May 16, 2012

Tribe Tripped Up Again by KC, Look to Angels to Find Missing Offense

April 27, 2012 By 2 Comments

What is it about Progressive Field in 2012 that the Indians offense doesn’t like? After another loss yesterday afternoon, 4-2 to the Kansas City Royals, its as if they are allergic to their home park. I don’t know if it was the poor weather, or reality setting in, but we are back to being frustrated with the production and the lack of clutch hitting.

The contrasts are astounding. At home, the Indians are hitting .186 (52-279) and averaging 3.5 per game while hitting .150 (9-60) with runners in scoring position. On the road, they are hitting a whopping .381 (89-317) and averaging six runs per game while hitting .309 (30-97) with runners in scoring position. [Read more...]

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Royals 8 Indians 2: Ubaldo Shaky Again, Long Balls Do Them In

April 26, 2012 By 23 Comments

The Royals have finally ended their 12-game losing streak. This was long overdue for this lineup of talented young bats. You know what else helps? Facing Ubaldo Jimenez.

When the Indians made their big deal to bring over the former All-Star right-hander last summer, I was all for it.  GM Chris Antonetti was “going for it.” The Indians are always the ones dealing their stars for prospects. Now it was the other way around. I was thrilled. That was until I saw Ubaldo pitch.

Last night was just another in a string of average at best starts from Jimenez, who continues to pitch like an inconsistent back of the rotation guy. Right off the bat, he had trouble with his command. He walked the first batter, Chris Getz, and then fell behind Alex Gordon 3-1 before Gordon popped out. Billy Butler followed with a two-run homer to put the Royals ahead. Eric Hosmer and Jeff Francouer then hit back to back singles. Yes, he got out of the inning without any more damage being done, but again Ubaldo was all over the place. [Read more...]

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Is Jack Hannahan The Next Casey Blake?

April 25, 2012 By 28 Comments

The following piece is something that I never thought I would write. I also still to this day cannot understand the immense love for Casey Blake that the Indians fans and the organization itself had for this guy. Readers of this site know that I have been a Blake hater for years. But nevertheless, I saw and appreciated his value and there will be a point to all of this.

GM Chris Antonetti may soon be forced into an interesting dilemma. One nobody thought would ever be possible. That is because Jack Hannahan has become an indispensable part of the Cleveland Indians.

Jack was signed as a minor league free agent before the start of last season and was expected to be nothing more than organizational depth. This was a guy who was in the bigs for parts of four seasons, but never was any sort of factor. Hannahan spent the entire 2010 season in AAA where he hit just .237. Then thanks to a Jason Donald broken hand, Jackie became the starting third baseman. Nobody expected him to stick around all season with the big club, let alone keep the hot corner gig.  [Read more...]

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Indians 4 Royals 3: Tribe Keeps Royals Sinking, Move Into First

April 25, 2012 By 34 Comments

As a baseball fans, you know there are those games in which your team should win but end up losing. Then there are the games that your team has no business winning, yet does anyways. Last night in front of a sparse crowd at Progressive Field, your Cleveland Indians pulled off the latter. How else can you explain the 4-3 victory in which the Tribe loaded the bases with nobody out TWICE and failed to score? Or tell me how they won while leaving a whopping 13 men on base while going 2-12 with runners in scoring position? That’s not easy to do. But this is Actaball, where the strange usually outweighs the normal.

It also helps when you are playing the Kansas City Royals, losers of 12 straight.

This one was a matchup of veteran right-hander Derek Lowe and lefty villain Jonathan Sanchez, the man who ignited the benches clearing controversy 10 days ago. The first batter Sanchez faced, Jason Kipnis, was hit in the hand with a curveball. Nobody thought the pitch was intentional. It would become obvious within an inning. Sanchez was all over the place, nibbling at the corners all night and putting runners on base like that was his job. He lasted just four and two-thirds innings and walked seven. He would exit after throwing 115 pitches, just 56 of which were strikes. [Read more...]

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Indians Weekend Wrapup: Wahoos Close Nine Game Trip Winning Two of Three in Oakland

April 23, 2012 By 14 Comments

If you are an Indians fan, you had to feel good about what you saw this weekend. The team once again battled all weekend and took two of three from the Oakland A’s, capping off a 7-2 West Coast trip. When it started, everyone was worried that we could be seeing the beginning of a train wreck season. Ten days later, we’ve got a quality ball club on our hands. In Oakland, we saw some of the best of what the Indians can be. They got quality pitching, timely hitting, and took the series.

For the Indians to hang around in the AL Central, they MUST beat up on the bad teams, and that is exactly what they did during the nine-game road trip. The Royals, Mariners, and Athletics aren’t exactly the Tigers, Yankees, and Rangers, but the point is they handled their business. Not to mention, they did so with their All-Star shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera, who missed the final six games due to a death in his family.

So as we do every Monday morning, let us take a look back at the weekend that was in Wahooland. [Read more...]

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Mariners 4, Indians 1: Lowe Wild, Offense Sinks Back to Earth

April 19, 2012 By 12 Comments

When the Indians took the field in search of their fifth straight win to take on the Seattle Mariners, things immediately looked different. First and foremost, The Grinder Eric Wedge sent lefty Jason Vargas out to the hill and as we know, left-handed starters, no matter how good they are, have been known to give the Wahoos problems. Acta countered by using as right-handed heavy a lineup as he could. Without Asdrubal Cabrera available and with Michael Brantley given the night off, you had a top two of Jason Donald and Jason Kipnis. Also getting the start were Jose Lopez and Aaron Cunningham. Hey, why not give it a shot. Its early, everyone could use the at-bats, and over the last four games, no matter who Acta put in the Tribe nine, they were delivering the goods. [Read more...]

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Indians 9 Mariners 8: Showing some grit on the road!

April 18, 2012 By 22 Comments

While you were sleeping, the Indians pulled off another doozy. Since they decided last week to bring Johnny Damon aboard, the Indians have entered the bizarro world. Up is down, left is right, the starting pitching has been shaky and the bats haven’t stopped hitting like they were a Tribe team from the mid-90s. All of a sudden, no deficit is too great to overcome. Here they are, seven days since they were bombed by the Chicago White Sox at home, and the haven’t lost since.

Maybe all they needed was to hit the road and catch a breather. Maybe it was the threat of losing playing time to Damon. Whatever it is, the Wahoo Express continued to roll last night in Seattle against old friend Eric Wedge and the Mariners. The 9-8 victory tasted so sweet, despite the fact that crazies like me stayed up past 1 AM to witness it.

It is still very hard to believe they were able to pull this one off.

At the start, you saw a pitching mismatch (or so we thought) with Tribe ace Justin Masterson taking on the on-his-last-legs veteran Kevin Millwood. The Tribe got one in the top of the first off of Millwood when Travis Hafner went the other way an on 0-2 count to bring in Michael Brantley with an RBI single. Meanwhile, Masterson was mowing  Mariners down through the first two innings. In the third inning, it was as if a different pitcher took the mound. [Read more...]

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Catching Up With the Clippers

April 17, 2012 By 7 Comments

I for one miss our old friend DP. He left us for greener pastures, but his legacy lives on. No, I’m not going to talk about the Columbus Blue Jackets, but with the Tribe on an off-day yesterday, I thought it would be a good time to check in with DP’s very own AAA Columbus Clippers. With the expected offensive struggles of the big club, Tribe fans should always be keeping on eye on the Clippers. There is some talent down I-71, but there are also a lot of 4A specials who are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. So in an ode to DP’s former weekly column “Da Clip Show,” we now take a gander at what’s goin’ on down south. [Read more...]

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Tribe Weekend Wrapup: The Offense is Alive

April 16, 2012 By 31 Comments

At this time Thursday, Indians fans all over Cleveland were very concerned about the state of the offense. It was clear that the Tribe front office was feeling the same way as they went out and signed 38-year old Johnny Damon. We were all thinking doom and gloom. Yet here we are on Monday morning, feeling completely different and much better about our Wahoos.

Baseball is an amazing game. A team that couldn’t catch a break or come up with the big hit to save their lives over the first five games, suddenly caught fire and turned into a run-scoring juggernaut. The three-game sweep in Kansas City started with a seven-run first inning on Friday and ended with the Tribe hitting back to back eighth inning homers Sunday. Maybe all they needed was the threat of the Damon signing to wake up. Whatever it did, it worked. The Indians are back to .500 at 4-4 and the vibes in Wahooland are positive. [Read more...]

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The Damon/Sizemore/Brantley Conundrum

April 13, 2012 By 28 Comments

And starting in left field for your Cleveland Indians, Johnny Damon…..

News broke that the Indians and the 38-year old former All-Star outfielder/DH were working on a deal late Wednesday night. By Thursday afternoon, Damon went on Sirius/XM radio with former GM Jim Bowden and told the world he was excited about being an Indian, despite the fact that no announcement had come from the organization. Around dinner time in Cleveland, Super Agent Scott Boras and the GM Chris Antonetti came to terms and it became official – Johnny Damon is the newest member of the Indians.

As I wrote yesterday, I am down with the move. The offense is currently the worst in baseball and is in dire need of any sort of help. Nobody doubts Damon’s bat despite the fact that on April 10th he was still looking for a team. Boras and Damon will tell you that they were just waiting for the right fit, which may or may not be true. Damon wasn’t going to go somewhere and be a bench guy; he wants  450-500 plate appearances and was willing to wait for them. He may not get to that number with the Tribe, but he will certainly get regular playing time in left field and occasionally at DH. [Read more...]

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On the Johnny Damon Signing…

April 12, 2012 By 30 Comments

First they tried Josh Willingham. Then they tried to snag Carlos Beltran. They swung  and missed on Carlos Pena. They ended up with Casey Kotchman, but that really wasn’t a move that was going to move the offensive needle. With the uninspiring Spring from everyone in the left field derby and the struggles of Michael Brantley, the Indians were allegedly very close to trading for 38-year old outfielder Bobby Abreu to be a part of a left field platoon with the winner of the job, Shelley Duncan. For reasons still unknown, the deal fell apart at the 11th hour and the Tribe opened the season with Duncan as the regular left fielder and Aaron Cunningham as the fourth outfielder.

While Duncan has done a decent enough job in left (.294 with a home run), the offensive struggles as a team have been the talk of Wahooland. It has only been five games, but the same thing we saw all Spring has continued. The Tribe has been unable to come up with the big inning or the clutch hit. They’ve only been able to put together three consecutive hits once in the first five games, and that was in yesterday’s 10-6 loss. Their team batting average is .174.  Take away the home run ball, and the Tribe has been really unable to scratch anything across.

So desperate times call for desperate measures. [Read more...]

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White Sox, 10 Indians 6: The Johnny Damon/Dan Wheeler Watch is On

April 12, 2012 By 11 Comments

If I told you that the Indians offense would put up six runs on 10 hits and Justin Masterson would be the starting pitcher, you’d have to say you like the team’s chances, right? But as a wise man once said “that’s why they play the games.” [Read more...]

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Arriba Santana! Carlos Gets Extended

April 11, 2012 By 24 Comments

It was the John Hart way. Lock up your young, under team control star players to long term contracts by buying years of some of those arbitration and/or free agent years for financial security in the now. Hart was the first GM to make these moves in the early 90’s with the likes of Sandy Alomar, Carlos Baerga, and such. His successor, Mark Shapiro, attempted to do the same during his run as General Manager, giving deals like this to Grady Sizemore, Jhonny Peralta, Victor Martinez, and the artist formerly known as Fausto Carmona.

Now the man running the show in Cleveland, Chris Antonetti, has made his moves. After announcing last week’s two-year extension for Asdrubal Cabrera (signed through 2014), the Tribe today trumpeted the signing of their best and brightest young star, Catcher Carlos Santana, to a five-year, $21 million deal. All of this for a guy who just celebrated his 26th birthday on Monday.

“$21 million instead of a birthday card? That’s a good birthday, ” said Antonetti at yesterday’s press conference. [Read more...]

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Indians Weekend Wrap Up: Things Are Better Than They Seem

April 9, 2012 By 58 Comments

Step away from that ledge Tribe fans, its only one weekend. The first three games of the season in fact. Things aren’t always as good or as bad as they seem this early. Heck, the Tampa Bay Rays started 0-6 last season, as did the Boston Red Sox. Both finished with 90-plus wins. This weekend, the New York Yankees and the Red Sox were both swept. Of course, the sky is falling there, especially in Boston where the Bobby Valentine era has gotten off to an inauspicious start to say the least. Remember, the Tribe lost their first two to the White Sox last year and then went on a 31-13 run.

The Indians lost two of three to the Toronto Blue Jays, but in reality, they could have and probably should have swept the series. There were plenty of things to discuss after the home opening debacle 16 inning loss, Saturday’s 7-4 extra inning heartbreaker, and yesterday’s 4-3 win. There was GREAT starting pitching, a surprise power display with the struggling bats, and a closer quandary solved in one day.

[Read more...]

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Blue Jays 7 Indians 4 – Pure Enjoyment Turns to Pure Pain After Pure Rage Enters

April 6, 2012 By 20 Comments

It all started out so well.

The sun was shining. The stadium was completely full. Indians starting pitcher Justin Masterson struck out the side in the first and it looked as if we were in for some fun on the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.

The fun continued in the second inning. After a Carlos Santana walk and a Travis Hafner K, newly minted left fielder Shelley Duncan laced a double down the left field line to get the first rally of the season started against Blue Jays lefty Ricky Romero. Casey Kotchman, the Indians new first basemen, put up a quality at bat before eventually grounding out to first which brought in Santana. It was Actaball at its finest. Kotchman didn’t get a hit, but hitting a ground ball to the right side got the Tribe on the board.

Jason Kipnis would then walk, bringing Jack Hannahan to the plate. Jackie won the third base job in spring training, keeping top prospect Lonnie Chisenhall in AAA for a little longer (which he needs by the way). All Hannahan did was crush a Romero pitch to the seats in right field for a three-run homer. The sell out crowd was loving every second of it.  [Read more...]

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