Domo arigato, Mr. Roberto: Thumb surgery for Indians Perez
May 5, 2016Courtroom Johnny Drama: While We’re Waiting…
May 6, 2016With four runs in the first inning and four more in the eighth, the Cleveland Indians book-ended their latest beat-down of the Motor City Kitties in particularly pleasing fashion Thursday, breaking out the brooms for Cinco de Mayo. Trevor Bauer, the Tribe player most likely to be photographed wearing an ironic sombrero and fake mustache, was solid in his second start of the year, giving up just three hits in a 9-4 rout. The best holiday gift of all, however, was the return of a fully licensed Dr. Smooth, who went 4-for-5 with three RBI.
Is gift-giving actually a part of traditional Cinco de Mayo celebrations? No, I suppose it isn’t. But if you’re thinking “it’s about drinking margaritas, stupid,” that’s surprisingly not accurate either. FACT: On May 5, 1862, the Mexican army defeated the French at the Battle of Puebla. It was a Leicester-level upset, and was commemorated with celebrations in the years that followed. Unfortunately, you’re reading this on May 6, so you’ll have to wait a whole year to share this information with the drunk college students at your local watering hole.
As for the baseball stuff, even the most optimistic of Tribe fans seem a tad surprised that the Indians (13-12) just swept the Tigers (14-13) for the second time in as many weeks. Yes, it’s true that Cleveland has been a bit of a Theon to Detroit’s Ramsay in recent years, posting a 35-57 record against their division rivals from 2011 to 2015. The two clubs seemed headed in opposite directions coming into this series, too, as the Tribe was swept out of Philly last weekend and Miggy and Co. were riding a five-game win streak. Nonetheless, you won’t find me caught off guard by the way things have played out. I don’t usually like to toot my own horn on these pages, but I did make some predictions in WFNY’s Season Preview that pretty accurately saw this sea change coming:
Excerpt from WFNY Tribe Season Preview, March something, 2016:
“As far as the early season outlook goes, I expect Tito’s boys to struggle against everybody except Detroit, who they’ll very likely thump in their first six meetings by something like a 38-12 run diff. I also suspect six of our first 13 wins will belong to Josh Tomlin and Trevor Bauer. As for my X-factor, I’m gonna go out on a weird limb here and say Chris Gimenez is making things happen by May. I realize he isn’t a member of the team. But I’m standing by this statement, which was foretold to me in a vision.”
Not bad, eh? Nick Castellanos’ batting average ain’t got nothing on me.1
Anyway, there’s no getting around it. This has been a mighty strange first 25 games of the season. Cleveland is 7-12 against non-Tiger teams, and the Tigers are 14-7 against non-Indian teams. Does this mean the two series between the clubs are the aberration, or are the rest of their schedules the misleading bit? Well, not facing Jordan Zimmerman has certainly helped the Tribe’s efforts. But overall, there’s no denying that these games have an element of catharsis to them.
On Thursday, the Indians jumped all over bearded rookie Michael Fulmer in the first frame, collecting five straight hits, highlighted by yet another three-pointer in the Gateway Complex—this one a monstrous three-run homer from Mike Napoli. We’ll let Tom Hamilton take it from here…
https://vine.co/v/iQWAEEM0TgA
(Be honest: How many times did you listen to that?)
To his credit, Fulmer fought back a bit, and when Bauer was tagged for a three-pointer of his own off the bat of Castellanos in the fourth inning, it was just a 4-3 Cleveland lead.
Enter the Bald One.
https://vine.co/v/iQWZOnZTHm7
Chris Gimenez—who, in case you missed it, Cleveland just picked up for the third time in eight years—blasted a solo shot to dead center in the fifth inning. It was the journeyman catcher’s first homer as an Indian since August 27, 2010, when he tagged Kansas City’s Kanekoa Texeira for a three-run dinger in a 15-4 win at Progressive Field. The winning pitcher that day was Josh Tomlin.
With the score still 5-3 and Bryan Shaw on the hill in the eighth, things were far from in the bag. But after Jason Kipnis snared an Ian Kinsler liner on an all-out dive—one of yet another excellent batch of defensive plays from the Tribe on the night—Shaw cruised through unscathed.
In the bottom of the inning, Rajai Davis delivered a two-run single and Brantley connected on a two-run double for the deathblow.
https://vine.co/v/iQWKzuzYZqb
Here’s how the usual three-headed monster of Tribe-killing Tiger hitters have performed over the six-game season series thus far:
JD Martinez: 4/24 (.167)
Miguel Cabrera: 3/17 (.176)
Victor Martinez: 3/23 (.130)
They have driven in one run between them. That’ll get it done.
By the way, here’s Miguel Cabrera with the Marlins in 2002.
Weird, right? I wonder if Francisco Lindor will be huge and slow some day. And a multi-time batting champion.
Old Baseball Card of the Day: 1960 Topps – “Power Plus” – Rocky Colavito & Tito Francona
There’s an awful lot going on here. On one hand, we have a fantastic, heartwarming thread connecting 50+ years of Cleveland Indians history—Tito Francona, father of the team’s current manager—standing beside his friend and teammate Rocky Colavito, fresh off a league-best 42 homerun season in 1959.
“The Rock” was traded to the Tigers probably just a matter of days after this card his the market, right before the start of the 1960 season. And so there is an element of sadness to the image, too; an era flickering out way too soon. The Rock eventually did come back. I’m not sure Victor Martinez will ever do the same. But such is life.
C-Cap Recap Custom Box Score
May 5, 2016
Indians 9, Tigers 4
Green Highlight (as in “Great”): Brantley’s three singles were sprayed all over the field, and his bases-clearing double was crushed into the right field corner. Having one of the league’s best hitters back in the middle of the line-up, surprising enough, might be helpful as the season unfolds.
Yellow Highlight (as in “Almost Green”): Major props to Chris Gimenez, who was rehabbing in Triple-A for Texas this week, got blindsided by news he was getting traded for a sack of potatoes (despite a pretty good season last year in substantial playing time), then showed up in Cleveland, caught a strong game for Bauer, and went deep to boot.
Red Highlight (as in “Stop, You’re Bad”): Never enjoy singling out a quality dude like Mike Aviles for the wrong reasons, but this was a brutal night. Three K’s at the dish and a couple sloppy plays at shortstop, where he seemed out of sync with Kinsler.
Next Up: The Royals come to town for the first time. The champs are 14-13, essentially tied with both Detroit and Cleveland. Friday’s matchup is a dandy—Danny Salazar vs. Yordano Ventura.
- This may or may not have been said. [↩]
15 Comments
Dont forget Michael’s (scary) amazing diving catch to kill the Det rally!
Talk about service.
https://vine.co/v/iQWYWdVddiU
son-of-a-frickin’-%^#@ … let’s get the hell out of cleveland !
and how’s rajai davis workin’ out for ya ??
yeah , but nick is on fire & leading the AL in hitting … he’s hitting everything.
kipnis had a nice diving catch of a line-drive last night as well.
and i like mike aviles , but he has an 0’fer last night & an error on a super easy play … WTF !?!?
BUT, he’s versatile. Right Tito?
Anyone else kind of get reminded of Travis Fryman’s big-bat swing extension when they see Napoli go deep?
Maybe it’s just me.
…
He had one the night before too. Kip isn’t the best at turning double plays, but it is good to see him making his diving plays again.
Y’all are licking your wounds, but still have Zim to help right the ship this weekend.
I love Mike Aviles the person. The baseball player’s usefulness is a couple years past expiration. Quite happy he got another contract, yet not sad it wasn’t with us.
Napoli a Giambi-type presence but with a fuller tank? I’m a sucker for having one of these grizzled vets with low BA but a penchant for the big hit. Appeals to the baseball romantic, non-analytics part of me.
Also, for his career as well as in 2015, he is a much stronger 2nd half player.
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