (7.71). Looks like we can score some mad runs off that guy, right? No sweep!

I'll see you there!

Radio Chatter:
"Believe it or not it wasn't CB Bucknor who had that blown call last night..."
- Tom Hamilton

"Then again, people who write about football are voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame, so who knows."
- Tom Hamilton on Andy Pettite's chances for the HOF

"Not a good sign when Lyle Overbay is hitting a home run off you, because he's not a home run hitter."
- Tom Hamilton

"Omir Santos must be saying 'I can't believe I'm in Cleveland!' He was signed February 9th to a minor league contract."
- Tom Hamilton

"Welp, these guys in the Yankee gray might not be paid as much as Jeter, Granderson, Teixeira and A-Rod, but they sure are swinging the bats like that quartet."
- Tom Hamilton