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May 3, 2011After sweeping the Tigers, the Indians could possibly have some momentum. Then again, every now and then momentum can be sapped from a team during a cross-country flight to play on the West coast as the Indians are about to do in California. The Indians very well might be up to the challenge, but just warning you it looks a bit scary on paper. The Indians appear to be on the verge of meeting some of the hotter pitchers in all of baseball for the next six straight days.
First up the Tribe faces Oakland from Tuesday to Thursday. The Indians are scheduled to face Tyson Ross first. He is 1-2 so far for the Athletics. His ERA is under three and he was able to handle the Angels for seven innings while only throwing 76 pitches. Not bad for a guy who is filling in for Dallas Braden. After Ross, the Tribe is scheduled to face Trevor Cahill, who is 4-0 with an ERA under two. Finally, the Indians face Brett Anderson who is 2-2 with an ERA under three. The good news is that Anderson got plastered for three home runs and seven earned runs in his last game against the beastly Rangers.
Next the Indians move on to the Angels and things don’t look much better. There is no listed scheduled pitcher for the series opener, but after that it gets ugly. Jered Weaver is 6-0 with a 1.39 ERA. He also has the league lead in strikeouts with 55 compared with only 11 walks. Last, the Indians face Dan Haren who I shouldn’t have to remind you shut the Indians out on one hit earlier this young season.
Don’t get me wrong. The Indians have plenty of guys pitching well too. Still, it won’t be an easy task to go on the road against the top one and three pitching teams in the entire league as Oakland and the Angels are respectively. Also, hopefully the bats are hotter this time around than they were the last time the Indians saw Dan Haren. Maybe I am writing this for no reason. Maybe the Indians are just about to knock these two pitching staffs off their perch atop the league. We’ll see.
16 Comments
This will be a tough trip, if we come out of it with 3 wins, Ill be satisfied.
Good thing ESPN is showing Angels v. Red Sox on Wednesday and not the Indians and A’s. Can’t get enough of those Red Sox…
MLB.tv is showing a “free game” tonight. It’s the Indians v. Athletics. Check out mlb.com for more info. With that said, I have to share some frustration with Rick… do we really have to be force-fed the Red Sox? Face it ESPN, they just aren’t as good as you thought/hoped they would be.
The Tribe fears no pitching staff!
The Indians are third in the AL in team ERA and second in team batting average.
Bring ’em on!
I would be perfectly happy with 4-2 and could live with 3-3. A west coast trip vs two good teams, those are satisfactory outcomes.
@Rick – I agree it’s laughable that every nationally televised game involves only a handful of teams, I’m fine with the media overlooking the Indians for the time being!
Last time i check Weaver got shelled by the sox last night…
Beat the teams you’re supposed to beat, go .500 (or slightly better) against the rest. On paper, this looks like a 3-3 road trip with a lot of 1-run games. 4-2 or better, against the pitchers they’re facing might well be the “for real” moment everyone else needs to see.
I saw that the Sawx beat Weaver last night, although he still only gave up 3 runs in 6 innings…hopefully we can catch him while he’s “down”
Unfortunately I don’t think ESPN will be skipping out on getting the boston/la market viewing for the cleveland market. Not when the tribe still has a tough time eclipsing 10k fans at the park.
Should be a great series against both teams. I’ll be at tonight’s and tomorrow’s game cheering on the Tribe, though with how sketchy bay area fans are, I might not make it to see tomorrow’s game. With the Tribe’s speed in the outfield, it should take away the advantage the A’s have with such a spacious field.
Whilke the A’s have good pitching, their batting is awful. They have less then 100 runs scored. so it could be a pitching battle, but we have enough pitchers to shut their O down, can they say the same about us? still 4-2 is winning both series and thatd be a plus.
People actually watch the Sox/Yankees. I can’t blame ESPN for making money. We’ll get our TV time in October.
@10 – Don’t get yourself beaten into a coma.
Cahill is really good, but he can rack up that pitch count quickly if we are patient and we can chase him from the game early.
outside of him, still a tough trip. oakland’s been hitting a tad better lately and anaheim always seems to have our number. i’d take 3-3 on this trip.
3-3 on tough road trips, keep crushing at home. Win central easy. Anyway, I’ve seen Oakland’s offense and they really don’t do much. I watched the Detroit/Oakland series and every time I turned on the game it was 1-0/2-3/1-2 or something like that… those games were ruled by pitching it seemed. Put up a few runs, play from in front, and hold on. We should be able to take that series with our momentum and offense.
Sometimes when trying to fill this site with info I write stuff the night before. That’s why Weaver’s performance from last night wasn’t included. I wrote this last night and scheduled it to post at 11… I missed one.
And our Cleveland Indians just won again, in the top of the ninth. No jinxies but, um hello, are the booming 90’s back (please)?