Left Their Bats In Cleveland

Not much to say about this game. Carrasco still can't get a quality start, but he did show improvement. Still the same 4 runs as usual but this time he went a little longer. Yes?

Trevor Bauer is all like:

Please stop tagging me in negative posts about my teammates. We all do our absolute best for the team and fans. Please have some respect
— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) April 26, 2014

Ha! Yeah guys, be cool! What about Tomlin?

Josh Outman gave up a run out of nowhere. He started the 7th, gave up a run, and that was it for him. Lee finished, and then Atchison finished it out. Neither of them gave up a run.

Hitting was dum today. Triple for Bourn, RBI single for Swisher and that's all for runs. Swisher got another hit, and Kipnis got 2 solo hits and that's all for hits.

Santana left 3 on base and Brantley - our clutch guy - left SIX on base. Holy Toledo, guys...

Santana got two walks off their starter, though - who prior to that, was the first guy since 1900 to go 30 walk-free innings. Science!

Elliot Johnson made an appearance, and nobody cares. Except I am going to do this before he gets sent down:

Elllllliot....

 Ugh, stupid wasted non-DH nonsense. (Yes, because we could have gotten 4 more runs with a DH...)

Tomorrow is 4:05, awesome McAllister versus greasy Timmy. Timmy without hair. But I guess it doesn't matte on the radio! Let's hope everyone is over their jet lag and can get some H-I-T-S tomorrow. See you there!

Radio Chatter:
"Sliding into third....that was not an earthquake! That was the Panda!"
- Tom Hamilton on Sandoval's triple

Golden Gate Two-fer

Man you know it was a rough weekend when I skipped blogging for the first time this season. I kept putting off Saturday's game recap all day Saturday then Sunday rolled around and I continued to put it off until Sunday's game came up, and I was still not inspired to write enough words to constitute a read-worthy post. Since Sunday's game was more of the same of Friday and Saturday...eh, combining the games into one post just made the most sense.


I've actually been feeling pretty awful since Choo got hurt. I feel sad. So does Choo:

"I just feel bad that I can't help the team anymore," Choo said. "We might make the playoffs. We had a good start and are still in first place, and I can't help the team. I feel sad." 

Oh. My. God.

Ok so let's get the tweezers and see if we can pluck any strands of Good from these last two games.

Actually there's a big chunk of Good right here: Starting pitching was amazing. As good as any team could ask for, ever. Masterson and Carmona gave up 3 earned runs over 2 games. Masterson only gave up 4 hits and struck out 5 in more than 6 innings. Carmona gave struck out 4 and gave up 7 hits, but he went a full 6 innings and did not implode.

Our bullpen (Sipp, Pestano, R. Perez and Smith over 2 days) went back to giving up 0 runs and in fact gave up 0 hits.

Sipp balked with the bases loaded on Saturday, but that was an un-earned run.

In case you are trying to be up-in-arms about how you (the expert?) don't think it was a balk, Sipp says it was:

"I didn't move much, but I felt it," Sipp said. "I guess they're all good at their job. I felt it. I knew I balked." 

Oddly enough, I  was looking up balk stats the other night because we recently benefited from a balk again, scoring a run when someone balked with bases loaded. I asked Nick Camino on Twitter how many balks we've had against us this year and he said 4. I think 2 of them scored runs. When I looked, we were one of the few teams in the majors without a balk. Well now we have one.

Sorry for the jinx.

Someone on a message board I frequent asked about the number of balks committed this year and if it's particularly high and if so, why. I piggy-backed and asked if anyone had a source for the opposite of the balk stat, "balks committed against." No one has answered yet but if I find anything out I'll let you know, because I'm sure you noticed all the balks too. It's especially noticeable when it loses us the game!

Hey it was Pride weekend in Cleveland. Maybe you're not supposed to beat San Francisco over Pride weekend? Yeah, that's the ticket.

So the only good thing that MLB saw fit to share video-wise for the Indians in the past 2 games is a little highlight reel of Masterson's performance. Tonight's game? Nothing. Not even anything for the Giants.

It only makes sense then that I couldn't muster two whole posts, either.

Personally I thought the kid who pitched for the Giants was pretty impressive. Madison Bumgarner is 21 and came right out of high school to pitch for the Giants in 2009. He struck out a career-high 11 today, and the earned run he gave up was actually questionable as being earned (Orlando hit a ball down the left-field line that was foul on review but called fair by the 1st base ump, as the 3rd base ump was missing since the home plate ump left due to injury. You got that?)

I'm about over San Francisco, though. The Indians are over being in first place. But fuck it, it's ok. It's only June. We've got some work to do and it's best to find our limits and reach our lows now instead of September, right?

So, on to Arizona where the temp is slated to be in the one-teens. By that I mean 111. How do people even live? Yeesh.

Now, Arizona is on Mountain Time at the moment so all three of the games are at 9:40 PM Eastern. How the :40 relates to Mountain Time I do not know. I don't think it does. It just has to do with the wackiness that is Arizona, I guess.

We really need to look alive in Arizona because I have relatives out there who are huge DB fans and I don't need them picking my Tribe apart while we're down. But I just looked at the "Probables" Web page for tomorrow and I see:

"Ian Kennedy, RHP
8-2, 2.90 ERA

Kennedy has won seven of his last eight decisions to jump into All-Star consideration. Last time out, he allowed one run on eight hits over six innings. In his last two starts he has given up just one earned run in 14 innings."

So yeah, I'll see you Monday night. Hopefully with something truly awesome to say. Like "Fluffernutter." That's an awesome word.

Radio Chatter:
"You play the world champions in their park, you can't beat yourself. And that's what the Indians are doing here."
- Tom Hamilton

"No matter what happens this inning, it just has not been a very good weekend. [...] They're just not doing the little things and the little things are what got them to 30 and 15."
- Tom Hamilton

"It's supposed to be a high of 111 degrees [in Arizona]. But, the natives will tell you 'It's a dry heat.' Satan will tell you Hell is a dry heat!"
"An oven is dry heat but you don't put your head in there!"
"Good thing we're indoors, which the entire state of Arizona is indoors."
- Tom Hamilton and Jim Rosenhaus on the weather in Arizona

"If one of those sail boats goes over, since we're high up here is it our job to call the Coast Guard?"
- Jim Rosenhaus

Gift Win

All right, don't ever say the 2011 Indians aren't nice guys. Because they totally just gave San Francisco a win.

They didn't earn it, that's for sure. They only earned one run! Our new favorite pitcher, Carlos Carrasco, only gave up one run in the form of a homer. He pitched a complete game, struck out 4 and walked none. He only had 6 hits in 8 innings.

But, he got a loss.

We were lookin' awful good at the top of the game, doing what we needed to do to score runs early. We had 2 runs in the 1st and 3 by the 4th, thanks to a heckova lot of walks by their starter who walked as many as he struck out (6) in 4.2 innings.

The Indians actually only had 2 hits tonight for our 3 runs.


One of those two hits was a real nice double for Santana, which got the first 2 runs in. In a SERIOUS turn of events, later on Santana would help give up 3 un-earned runs by committing 2 errors. Sad trombone.

Choo got hit on the hand and left the game, which totally sucks. He was replaced by Duncan. Nice to see Shelley Duncan back up with the team, but we needed Choo's current upswing. Duncan got pulled for Brantley in the 8th which was sort of shocking because Brantley is nursing a sore shoulder. You don't usually see Manny Acta forcing guys in before they're ready, but Brantley actually had a really long fly out so hopefully he is not that hurt.

Oh, shit. I am going to say the most un-positive thing you will ever hear on this blog. Shin-Soo Choo is out for 6 weeks with a broken thumb. In case you haven't been following along, Choo is out of his slump as of, oh, last week.

So, Brantley out for short time. LaPorta out for longer. Hafner out in the form of the missing DH position for 8 more games. Choo out for what seems like forever.

I think I'm going to have a little cry.

Ok, I'm back.


What we need here is more cowbell. More cowbell in the form of Shelley Duncan.

I also think they need to let Chris Perez bat, just for shits. Don't you want to see Perez bat? Against Wilson and his beard, too. That'd be awesome!

Hey, Lou Marson had a sweet caught-stealing in the 1st. The Twitterpeople say we're to call him "Laser Lou" now. Sweet Lou is already over, I guess.

Carrasco was really awesome again. Really.

This will make us all feel better. O'Hara's 6, starring the Bullpen Mafia. It's a play on Ocean's 11. I'm serious check it out!

Tomorrow we're on Fox 8, broadcast TV, at 4:05 PM. Your Google Calendar might say 7:10 PM like mine does. It's wrong. Not sure if I'll be catching the game tomorrow, but I'll try to get you something by the time we're on prime-time ESPN at 8 on Sunday. I hella would not mind spending my Sunday with a double-header of my own making.

Everyone say their prayers tonight, ok? You know what to pray for. Fighting!

Radio Chatter:
"Carrasco was outmatched from the moment he stepped in to the batter's box."
- Tom Hamilton on Carrasco's first at-bat

"Folks if you need to go do something, you can go do it now because [Carrasco] isn't going to help himself."
"He swung at one that was over his head last time I think."
- Tom Hamilton and Jim Rosenhaus on Carrasco's second at-bat

"Yeah but when you're Kung-Fu Panda, you don't just throw to first to end a game you have to put a little style in it."
- Tom Hamilton admiring Pablo Sandoval's nickname

"If you're looking for Jimmy Hoffa you might want to look in Brian Wilson's beard. [...] How much shoe polish does it take to dye that thing jet black?"
"Who would have thought the Abe Lincoln look would be in vogue?"
- Tom Hamilton and Jim Rosenhaus on Giants pitcher Brian Wilson's beard

"He charged the slow chopper and did everything but kick it into the seats."
- Tom Hamilton on Santana's second error in the 6th inning