White Sox 6, Indians 5; 10 Innings (box)
Surprised? I doubt it…
No, this isn’t a photo from Tuesday night’s game. The Tribe lost again in ten innings, falling to 12.5 games behind the first place White Sox. After dropping all three in Chicago, the Indians get Thursday off while traveling to Minnesota. I should say, the players will be getting the day off. The coaches and front office will be quite busy-
“We’re going to be meeting, we’re going to be talking,” the Indians’ manager said before Wednesday night’s series finale against Chicago. “We have a lot of things we have to work through right now.”
Sure to be the hot topic of discussion will be which players the Indians want to rebuild with, and which ones will be made available to trade. Certainly Asdrubal Cabrera will be discussed, as he is hitting quite well at Buffalo. Joe Borowski’s name is likely to elicit some conversation, if not emotion.
One player who won’t be going anywhere is Grady Sizemore. Grady hit 2 home runs in the game to take over the league lead in that department (21). He assured himself of his 4th straight year of at least 20 homers and 20 steals.
Sabathia saw his streak of 10+ strikeout games come to an end. He gave up 4 earned in his 8 innings of work, striking out 5. He wasn’t as sharp tonight, but he didn’t pitch bad, and he did keep the Tribe in the game. Unfortunately, he had to give the ball to the bullpen.
Tonight it was Kobayashi’s turn to blow it. A.J. Pierzynski dealt the final blow leading off the 10th. The way this year has gone, it seemed inevitable.
Author: Rick
Rick is a co-founder and editor of WFNY. His love of Cleveland sports is surpassed only by his faith and love of his family. Follow him on Twitter- @rickwfny.Rick has written 743 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
In Kobayashi’s defense, he looked sharp in the 9th. Unfortunately, he pitched the 10th too. Wasnt it the first batter to hit the walk-off?
SambofromOH: First batter, first pitch in the bottom of the 10th. I was listening to the radio feed, and it was essentially “Welcome back, it’s the bottom of the… long line drive… and the game is over.”
How long until football starts?
So roster moves might be coming? How about front office moves. Mark Shapiro you are completely to blame for this crap fest of a season.
I have a tough time hanging Mark Shapiro over this. I was with him 100% on everything EXCEPT Michaels / Dellucci.
I was happy he kept Asdrubal at second. I was happy he kept Garko and Gutierrez. I was even happy when they signed Casey Blake to be insurance all over the field.
Nothing has worked out. That’s just the way it goes sometimes, I guess. The one place where I am irritated with Shapiro is Marte and 3rd base. I know he is afraid of Marte turning into the Brandon Phillips sequel, but he has wasted a season of starts at 3b on a guy on a one year contract who was supposed to back up 3rd, 1st, RF, and LF in Casey Blake.
@FilteringCraig: Not to mention the guy whose error allowed for the tying and winning run to cross the plate late in the game…
Blake may be hitting the ball alright, but he’s hardly the answer.
How can you not blame Shapiro for at least a little bit of this mess? He did nothing this off-season. Nothing. He made a lame offer for Jason Bay, and that’s it. You have a team one game away from the series, and you don’t think they need any improvement? That’s un-excusable. There are some heads that are gonna roll this year. I think Shapiro will get a pass. I do not think Wedge and his coaching staff will.
u guys r crazy to think that shapiro is to blame. he’s won exec of the year what, 3 times? and y would he think he had to make any changes? he was one game from the being the WORLD SERIES CHAMPS last yr. do we all forget that? he had the exact same team. and yes the offense prolly overachieved slightly last yr….but let’s maybe look at the fact that we made it thru all of last yr with little to no injuries. where do we start with that conversation….hmmmmmm, how about victor, our captain…out for the yr. pronk, tho not hitting the ball nearly what he should be, out for prolly another month. fausto, last yr’s cy young candidate, still out for another 3-4 weeks. jake, out for the year.
oh yeah, and maybe the bullpen could stop performing like a AA bullpen and maybe a little more like a major league bullpen.
and finally, how about wedge try to do some things with this stinking lineup. GRADY NEEDS TO BE IN THE MIDDLY OF THE LINEUP. PERIOD. PARAGRAH. END OF STORY. i don’t wann hear anymore “who is gonna hit leadoff….whine, whine, whine” who cares. the bottom line is the best hitter on your team now has 21 homeruns, 14, thats right folks, 14 of which are solo. unbelievable.
oh and how did we get grady and a pitcher tied for the league lead in wins? oh, that’s right…shapiro made a daring trade to get them. shapiro is a guy you can’t question. he’s proved more often than not that he is really, REALLY good at his job.
Patrick – I understand that he was exec of the year, but regardless of how well a team does in a given year, they should strive to improve. Shapiro didn’t. I do think he’ll get a pass however…
And I’m glad to see someone else agree with my Grady-three hole discussion from a while back.
Saunders got his 12th win last night, so Cliff is one back now. Still, if you had told me he was in the running for All-Star starting pitcher at the beginning of the season, I would have committed you.
Seriously, please tell me what Wedge has done this year to get fired? No, I’m serious, please tell me, because I don’t see it. Did he overwork Carmona and Westbrook? Did he misplace Betancourt’s control? And on and on. We have been spoiled by not having a large number of injuries in the past few years, and injuries tend to regress to the mean, so I’m not surprised this is what happened. What I am surprised about is there was no backup plan whatsoever. If anyone should be blamed for that, it’s Shapiro, but even he couldn’t have seen the magnitude of what happened to his team.
I’m a Marte supporter, but once Blake got out of his funk at the beginning of last month, he should have been getting the starts.
It sucks, it’s a lost season, but let’s get some guys some playing time now, resolve the CC situation, free Byrd, bake Blake, and get back on it for 09.
Scott, building on your point, what would the lineup be after Victor comes back, and post-Blake? For this post, I’m assuming Hafner will not be back this year, and even if he does, he will be el-toasto.
Choo
Francisco
Grady
Victor
Peralta
Garko*
Marte
Asdrubal
DH**
*Is there someone besides Aubrey that can play 1B and hit in the minors?
**Assuming some rotation of Garko, Victor, Gutierrez(?), Pronk at DH
Fire at will.
It’s a sad state when the DH is somewhere 7-9… But you’re not far off DN. And you have to assume they don’t move Gutierrez, as rumored.
The only change I may make is if Asdrubal shows signs of life, batting him second and Francisco fifth… RBI galore, assuming baserunners. (a lot to assume, I know)
@draftnik–i didn’t say wedge should be fired. it’s just frustrating that he is always willing to “shake things up” but he refuses to move grady.
at least when september call ups happen this year, we will actually get to see what kind of talent we have instead of bringing these kids up and only playing them in blowouts. i’m interested to see trevor crowe maybe get called up. he is absolutely on fire (is there anything hotter than fire) over the last few weeks.
oh yeah and scott, i’ve been on the grady 3 hole wagon for 2 years…
PE, others here have called for his head, so wasn’t calling you out.
Crowe is interesting…Jordan Brown definitely has a role on this team, but not sure he is ready to make the leap until mid-late 09 at the earliest.
We were able to get Lewis and Perez last year in the bullpen; any talent at AA that we can leverage? I’m being lazy, but isn’t there a closer at AA that is a potential callup?
Gutierrez is a mystery to me at this point. Hamilton called out the other night that the book is out on him, and I tend to agree that he won’t see his pitch until he can hit all pitches consistently, something Franscisco has been able to do from day 1. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him as an add-on in a trade.
I also understand that Shapiro has won Executive of the Year, but that’s a lousy excuse. Scott is absolutely right, strive to get better. He didn’t. Even in finding backups to deal with potential injuries. He brought in Kobayashi and Carroll, I’m pretty sure that’s all. And let’s be honest, those two weren’t really going to make that team last year much better. Wedge is going to get blamed for this one, there isn’t anyone else to blame.
The thing is Shapiro refused to improve this team this offseason, and the team is now suffering as a result. Baseball season is over for me, time to mave on to the Browns. Hopefully they wont disappoint like the Cavs and Tribe.
…as to your comments on Grady hitting in the #3 slot…. I’m not against it, but you do realize that you only bat lead off 1 time in a game…that’s it. 1 time. The problem is NOT that Grady has 14 solo taters, it’s that NO ONE GETS ON BASE. It wouldn’t matter where you hit him in that line up, it’s complete garbage. They need to fire sale and get some talent on that club. Hafner is cooked without HGH, nothing has been more obvious…they just need to move on. They have no right-handed power…nor a bullpen that can hold/save a lead. Heads need to roll.
Whoever is trying to blame this pitiful season on Shapiro has no right to even comment about this subject. To me, all the blame needs top be placed soley on Eric Wedge. He is a manager who refuses to play simple baseball time and time again. I can’t even count how many time this year he has refused to even attempt to bunt a player over to second and/or third base to put the go-ahead or tying run into scoring position. These are major league baseball players folks and if you can’t bunt a baseball then you shouldn’t be playing this game at this high of a level. I don’t know if Wedge hasn’t realized this, but his “big hitters” are both hurt, for at least 4 more weeks at that. It’s time for him to look at his lineup and realize that it might be time to start playing a little small ball just to get an extra run or two, especially with the way this team is performing at every aspect of the game this year.
On the list of people to blame for the Indians this season, Shapiro ranks somewhere around 35th. And any claim otherwise is INSANE. Yeah, he didn’t overpay to brin in Jason Bay. Big deal. Think how pissed everyone would be if he had traded Cliff Lee for Bay.
For all these people blaming Shapiro, I would LOVE to know who you would have brought in this year and who you would have given up to get said person.
Lets face it, Shapiro never imagined this offense would be so pathetic, and you know what? Neither did any of you. How about we blame guys like Asdrubal Cabrera and Ryan Garko and Jhonny Peralta, who are the ones underperforming. Or how about blaming Hafner and Martinez and Westbrook and Carmona for injuries. These are tangible reasons why the Indians are awful.
as per usual rock, the voice of reason…thank you…
Whether or not we expected certain players to struggle, some signs were there that should have been heeded. Hafner’s slumps have been reason for concern, and Peralta hasn’t had a good offensive season since ‘05. You can’t expect Martinez to miss 8 weeks, but you have to expect some injuries over a season.
Now had he traded Lee for a bat, we would have applauded at the time, but if Lee won 11 games for another team we’d be screaming. I certainly don’t want to see Shapiro go, but it is up to him to fix this team, and do it quickly. I have confidence that he can do it.
WFNY… when the Tribe has another Cy Young winner with an expiring contract
Of course it’s time to fix this team. Shapiro recognizes that, and if you believe all the ESPN writers, that’s exactly what he’s doing right now. He’s been calling teams trying to make trades, but lets face it, guys like Peralta, Blake, Byrd, and Borowski aren’t exactly hot commodities that teams are dying to acquire.