Helpin' Out

Everybody's helpin' everybody!

First off, Fausto Carmona tried to help himself by getting a hit in the second inning. Except first base was so. far. away. leading to a catastrophic failure of his legs to carry him across the base and falling over like ... well, like I probably would have done being overweight and not having played baseball in 20 years. It was all bad news and Fausto wasn't able to continue on and he left the game to be replaced by JOSH TOMLIN as a PINCH RUNNER!

Fausto did end up leaving us with some good news since he did technically get on base, and the batter after him, Michael Brantley, was all like "Slump? Rly?" and knocked everyone in with a 3-run blast to the Tribe bullpen.

The rest of the game was pretty much like the last time we faced Homer Bailey. We won that game 2-1 off a 2-run homer, albeit in the 7th inning. This time it was 3-1 off a 3-run homer in the 2nd.

Today guys were peppering hits all over the place for a total of 8, but there was only one walk and Bailey sent us packing with 10 strikeouts.

Orlando did continue to be hot, with 2 more hits, raising his average up to .263 which isn't much lower than Brantley's.

Unless there is some sort of miracle, I don't think Brantley's going to reach .300 by the break like I thought he would. Asdrubal looks promising, though!

Back to pitching.

After Tomlin came in to run for Carmona, Frank Hermann came in to pitch. Hermann hasn't seen work in 12 days. I think just yesterday someone mentioned he was our longest-sitting pitcher. But today was his big chance! We really haven't had a need for any sort of long relief, but if there is going to be some long relief, bring out the Harvard Heat [The Professor] [The Pride of Harvard]! Anything less would be uncivilized.

Hermann did great, going 3 long innings and only giving up one hit and striking out two. No meltdowns, no craziness, just good long relief.

But it wasn't too long, because Manny started playing lefty-righty games and alternating pitchers every inning starting in the 6th.

Raffy Perez had a scoreless inning, then Joe Smith came in and LOADED THEM UP! And then shut them down! Heart stopper, Smith! Guess what his ERA is right now? Joe Smith's ERA is .99. Woah!

Tony Sipp got himself into a little jammy-jam, and gave up a homer to Votto, but his friend Chad Durbin made an unusual late-game appearance in the 8th and helped him out by getting the next two guys. Thanks, Chad Durbin!

Chris Perez is still out and we didn't need Josh Judy to come in (oddly enough his first and last appearance was against the Reds in May in Cleveland) and instead Vinne Pestano helped out by MOWING 'EM DOWN with 3 strikeouts in the 9th. Done and done! Overheard on Twitter: "My Closer Vinnie."

Ah, I bet there were big big hugs all around in that exhausted bullpen tonight! Actually, they were all Tweeting props to each other.

Tomorrow is our last interleague game before we can come home and sic Travis Hafner back on the world.

Tomorrow's game is Mitch Talbot versus Mike Leake and neither of them have been so hot lately. But our bats are hot and if they continue to be hot we should be ok. Game starts at 1:05 PM - see you there!

Radio Chatter:
"This is why having American League teams have to do this is idiotic. Having the pitchers bat, all that is going to happen is your pitcher gets hurt."
- Tom Hamilton DOES NOT LIKE when AL teams have to bat their pitcher

"In most years in the American league if you have an ERA under 4.0 you're leading the league."
- Tom Hamilton on the Indians' team ERA of 3.65

Happy Nasty

Whew! Justin Masterson got himself some run support. Not just a few runs but EIGHT runs. Masterson hasn't won since APRIL, even though he was only giving up 2 runs per game for most of June.

I forget who else we used to do that to. Westbrook, maybe. Anyone remember?

Anyway, our ace looked ace-y tonight for real. Eight innings, 1 run, 5 strikeouts, 2 double plays. Dude even got a HIT. He got his 6th win, making him 6-6.

Really great that he went 8 innings tonight, since Chris Perez (happy birthday!) is out on bereavement leave until Sunday night (sorry you lost your grammy).

Chad Durbin came in to pitch the 9th, probably just to get some work. He hasn't worked since June 20.

A lot has been said about how cool Masterson has been about this whole "no run support" thing. Everyone has been giving a lot of props to him for being such a nice guy. Manny Acta explained to Jordan Bastian how Jesus kept Nasty from actually getting nasty:

"I think his upbringing has a lot to do with it," Acta said. "He's a Christian man of a lot of faith, one of the best teammates, very positive, low-key, down to earth."

I contend that his beard (and now lack of beard) had something to do with all of it.

I didn't get to give my "OMG ASDRUBAL!!" shout-out on Facebook or Twitter tonight for his 14th home run, because I was out and about. But when I got home and saw the final score I knew it'd be worth my while to check out the archived audio. Totally was!

It was a really well-pitched game by Masterson (duh) and the guys looked good in the field - especially Lonnie Chisenhall at third (shit...we have a backlog of third basemen?!) I wonder how it is that we play so well against the Reds? Did someone convince the team that this Ohio Cup or Battle of Ohio or whatever it is is important or something? If you recall, we scored 19 runs over 3 games in May. Chalk us up for 27 runs in 2011 with two more games to go!

Man, ALMOST everybody hit today and it wasn't even the pitcher who was left out, it was Lou Marson who actually hit in the last 3 games. LOUUUUUUU! You're killing me! He did have a Caught Stealing tonight, for his 17th. He doesn't lead the league but the 3 guys ahead of him have twice as many games as him. So he's pretty awesome behind the plate.

Ok so, like I said, Asdrubal got home run number 14 and RBIs 48 and 49. Would you like to know how many career home runs he had coming in to the 2011 season? I'll tell you. It's 18. Asdrubal is hitting .500 against the Reds.

Right after that, as in the next batter, Carlos Santana smacked one out too. He's only got 12 homers - doesn't it seem like he's had more? Ah, I see. He got a whole ONE in May, so his April and June made him on track for more than we've actually seen.

Speaking of seeing things, check out the guy at :18 in this clip of Santana's home run. There's some Santana doppelgänger out there and he's a fan!


Oh! Grady also got a home run today, and a double, hitting 5th. Un-slumped? I guess - he's hit in his last 4 games. And what of Brantley? Another hit tonight but jury's still out on that. It doesn't seem like he is even eligible for a slump this season, really - but I suppose we'd rather he be in a slump than all of a sudden actually bad.

Time will tell!

Travis Buck...he had two hits tonight and two RBI. Hitting really well over the past 10 days. Now "day to day" with a hurt leg. That's all I got to say about that.

You know who's hot, even though he's back in the midwestern humidity? Orlando! I saw the nickname "Grandbrera" for him on Twitter the other day. Uncle got himself 2 more hits today and turned them into 2 runs scored. Would you like to see the Dos Cabreras secret handshake? Here you go, scroll over to :29. Actually you can watch the whole thing because it's Asdrubal going deep, and then some douchebag in pinstriped shorts and a white belt throwing the ball back, too. You rock on with your bad self, angry Cincinnatian.

Really fun game tonight. Totally worth me staying up until almost 3 AM to take it all in.

Tomorrow's game is at 4:10 PM and it's on FOX, just like last Saturday. I think I could get used to this sort of schedule on the weekends. Although I do love my Sunday afternoon TV games too. More broadcast baseball, please!

See you tomorrow!

Radio Chatter:
"You come to this balllpark and you'd better score runs. You're not going to see many 1-0 games in this ballpark."
- Tom Hamilton

"Justin Masteron has a lead!"
- Tom Hamilton, after just 2 innings

"Can you imagine Brett Favre uncorking a throw from short?"
- Tom Hamilton talking about Favre's amature baseball career

"Dusty [Baker] thought 'if that idiot on the radio thought of it, why didn't I think of it two innings ago?'"
- Tom Hamilton noticing that the Reds got someone warming up as soon as he mentioned it

"Does anybody ever get hurt when they're in a slump?"
- Tom Hamilton on the exit of the hot-hitting Travis Buck

"Boy, it's hard to think of a third baseman right now who has a stronger throwing arm than Lonnie Chisenhall."
- Tom Hamilton

"If the Indians are in town, Brandon Phillips is going to have a big weekend. He just absolutely TORTURES the Indians. It's almost as if he wants to make sure the Indians never forget they let him get away."
- Tom Hamilton

"We're going to get to see the Cuban Missle, Aroldis Chapman. He can throw 100 miles an hour, but there's a chance he'll also throw it up here to our broadcast booth."
- Tom Hamilton Aroldis Chapman's control

"Two hours for Rowland, but an hour and twenty minutes for Rosie."
"You gotta make up your mind. I've been accused of driving slowly before, too."
- Tom Hamilton on driving from Cincinnatti to Indianapolis

"All Drew Stubbs is trying to do right now is padding his stolen base total. You know what's going to happen to Drew Stubbs this weekend? He's going to get drilled."
- Tom Hamilton does not like you trying to steal when we've given up trying to throw you out

"What the remaining Reds fans are saying now is that the fireworks better be phenomenal. Because the game got ugly quick for Reds fans."
- Tom Hamilton

Right-Side Up

Oh my god how much do we love Carlos Carrasco?! His June was awesome, giving up just 4 runs over 6 starts! And he finagled 4 wins out of those 5 starts too. He got 28 strikeouts in those 5 games and only walked 5.

Wow, wow! I would give you some numbers to compare him to our other starters in June (who aren't horrible themselves) but MLB.com seems to have rolled out a new Web technology today on their previously-very-nice stats section and rendered it useless for the moment.

Any of you out there play fantasy baseball, and any of you pick up Carrasco? I told my brother to pick him up for today and if he "lost it" then dump him. My brother did not pick him up - and Carlos did not lose it. Woohoo!

Carrasco also batted ok today. He's no Josh Tomlin, of course, but he did do 2 successful sac bunts! One of those bunts led to a run scored, even.

Relieving Carrasco in the 8th and 9th were Pestano and then Chris Perez. They did what you thought they'd do, bitches.

The team was going cr-azy today with hits, getting FIFTEEN and walking 6 times, as well as one HBP. That's 21 men on base. Er...which if you think about it is sort of weak that we only got 6 runs...

Nevertheless...! FIVE doubles for our guys today! I'm just going to roll down the lineup like I did in the old days (April) and tell you how awesome everybody was.

Michael Brantley! Walked once and got one hit, so is he out of his slump? Eh, maybe not. He only has 7 hits over the last 10 games but they all came in like 3 games. Ouch! He did get one RBI and score one run.

Ok ok the NEXT guy is much more exciting than Brantley right now. Orlando! Know how many hits he got today? FOUR hits! He got one RBI and scored two. Orlando got his 12th double of the season, and he's hit 3 doubles over the past 4 games. Combined with that game-winning homer from Monday, he's all of a sudden our power guy! I told you this weather was good for old guys, right?

Asdrubal. What did you expect of him today? Three for 5 with a walk and an RBI? Yeah sounds about right. Does he lead the team in doubles? Uh, yeah! Does he lead AL short stops? Duh! Does he lead the league? Of course not...but he's in the top 10!

Carlos Santana! Got the game's first run right there in the first inning. For every strikeout he had, he was also on base. Good enough?

Shelley Duncan, later replaced by Travis Buck. Together they went 2 for 4 with a run, an RBI and a walk. Buck got one of them doubles, too.

Red alert! Austin Kearns even managed to get a hit today! There was magic in the climate-controlled air!

Sweet Lou Marson! Looking quite sharp running those bases. He went 2 for 4 with a walk and a run scored, getting one of those doubles.

Even Supermanahan, who we still hang our heads and say "well, he's really good at third base..." got in on the act and got himself a double as well, and a walk.

All-in-all, our lineup wrung out 5 of their pitchers while our guys breezed through. Honestly it seemed like Pestano and Perez came in just for some exercise. Agreed?

In case you were wondering, the Diamondbacks are no slouches. In fact they have a slightly higher winning percentage than we do (our .532 to their .537). It's not like we just rolled over the Royals or something. It was a great show against an evenly-matched team. Huzzah!

Just three more games without Hafner (and, like, a million without Choo...) and we'll be back home, hitting home runs and enjoying the Eastern time zone.

In the meantime, you've got tonight off and tomorrow night too, and we're back in it on Friday at 7:05 in Cincinnati! Oh man, we totally won't be seeing our friend Edinson Volquez pitching on that trip. Bummer! Ah well, I'm sure we can beat up on the Reds' other pitchers just fine.

See you Friday!

Radio Chatter:
"We're in the desert! If you don't believe me, the temperature is 113 degrees and the humidity is 18 percent."
- Tom Hamilton

"Sorry Ryan Roberts, you're not that good. Carlos Carrasco is not trying to hit you. Unless Rosie told you to, because of all the tattoos, which seem to really bother [Rosenhause] this series."
- Tom Hamilton

"That's a little play, that doesn't end up in the box score...but just a little slide prevented a double play. [...] Now you've got runners at the corners with one out."
- Tom Hamilton on Austin Kearns' baserunning in the 3rd

"The park is air-conditioned and your car is air-conditioned, but people don't want to make the walk from the car to the ballpark in this heat."
- Jim Rosenhaus on the struggle to get people to come to day games in Arizona

Backwards

So this is weird...1) All of our starting lineup hit except two guys - Brantley and Asdrubal 2) Our bullpen gave up 4 runs in 2 innings 3) We LOST in walk-off fashion

What is going on here?! It was weird enough that the game was won yesterday by Orlando Cabrera's homer (??) but this is almost too much weirdness. If tonight were game 82, I'd be freaked out that it was the beginning of Opposite Half.

Don't worry, it's only game 78.

So hey, how about that Josh Tomlin? Not only did dude give us 7 solid innings only giving up 2 runs and striking out 4...but he also recouped one of those two runs HIS OWN DAMN SELF by singling in a run! How about that?!

And...AND...he picked off their pitcher in to end the 5th. Good game, Josh Tomlin...goooooood game.

On the radio one of the guys noted that both starters were strong (indeed, AZ's guy also gave up 2 and got an RBI!) but if we could get to the bullpen it'd be smooth sailing for us. Since our bullpen is so superior and stuff. And it IS! Except not tonight! WTF?

The bullpen just wasn't their rock-solid selves. Granted, you can't give up 0 runs every inning forever. It was seriously, seriously unfortunate that Raffy and Sipp both gave up their first runs in forever on the same night.

Our lineup was goofy and B-list tonight but really, we scored 4 runs and got 8 hits. Tonight definitely wasn't a case of the batters letting the pitcher down.

Lonnie Chisenhall was on it again tonight, smacking his 2nd double in as many major league appearances. He came around to score a run too.

Also with doubles tonight are the suddenly-powerful Orlando and Shelley "Happy To Be Here" Duncan! Shelley had some leather playing first, too, but also had a bit of a blown play later on. But hey, he was almost filling the position of "warm body" today so it's all good.

Carlos Santana! Dude tied the game up with a 2-run dinger in the 9th and it was a-freaking-mazing. How many of you called it? I know I totally did!

Also, how many of you think "ugh, Carlos Santana. He needs to hit a goddamn home run right now and not strike out" every time he comes up to bat? Yeah, me too. And yeah, that's "calling it."

All in all not bad stuff from our Hafner-Choo-LaPorta-Hannahan-less skeleton crew tonight. Imagine how it might have been if Brantley wasn't in a slump (the Twitterverse called it official). Grady's in a slump too. And imagine if Asdrubal wasn't, I don't know...sad because he hates being in Arizona thinking about how half a million people think Derek Jeter is better than him? Something. He wasn't too shabby yesterday! I think the new ASG counts came out today, though...

3:40 PM game tomorrow (I did not know this, my damn calendar says 9:40!) and guess who's pitching? It's our favorite guy Carlos Carrasco! Their starter looks crummy. And you know our bullpen won't be bad two days in a row, it just does. not. happen. If they truly are any sort of mafia, someone will leave a dead animal of some sort in someone else's locker and a message will be sent and no one will give up any runs until sometime in August.

See you tomorrow!

Radio Chatter:
"From the outside it looks like an airplane hangar. You'd never know it was a baseball stadium from the outside."
- Tom Hamilton on Chase Field

"They're all down his arms, coming up his neck. He's missing the Mike Tyson face tattoo but that's about it...I didn't go any further than that. That's taking reporting a little too far."
- Jim Rosenhaus on Ryan Roberts' tattoos

"Based on how they are ordering things down below, the staff Christmas party is OFF. The budget has been blown."
- Tom Hamilton on the Indians' back office party downstairs

"He doesn't look comfortable against the submarine style pitching of Joe Smith. Most right-handers don't feel comfortable."
- Tom Hamilton on Justin Upton

"Tony Sipp is not paying any attention to the baserunner. You just can't do that in a tie game in the 9th!"
- Tom Hamilton

Snakes and Ladders

Wow man. I was really scared coming in to this game, I'm not going to lie. With the way we played over the weekend and the recent outings of their starter, I was really afraid we were going to completely blow it in front of my aunt & uncle, who are DBackers to the point of having a shrine room. And we'd fall further behind the Tigers in the standings.

I also worried that all of our barking for Lonnie Chisenhall to be brought up would be for naught as he struggled to get settled in the majors.

I was wrong, I was wrong and I was wrong!

We start with pitching, which was run-of-the-mill Talbot. Three runs on 3 hits, 2 walks and 2 strikeouts. Mitch was yanked after 5 innings and 71 pitches in favor of Travis Hafner batting with 2 on and 2 out, which I was not totally opposed to. Except he struck out. Although Talbot was looking great since he gave up 3 in the first inning, Hafner did have a better chance at getting more runs in than him. Plus, we had the whole #BullpenMafia looking to bust out.

And bust out they did. We got almost the entire gang - Smith, Sipp, Pestano, Raffy and Rage. The only one that had a little problem was Pestano who gave up two hits and a run. But, as Rick from Waiting For Next Year tweeted: "Can't even be mad at Pestano. First run he's given up since little league I think." Yeah, pretty much.

Raffy pitched to one guy and got the win, but it was a big strikeout, closing out Pestano's bad inning. Rage came in and gave up a hit, I think in order to allow himself to get the next 3 out or something, and then he got the save.

And now, the exciting story of our bats waking up!

First off, many thanks to Asdrubal for coming out of whatever funkety-funk he's been in lately (got down to .290. Can you believe it?!) and hitting a 2-run dinger at his first at-bat, surely to impress my aunt and uncle who were sitting in the stands behind him. He went 2 for 4 tonight, bringing his average back up to a respectable-for-Asdrubal .295.

Asdrubal's other hit was a double in the 6th, and he was driven in by none other than sometimes-Indian Travis Buck! Buck also had a lovely catch in the 9th to help out ol' C. Perez.

So - Lonnie Chisenhall! His first at-bat he flew out. Then everyone in Cleveland breathed a sigh of relief as little cousin started off the 5th with a double! Woohoo! Save the ball!

Wait, it gets better! Later on in the 6th he got his first RBI, which was the go-ahead RBI! So, hopefully he'll be back tomorrow. Sorry Adam Everett...

So then Pestano gives up the tying run and we're all tied yadda yadda Orlando Cabrera hits a home run.

Serious! I mean, we have seen him do well in clutch situations and we have seen him ho-hum us at the plate. It was more in the first few weeks of the season that we were wowed. They do say the dry heat is excellent for old folks. Whatever, it was a night for Dos Cabreras to go long and go long they did.

Orlando Cabrera won the game with a home run.

That's why we love baseball, folks - anything can happen!

I don't know if you read the box scores in the morning but check this nonsense out. This is slightly extreme but this is generally how National League box scores end up:

Can you even follow that? Yeesh.

So, I'm pretty happy. Going to go to bed happy. Going to look forward to tomorrow's game and everything, maybe get myself some more popsicles.

Don't forget, 9:40 PM tomorrow and Wednesday. The pitching matchup tomorrow is absolutely even, stats-wise. Can't wait to see what Lonnie Chisenhall has going on in his second game!

Radio Chatter:
"Travis Buck has racked up the frequent flyer miles going between home and Columbus."
- Tom Hamilton

"And how 'bout the kid?"
- Tom Hamilton on Lonnie Chisenhall

"My friend went golfing today, his tee-time was 2:30. Since nobody is outside golfing since it's so darned hot, it was $7 to tee off at 2:30 on a nice course!"
- Tom Hamilton can't believe how hot it is in Arizona

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