Tribe Weekend Review: Take Two in Baltimore

Just as the Cavaliers were ruining all of our end of Spring into summer months with their premature season ending loss to Boston, your very own professional baseball team was busy winning to consecutive series on the road. Granted, the competition were the two other sad-sack AL franchises Kansas City and Baltimore, but hey, you have got to play who is on your schedule.

You may not be impressed by winning two of three at Camden Yards, but consider how they did it. After a porous showing Friday night in the 8-1 loss (Justin Masterson still hasn’t won a game, lending more credence to the thought that he should be a reliever), the Wahoo Warriors looked like they were going through the motions again Saturday night. For the first eight innings, they were dominated by the Orioles top young pitcher Brian Matusz. The lefty allowed seven hits and walked four during his seven innings of work, yet the Tribe failed to score a single run. They stumbled into the ninth inning hoping for one last shot against O’s closer Alfredo Simon.

Mariano Rivera, Simon is not. After newly called up Trevor Crowe popped out, Asdrubal Cabrera (single) and Mark Grudzielanek (walk) reached base. Shin-Soo Choo followed with an RBI single, cutting the Orioles 2-0 lead in half. This brought Austin Kearns to the plate. Kearns was having a rough night, going o-4 with two K’s. “The first three at-bats, I just felt like I was all over the place and not comfortable,” he added. “I was trying to calm down and make it as simple as possible.” Simon got ahead 0-2 in the count and decided that it was a good time to hang a slider right in Kearns’ wheelhouse.

“Awesome” Kearns (tm – Lets Go Tribe) crushed a no-doubt three run shot to left, flipping his bat as soon as he hit it. The Baltimore crowd was stunned, the Indians bench was celebrating, and Tom Hamilton rejoiced like it was the clincher in 2007. The best part was, the Tribe offense wasn’t even done. A two-out, two-run double from the great Mike Redmond gave the Indians a 6-2 lead. If that wasn’t improbable enough, Crowe followed with a deep, two run shot over the high wall in right, finishing off an eight run ninth inning.

“To be honest, I mean, why do you have to let me wait this long,” Manager Manny Acta said. “That’s how the game goes. That’s the way baseball goes. It’s 27 outs, and you’ve got to play them, every single one of them, and things like this can happen.”

Closer Kerry Wood was itching to get a save chance and had been warming in the pen. With the six run lead, he wasn’t needed. Meanwhile, once again, Mitch Talbot came up big, but seemed to deserve a better fate. “The Fury” went eight strong innings, and was only touched up by Ty Wiggninton, who hit two solo homers. In the end, he got his fifth win of the season. Talbot had a great perspective after the game. “In my last start I gave up four runs in five innings and won,” said Talbot. “I figured things were just evening out.”

Looking for a series win on Sunday, Acta handed the ball to Jake Westbrook. It was a great spot for the veteran right-hander. Its been no secret that Jake had been struggling to find his groove after almost two years off from Tommy John surgery. On Sunday, he put it all together for easily his best performance of the season.

Westbrook had his old school sinker working to perfection, scattering nine hits in a complete game win.”Westbrook had tremendous movement on his ball today,” said Wigginton.” He mixed in enough sliders, so if you went to get on the sinker, the ball is diving away. You get a lot of bad swings when a guy has a good sinker working. He was outstanding.”

Eight of the nine hits were singles, and he was one out away from a shutout, but Luke Scott got him for a solo home run. Regardless, Jake was back for one day, striking out eight and walking just one. “It was good to get a complete game,” Westbrook said. “It was good to get a ‘W.’ I feel great right now, and that’s encouraging to me. It just gives you a little bit of peace where you don’t have to worry about your arm.”

The 5-1 win featured great starting pitching and actual power from the offense. There was an actual Matt LaPorta sighting! Believe it or not, the one time top Indians prospect who has struggled driving in runs this year, jacked his first homer of the year, a two run blast to center off of Mark Hendrickson which put the Tribe ahead 3-0. Russell Branyan added a two-run shot of his own – his fourth home run of the week – in the ninth.

It was nice to see the Indians knock out some long balls, but the day clearly belonged to Westbrook.

“It was a fantastic job by Jake,” said Acta. “He got into a good groove after the fifth. It’s too bad he couldn’t get the complete-game shutout, but this has to give a tremendous boost to his confidence.”

As we do every Monday, we ask the question, what did we learn this weekend?

Justin Masterson belongs in the bullpen. Oh wait, we already knew that and have gone over this bit the last two Mondays.

We were a tad hasty on the annihilation of Russ Branyan. A week after I tweeted my anger towards the man and even was called out by our friends at Lets Go Tribe, the Love Muscle bashed four home runs and raised his average .40 points. This is exactly what Mark Shapiro was hoping for, especially considering the struggles of Matt LaPorta, Travis Hafner, and Grady Sizemore. As Irwin M. Fletcher said in Fletch 2: “It takes a big man to admit when he is wrong. I am not a big man.”

Grady Sizemore’s injury may give him a chance to re-focus. Hitting coach Jon Nunnally says Grady’s problems at the plate are “mechanical, not mental.” I think its a combination of both. During yesterday’s game, Sizemore left after the fifth inning with a knee contusion. The extent is not known, but a couple of mental health days off couldn’t hurt. Grady clearly isn’t himself and I’m starting to wonder if we will ever see the old version again.

(AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)