I think that a number of people follow professional athletes on twitter hoping to find evidence of the fact that players are rooting for the same things fans are. It elevates the whole level of fandom, in some ways, to know that the players on teams you’re cheering for are right there with you - living and dying with every pitch, shot, run, win, loss, or whatever. At least I think it’s cool when I stumble across examples of that these days.
Which is why I was a big fan of the following tweet that Jason Kipnis posted last night after the Indians beat KC.
Jason Kipnis (TheJK_Kid) tweet: “Too much swag to go into the night quietly!! Ha #whereyougoindetroit?”
After taking the bigs by storm upon his call up into the everyday lineup a few weeks ago, Kipnis has been on the 15-day DL since August 14th with a strained right hamstring. On a night like last night, the only way he could contribute is by being a fan just like everybody else around here, and he filled that role admirably. Dude’s calling out Detroit, and letting anybody who cares to listen know that these Indians do have some real swag about themselves. They’re not going away, and hopefully Kipnis can get back soon to pick up where he left off. They need as many healthy guys as possible these days.
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The Tribe has been offered every excuse in the world to fold up and quit based on the injuries that have beset this team throughout the season, but they haven’t used any of those as a reason to do so. It won’t get easier though, because now reports are surfacing that Michael Brantley will be gone for duration of this thing too.
Tom Withers from the AP tweeted earlier this morning that Indians OF Michael Brantley is in fact done for season actually, which is a tough break for both him and the Indians. You’d like to have as many available arms and bats on deck for this push towards the postseason, but unfortunately Manny Acta will be forced to continue to manage his way through this storm of injuries and hope different guys keep stepping up.Hopefully one of those guys could be Grady Sizemore too, maybe. It would be a huge lift for this team if Sizemore is able to come back and give them something productive, especially so now with Brantley out for the rest of the year; assuming the Indians don’t team Jim Thome back up with Kenny Lofton that is.
To be honest, I really have no idea what the Sizemore timetable is as far the possibility of him coming back, but earlier this morning he was reportedly running “full go” at Progressive Field. Glenn Moore from The DugoutSportsShow tweeted a few minutes ago from Progressive Field that Grady Sizemore was doing some running drills in the outfield, running full-go and simulating rounding first base. So maybe he’s close, who knows. What we do know is that Justin Masterson takes the mound today against the Royals, though, and that the Tribe needs this one just as bad as the last one.
Roll Tribe.
