Beantown Shakedown – Tribe Wins a Laffey…errr..Laugher

Talk about a strange day in Wahoo-land. The day starts with tales of the horrific bullpen, followed by a mid-day demotion of Rafael Perez in favor of journeyman Matt Herges, and a bullpen that now contains Herges, Masa Kobayashi, and a completely unreliable Jensen Lewis heading into Boston. In a word – YIKES. Next, the word comes down about an hour before game-time that today’s scheduled starter, Aaron Laffey, is being moved to the pen out of necessity. Jeremy Sowers is taking his spot in the rotation (we will have a separate post about that later).

However, the evening portion of the day for the Tribe was actually a lot of fun for the team, and us fans. Behind six strong innings from Carl Pavano and a surprising three scoreless from Laffey to close, the 9-2 Tribe win was a laugher. The Boston offense put two on the board in the second off Pavano and was never from again. Pavano kept the Red Sox off balance all night by painting corners with his off-speed stuff and continued his string of impressive outings. Laffey was even better.

In his first appearance of the season out of the pen, the ground-ball specialist finished off the Bo Sox in a neat 27 pitches for his first major league save. This was the exact kind of performance that Manager Eric Wedge and GM Mark Shapiro were hoping for when they moved him out of the rotation based on need. He saved the overworked and underperforming pen for the day, and gave his team a much needed boost. “Old-school save, three innings,” Wedge said. “It was good that we could get him out there right away.”

But how about that offense? We have talked a lot lately about what a stud Asdrubal Cabrera is becoming, but it really bears repeating. The kid had another three-hit game, including a two-out RBI in the second. He is becoming a fixture in the two hole. Not to be outdone, Victor Martinez was 3-5 with 4 RBI and a ninth inning jack off of Tribe punching bag Javier Lopez to put the icing on the cake. In fact, the Indians 2-5 hitters –  AC, Vic The Stick, Shin-Soo Choo, and Mark DeRosa, were a combined 12-19 with eight RBI. Best of all, they only struck out a total of one time.

On the flip slide, the two Indians who still can’t get on track are Grady Sizemore and Jhonny Peralta. These two together were 0-9 and left six on. Also, any particular reason we still have to see David Dellucci getting regular at bats at the expense of Matt Laporta, Ryan Garko, Josh Barfield, and Luis Valbuena? After starting 6-12, he has just one hit in his last nine at bats, crashing back down to earth. Garko seems to be particularly in the Wahoo brass doghouse. He seems to be the odd man out almost on a nightly basis. The biggest sign was during Tuesday’s tilt in Toronto, where rookie left-hander Brett Cecil was on the hill and Wedge DH’d the left-handed Choo while Garko sat. He doesn’t seem long for this roster, despite leading the club in RBI’s last season with 90.

Back to last night, this was about as complete of a game the Red, White, and Blue has played all year. They got quality starting pitching from Pavano, scored nine runs – seven with two out – on 13 hits, and got three scoreless innings from the bullpen to close things out.  “For our guys to come in here — especially off a very difficult loss  — for them to come in here and play the way they did tonight, I think it shows a lot about our club,” said the Grinder.

Now the Indians try to do something they haven’t done in weeks – string some wins together. That continues again tonight in Boston. Sowers gets his first start of the season. He’ll be facing the knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, who shut the Tribe out for seven innings last week in Cleveland.