While We’re Waiting… Valanciunas and Howard, Pryor’s Chances, and Meeting Omar
June 23, 2011Austin Kearns: Why is he still here?
June 23, 2011TD is out of commission this week, and as such, the recap duties fall into my (incapable) hands. The upshot? I can’t write from work and I can’t stay up until all hours of the night, so I’m going to “live blog” the games, and publish them in the recap slots. This is the last one. I promise.
6:52: Bases loaded, two outs. Down by two runs. AND A DRIVE TO CENTER…
6:53: Rats. Austin Jackson caught it over the shoulder, which means the Tigers beat the Dodgers 7-5. Pressure’s on the Tribe to stay up a game in the division.
6:59: Mike Hargrove is not in the booth tonight. This recap just lost 85% of its content. Consider yourself warned.
7:05: There have been a lot of surprises this season. Hannahan’s start. Choo’s struggles. Asdrubal’s emergence. Vinnie Boy P stepping right in.
But nothing has surprised me more than what I am feeling right now: confidence in Josh Tomlin. What a weird world.
7:09: On cue, Josh sends ‘em down in order in the first, mixing in a strikeout for good measure.
By the way, Tomlin strikes out more guys than I often give him credit for. His career K/9 (5.21) is higher than Jeremy Sowers, David Huff, Aaron Laffey, Paul Byrd, and Jake Westbrook. It’s basically indistinguishable from Fausto Carmona’s (though his walk-rate is multiples lower). He’s not a strikeout guy by any measure, but sometimes I make it seem like everything he does is smoke and mirrors. That’s just because I can’t explain him, and that’s frustrating to an analyst.
7:18: Rick Manning just suggested that it would be “fair” to eliminate the DH in the AL so long as rosters are expanded to 26 players. Uhhh….Rick? We still owe Travis Hafner $20 million or so. But even ignoring that, baseball is more fun with Travis Hafner and David Ortiz and Vlad Guerrero. I wouldn’t want to make a rule that makes those guys unplayable just so that I get to see Mitch Talbot swing a bat. Where’s my claw hammer at, anyway?
7:26: Seth Smith is up. I hate Seth Smith for felling my crest last night with his two home runs. Ground out to short. Good. Go fell your own crest, Seth.
7:33: Can you believe it’s 7:33 and I haven’t mentioned Orlando Cabrera yet? Me neither.
Tonight O’Brera is playing third base. This just doesn’t make any sense to me. For one, he has demonstrated no knack for playing third base whatsoever, because he has never done it in his MLB career (other than Tuesday night, when he made exactly zero plays). For two, Jack Hannahan is playing tonight, but at first base; there is no way that O’Brera is better at third than Hannahan. For three, there’s a right handed pitcher on the mound, and there isn’t an everyday player in the Majors who’s worse at hitting RHP than my least favorite Irishman, Mr. O’Brera. For four, Cord Phelps is known for being able to play as a utility guy—in fact, he was playing third in Columbus before he was brought up.
I understand the need for off-days for Marson and Brantley and the injury to LaPorta. But this is not the solution.
7:42: Ho-Hum. Tomlin loses the no-no to Matt Pagnozzi, but continues to fly through the Rockies lineup. Three scoreless for Josh.
7:49: After Buck doubles to lead off the bottom of the third, Hannahan draws a four pitch walk and Grady rips one to right to plate the game’s first run. First and second, nobody out, for Cord Phelps. Tribe up, 1-0.
7:55: Phelps strikes out on three pitches after squaring to bunt on the first. I hate everything about the at bat. Cabrera then grounds out weakly to second. Runners move up to second and third, but now two outs. Leaving this inning with only one run would be a major fail. Hafner up.
7:57: HA! Colorado’s starter (Jason Hammel) balks in a run. And not a little balk where you wonder what the ump was looking at, but a big, dumb-looking, fall-off-the-mound in the middle of your delivery balk. They just showed a replay: as he goes into his windup, there’s a look on his face like he just remembered he left his car running in a Denver parking lot. FAIL FAIL FAIL.
And a good thing too: Hafner grounds out to end the inning. 2-0 Good guys.
8:03: Grady makes a diving catch in center. We forget how good he is, I think. Last night he made a diving catch to get Talbot out of some real trouble. Tonight he takes a double away from Giambi. For my money, he’s still a great (not good) center fielder. And that’s including his arm, which resembles a steaming pile of ramen noodles. His range, instincts and athleticism are unparalleled in my estimation. Unfortunately, we’re just not very good at measuring these things yet, so we take them for granted while we have them. Which is just, like, my opinion, man.
Meanwhile, Tomlin gets through the top of the fourth on nine pitches.
8:12: I hate O’Brera. In his defense, I also hate the hit-and-run.
Anyway, back to my nemesis. Hammel walks Carlos Santana with one out. Can you blame him? Orly is on deck. I’d walk him too. So Acta, with the biggest free-swinger ever at the plate, puts on a hit-and run. Except that not only does O’Brera miss the sign, but he inexplicably doesn’t swing at a called strike. Santana is thrown out by 25 feet.
O’Brera promptly flies out to center. Leader in the Clubhouse. Failure on the Field. Inning over.
8:18: Ty Wiggington takes Tomlin deep for a solo shot to left. I do worry about Tomlin’s potential proclivity for home runs. He’s a flyball pitcher without swing and miss stuff, which normally doesn’t end well. Whatever. I’m done trying to explain him. 2-1 Indians. Tomlin through five innings: 2Ks, 0BBs, 2H, 1ER. I’ll take that every time.
8:34: O’Brera with an error at third on a hard-hit grounder. Seriously, nothing interested has happened since 8:18—I’m not just picking on him. But since we’re here, Rick Manning: “THAT is a difficult play when you’ve never played third before.” Well, yeah…
Next man out pops up. Still 2-1 Indians going into the bottom of the sixth. I really don’t want another one-run game tonight. Time to score.
8:37: I’m quite certain I have magical powers. Asdrubal doubles down the opposite line for a double. And Hafner hits the bejeezus out of a ball to right for a two-run homer. According to @WFNYRick, it was hit toward WFNY headquarters, which must be a small shed in Ashtabula that houses an elaborate series of tubes. Still nobody out.
8:39: Choo walks. STILL nobody out. I’m feeling it.
8:47: Did you ever see that movie “Bad Santa”? I know it’s not very good, but it makes me laugh in its own way. Anyway, there’s a scene where Willie, played by Billy Bob Thornton, gets drunk and eats all of the chocolates out of the little boy’s Advent calendar while tearing it to shreds. Feeling bad about this (a day later), Willie finds a bunch of candy corns, fills the empty calendar, and tapes it back together in a haphazard fashion. The little boy, upon opening the next door in the sequence, finds a crummy candy corn and remarks upon it—how he wishes it were chocolate or something better. Willie replies, “Yeah, well…they can’t all be winners, can they?”
This is roughly how I feel about Carlos Santana and O’Brera popping up to the infield on consecutive pitches. After Buck works a walk, Jack Hannahan grounds out. Could’ve been so much more. Still 4-1 Indians.
8:59: Ty Wiggington is messing with my crest, though it’s yet to fall off. He homers again on a hanging curve ball for a two-run homer. 4-3 Indians. Remember how we could’ve had more runs last inning?
Anyway, that’s it for Tomlin. Vinnie-Boy P comes racing on. Still only one out in the top of the seventh. Have I mentioned that I’m tired of one-run games?
9:08: I love Vinnie-Boy. Two batters faced, two strike outs. His fastball is clocked at 92mph, but it must be late-moving or hard to pick up or something, because everyone looks foolish against it. For the record, he has been, BY FAR, our best bullpen arm this year. As Annie Savoy would say, “You can look it up!”
9:14: But as Crash Davis reminds us, strikeouts are fascist. Grady and Cord strike out to start the bottom of the seventh. Asdrubal grounds weakly to short. I’m running out of movie references, if you can’t tell.
9:18: Vinnie Boy comes back out for the eighth. I like that. I also like that Acta has changed the defense up to maximize the run-prevention. O’Brera to second, Hannahan, to third, Santana to first, Marson to catcher, and Cord to bench.
9:19: Vinnie Boy bites his thumb at defensive substitutions, opting instead for strikeouts. That’s three batters faced and three strikeouts. Never before has fascism felt so good. Except, of course, when the trains ran on time. That was nice.
Manny’s a believer in the platoon though, so Tony Sipp is coming on to face the left-handed Carlos Gonzalez. For the record, I would make this change also.
9:25: And the percentages work out. Sipp strikes out Gonzalez and gets Herrera on a weak flyout to right. He’s been our second-best reliever this season. You think Manny wants this game?
9:32: After a strikeout from Hafner (probably his last at bat for a few days, considering our nine-game NL trip coming up), Choo hits a fastball about as hard as humanly possible off the wall in right-center. Any loft and the ball is twenty rows deep. As it is, he settles for a double, the Indians’ third of the night. He’s looking so much better than he did a month ago, which is good to see.
Santana up. Need this insurance run. Still 4-3 Tribe.
9:36: Santana walks. Again. Not to be blunt, but this is what happens when you are protected by O’Brera. Pitching change to bring in a RHP—Orly’s kryptonite.*
*Is it bad when your kryptonite is also 70% of your job? Yes. Yes it is. What if Superman’s kryptonite were working for a newspaper called the ‘Daily Planet’? That’d suck, right? He’d be useless for most of his existence. Well, about 70% of Cabrera’s plate appearances this season have been against RHP. What’s the definition of insanity again?
9:40: Grounder to short hit so weakly that there’s not enough time to turn two. First and third, two down. O’Brera switches things up by working the count in his favor before swinging at a ball. He’s a wily one. Travis Buck up. Hoping for another balk.
9:44: No balk. Just a strikeout. Inning over. Somewhere, a man is tweeting “Crank it Jerry.”
9:48: C-Pez strikes out Giambi swinging at a pitch away. One down. I can taste it.*
*I am, for the record, sipping a glass of scotch. I might be tasting that.
9:50: C-Pez strikes out Tulo swinging at a pitch away. He’s got the A-Game tonight, but the Master of Crushed Dreams is coming up, Seth Smith. Yes. I’m a bit concerned.
9:51: Yikes. Smith hits one basically just like Choo did last inning—hard as can be, off the top of the wall. Now C-Pez gets Ty Wiggington. He of the two home runs tonight.
9:52: One pitch. One out. Weak flyout to Grady. Tribe wins 4-3.
Suck it, Detroit. First place by ourselves. And no, I don’t care that we won it on a balk. We needed it.
And bring on the off-day. I’m pretty sure I need it.
14 Comments
I am very glad that Choo has found his stroke at the plate. We definitely need him there.
However, what has happened to his defense this year? This is about the tenth straight game he has taken a terrible angle on a ball in a crucial situation (rounding based on hyperbole).
On that Seth Smith liner, he started to go after it like he was going to try to make the snag, then he let up to play it off the wall. Except that he was about 2 feet from the wall, so, not surprisingly to anyone except apparently Choo, the ball was able to skip away from him. He either needs to try to make that play (very difficult as it was) or back off to play it off the wall.
To be fair, it wouldn’t have mattered as that was a double either way, but he’s been making poor decisions like that the last few weeks and it’s really starting to irk me (usually it ends with an extra base for the runner).
Ok, I’m done. Good win for the Tribe.
Am I the only one who thinks the reason for the balk was he looked in and did not see the catcher? The catcher almost moves behind Hafner in the middle of the windup and it looks like no one is behind the plate…just a thought or his car is still running.
@mgbode – in Choo’s defense (or rather, in defense of Choo’s defense), that was just an awful riccochet off the wall, regardless of how he played it. That said, his defense has been offensive this year.
Loved your comment on Hammel during the balk. He looked EXACTLY like in mid-pitch he thought, “Oh craaaaaappp… forgot mom’s birthday yesterday… fail.”
@Jneids – the riccochet didn’t help matters, but even a clean bounce off the wall and Choo put himself in terrible position to make a play on it.
@Ben — Went to mlb.com to watch the replay myself. During that scene, the voice over states that Hammel said he just “forgot what pitch he was going to throw”.
Jon – i am sad to see this week end. Your in-game posts are hilarious, and mostly what i was thinking while watching the games! Please get on the staff to allow you to continue this effort!
Re: Choo, I thought it was funny that Matt Underwood described Smith getting a double “despite a no-doubles defense.”
Much won’t be made of it, but the defensive change was pretty sweet to see. Reminded me of when Wedge used to put Franklin Gutierrez in during ninth-inning Joe Borowski stints because he knew there was going to be at least one hard-hit ball to the corner.
Add my voice to those clamoring for more live blogs by Jon. This has been an excellent week of WNFY!
Jon, git on over here and cover my work day. Just leave out the periodic WFNY checks to keep wifey empathetic.
I love you Jon. Recaps are a lot more fun this way.
I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly.
In general I’d imagine I prefer the regular recaps, but the live blogs are especially good when I didn’t follow the game. It’s a much better way to recap it in an understandable way, rather than the back to front of typical news articles or most blog posts.