Do you remember last season, when TD would ask me to fill in and write a game recap for him from time to time?
It was fun, because the Indians were terrible, which allowed me to make bad jokes. I made fun of Trevor Crowe’s Crazy Eyez ™. I made fun of Jhonny Peralta’s “range.” I made fun of Dandy Marte’s….everything?
Well, the fun’s over, kiddos. This team is good, and they proved it again last night. The Indians have now won 10 straight home games.* As Jordan Bastian pointed out, since 1901 the Indians have only had 13 home-winning streaks of 10 games or more. You just witnessed one of them.
* I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this silly grammatical rule, but whenever you use a number that’s smaller than 10, you have to spell it out: “The Indians have won eight games in a row!” But once it reaches 10? You get to use numbers! Suck it grammar! The Indians rock!
How’d they do it? Ho-hum. The first four runs were scored via solo shots from Choo, Santana, Dunc-A-Dunc and Sizemore. The first two were back-to-back in the first inning. Santana’s was hit to Pennsylvania. Dunc’s was off a right hander. Grady’s was on a swing off his back knee. Turns out, this team can hit a little. Whouda Thunk it?
And those four runs were more than enough cushion for the Fabulous Fausto, who kept the Royals scoreless through the first six innings. He gave up back-to-back doubles in the seventh and let in two runs, but otherwise, the Indians pitching staff comported itself admirably: four strikeouts, two walks, and two earned runs after Sipp and Germano carved through the Royals in the 8th and 9th innings.
A quick word on Grady Sizemore, who now has four HR, eight doubles and a slugging percentage of around .900. Three weeks ago I wrote that Grady Sizemore is our best hitter, but that it’s easy to forget how good he can really be considering the last two years of injuries.
He must not have liked that, because he’s reminding us every day: Grady Sizemore is really good when he’s healthy. He’s like, maybe the best player in baseball. Go back and look at 2006 and tell me I’m wrong.
The Indians start a three-game set against the Tigers tomorrow at 7PM. Victor’s coming home. They are in first place by 4.5 games with a .667 winning percentage. They have the best run-differential in baseball. They have a 60% chance of making the playoffs.
Please. Enjoy this. It’s fun. More fun that Dandy Marte jokes, even. And that’s saying something.
Photo: Thomas Ondrey/Plain Dealer
