While We’re Waiting… Miller and Pomeranz, Taylor and Rubin, Plus Loving the Tribe
May 4, 2011Tribe Confident, and Winning Every Which Way
May 4, 2011The Tribe train just keeps going, steamrolling anyone in its wake. Last night’s 4-1 win in Oakland was the definition of Actaball. Great pitching, solid defense, and timely late-game hitting. Then of course there was a visit from the Tribe’s favorite closer, Brian Fuentes.
Fausto Carmona, the Tribe’s #1 starter, has had some hard luck in terms of run support this season, particularly on the road. In four of his previous six starts, the Indians combined for eight runs. Tuesday night’s game looked like it was headed in that same direction.
However, Fausto was dealing. Mixing in all of his pitches, Carmona held the A’s to one run on five singles. Three of those five were infield hits. He did all you can ask for in his eight innings of work.
“Tonight everything worked for me,” said Carmona. “I threw strikes, kept the ball down and got a ground ball.”
Trailing 1-0 in the seventh, singles by Carlos Santana and Michael Brantley put two on with one out. Matt LaPorta, who has steadily improved over the past three weeks, drove in Santana with an RBI single to tie the game.
The score would remain tied into the ninth, where the A’s turned to Fuentes, their interim closer while Andrew Bailey remains on the disabled list. The Tribe has has great success against the lefty over the past two years when he was with the Angels. The key against Fuentes is patience.
Michael Brantley led off the inning with a great nine pitch at-bat, working the count full before walking. Though he was picked off (on a phantom tag might I add), his at-bat set the tone against Fuentes and clearly rattled him.
“Michael had such a good at-bat,” said Orlando Cabrera. “By the time the other guys went up there, we had pretty much seen everything Fuentes had. Those kind of at-bats help develop those type of innings.”
LaPorta and Jack Hannahan followed with singles putting runners at the corners with one out. The left-handed hitting Hannahan is now 10-20 against left-handed pitching this year. That is a stunning stat. Up next was Orlando Cabrera, in the nine hole after he was given the night off but came in as a pinch runner in the seventh.
This was a perfect spot for OC, a good contact hitter and the Indians RBI leader at the time. He lined an 0-1 Fuentes pitch right up the middle to put the Tribe on top for the first time 2-1. Once again, the Indians received some “Orlando Magic.” (all credit goes to our own Kirk on that one).
“I look at that as a win-win situation,” said Cabrera. “I don’t get paid to drive in runs. So if I don’t you guys forget about it. If I do, you guys come talk to me. It’s win-win.”
But the Wahoos weren’t done. Fuentes hit Grady Sizemore with the first pitch to load the bases. The A’s didn’t have a pitcher warmed up to come in and bail Fuentes out at this point, so he had to face Asdrubal Cabrera. Like his middle infield brethren with the same last name, AC roped a single to center, scoring two big insurance runs. Now with the score 4-1, it was Pure Rage time.
Chris Perez, pitching in his fourth consecutive game (with a day off on Monday), breezed through a 1-2-3 ninth inning to pick up his eighth save of the season. Now for the fun part. The numbers:
- The Indians have now won seven straight games.
- They are 20-8, the best record in baseball.
- Their last four wins have been in their last at-bat.
- The Tribe leads the league in run differential at +50. No other team is within 12 runs of them.
Are we having fun yet?
“We all expected a lot out of ourselves,” LaPorta said. “If you don’t expect greatness, you shouldn’t be here. That’s what we expect — greatness.”
You have to love the attitude and the makeup of this team. Just when you think it can’t get any better, it does. Lets see what they can do for an encore tonight in Oakland. It should be a great pitching matchup as the Tribe sends Josh Tomlin (4-o) to the mound against the A’s fellow four game winner, Trevor Cahill.
Its worth staying up late for Tribe fans.
(AP photo/Ben Margot)
24 Comments
Magic Number: 130
You’re welcome.
thanks C-bus.
fear. the. tribe.
Thanks, Kevin.
One thing I noticed last night – the aggressiveness on the basepath. We went from 1st to 3rd on singles 3 or 4 times. I thought that really only happened in softball. Love it.
Roll Tribe
I almost can’t believe we are having this season. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in on this team. The Tribe isn’t just “getting lucky” the way some experts think. Great starting pitching, good defense and good hitting is the perfect formula for winning baseball and the Indians have all that. I’m a believer.
But still, when the expectations were so low going into this season, it seems like a dream that this is happening. What is amazing is that they seem to expect to win each night and now I expect it too! They were down late last night but you just had the feeling they were going to pull it out.
I am going to enjoy this ride as long as it last.
So glad I stayed up to watch til the end. They called him safe on the play but how awesome was that backhanded grab and throw by Asdrubal?
The +50 differential makes me feel better about some of the other stats, which seem unsustainable (like Jack’s 10/20 against LHP). It feels like even if the Indians come back to basic norms, they’d still be playing pretty solid baseball.
Here’s hoping they don’t even come back to norms! 🙂
I went to bed with the Tribe down 1-0 and LaPorta coming to bat with runners on 1st and 3rd. I had been watching the game up until that point… maybe I need to not watch the Tribe when they’re actually on tv or mlb.tv for free. I let out a pretty big cheer when I heard the score of the game while driving into work.
It is my firm belief that we can play competitive baseball into September this year. I’m thrilled at this prospect.
Great recap TD, Go Tribe! What a great way to start the road trip and keep the momentum going.
i thought for sure we were out of last at bat magic for last night’s game. first game of a road trip after Choo’s incident and oakland has never been a kind place for us to play.
and we still come through. special clutch team we have here.
I’m sorry, logical part of my brain can’t see how this roster, at this stage of respective careers, wins a division. But maybe this is one of those years where they get early confidence, there is zero expectations and pressure and they just roll until the division favorites start gripping.
All respect to Manny Acta, the Anti-Grinder. His balls-to-the-wall, win now attitude obviously have made an impression. The Astrubal suicide squeeze, bringing Perez in to pitch 2 innings in April, this stuff sets a fearless tone. Real test will be when they stop catching breaks, they lose 7 of 10 and another team overtakes them: will they keep the attitude and bounce back?
I am so pleased with the witty title of this post
@Harv – are the division favorites not already falling apart? I know it’s early but what has Minny or ChiSox really done to instill any confidence they can come back from their starts?
the Tigers were considered the 3rd place team by most people in the preseason publications. the Royals and Indians were considered among the worst in MLB.
at this point, I would have to consider the AL Central wide open for the Indians to take even if they do take a dip at some point.
If the Indians played in the AL East I would be worried about a collapse, but in this division I think its going to be a race to 90 wins.
The Tribe is on pace to win 115 games, obviously that wont hold up. Are they going to win 100? Highly doubtful. Can they win 90 in this division? Absolutely. They would have to go 70-64 the rest of the way.
Not to pick nits (or to pretend that I even know what that means), but technically, they didn’t win on their last at-bat. Unless I’m missing some sort of archaic baseball standard. Or, unless you mean their last at-bat in the general, “half inning” sense. In which case, I’ll just shut up (and probably shouldn’t have posted this to begin with . . . )
/slinks away into the dark recesses
@ mgbode: I think Minny has injuries and can come back, at least enough to cause panic if we are prone to that. Understand the stats about few teams coming back from 10 out, but if we cool, they (or Detroit) heat up and make up a modest 2 or 3 games per month by Sep 1, how will we react? If we grip, even if Minny cools again, Detroit can sneak right by. It’s great to get the early jump but we have to react to the inevitable adversity is all I’m saying.
Ghost,
.500 ball the rest of the way gets us 87 wins. I think that’ll do.
Plus I think they will play a lot better than that. I’ve always thought that if Sizemore and Hafner made it back to the land of the healthy, this team would be formidable at the plate.
The pitching truly has surprised me though.
Garry – I think (key word there = think) it is taken in the general sense. Say we are trailing at home going into the bottom of the 8th. If we take the lead in the 8th and don’t relinquish it in the 9th (and therefore don’t bat in the 9th), I believe that is still considered a “win in our last at-bat.”
Roll Tribe
@JNeids:
You’re right. I figured that out in mid-rant, but I (1)have an itchy “submit comment” finger; (2) have never really bought into the whole “discretion” being the “better part of valor thing;” and (3) just figured I’d go ahead and rouse some rabble.
Better to have everyone think you’re a fool than open your mouth and prove it? I reject that. I’d rather do the work myself.
That toaster is all sorts of awesome.
#Batmagic.
This just reminds me of Game 1 of the ’07 playoffs. At the stadium, they played a video that ended with a newspaper headline that said…
“Central Division Too Tough…Indians Picked to Finish 4th”
Then the image shattered like a pane of glass and the crowd went nuts.
Seeing that game with my brother is one of my best memories ever.
So happy that I bit the bullet and got the bleachers season ticket package. This has the makings of a really fun summer!
https://waitingfornextyear.com/2011/02/loving-and-hating-the-orlando-cabrera-deal/
Amazing how far one month of baseball can take us. That comments section is depressing.