Tribe Talk with Jim Ingraham

It's Go Time

2011-09-04T21:08:00.000-04:00

If the Indians are going to extend their remarkable season of being a contender while missing half their starting lineup, they are going to have to find a way to win two out of three, or even - and this is really talking crazy, considering the opponent's starting pitcher in the third game - sweep the Tigers in the three-game series that begins Monday at Progressive Field.

Could the Indians still win the division without winning two or three of the games in the Detroit series? Yes. But it would then take an almost historic collapse by the Tigers. Winning the first two games of the series is almost a must for the Indians, because Justin Verlander will start the third game of the series for the Tigers.

If the Indians lose this series, or if they get swept they would fall 7 1/2 or even 9 1/2 games behind Detroit (assuming the Tigers beat the White Sox Sunday night). That would be virtually an insurmountable lead.

That the Indians are even in the converstation for a division title with less than a month left in the season is in itself astonishing. The lineups the injury-riddled Indians have been running out there the last two weeks have been glorified Class AAA lineups. For most of those games the Indians had five players on the disabled list who would have been in the starting lineup if healthy.

Not only that, but those five players are were arguably (with the exception of Asdrubal Cabrera, who was not one of them) the Indians' five best players. Take five players, period, out of the starting lineup of the Tigers, Yankees, Red Sox, or Rangers - much less take out their five best players, and those teams would have to be in full scramble mode to remain in contention, as have the Indians.

It's for that reason that I think the only question in the voting for the American League Manager of the Year Award is not whether or not Manny Acta will win it, but whether it will be unanimous.

Nice trip. . . Not!

2011-08-21T18:25:00.000-04:00

Observations from the Indians' dreary 2-4 trip to Chicago and Detroit:

Ubaldo Jimenez is becoming a problem. A big problem. This is no time for a slump, but a slump is what the Indians have to hope he's in. Because the alternative, if it's not a slump, is that he's injured. Nobody wants to think about that.

He's not throwing like he's injured. The velocity is there. He's throwing like a guy who can't consistently throw strikes - for whatever reason. He's also throwing like a guy who doesn't have a lot of confidence, almost like he's being intimidated by American League lineups.

Certainly Jimenez wouldn't be the first National League pitcher to come to the American League and struggle. Unlike NL lineups, AL lineups don't have automatic outs in the 8th and 9th spots in the order. Prior to being traded to Cleveland, Jimenez had spent his entire career in the National League. He's obviously having difficulty making an adjustment - and the Indians don't have time to wait.

There's a division title up for grabs, and Sunday was the kind of game the Indians traded a boatload of talent to the Rockies so that Jimenez could win such games. Instead, he failed miserably.

Jimenez has won one of the four starts he's made for the Indians. In the other three he has an 11.77 ERA, having allowed 17 runs and 25 hits in 13 innings. That isn't going to cut it. The Indians need No.1 starter numbers from Jimenez. So far he's giving them No.5 starter numbers.

Travis Hafner looks like he could be headed to the disabled list with a strained foot, suffered in Sunday's game. Hafner has been horrible of late. His single Sunday snapped an 0-for-16 slide. At one point on the road trip he struck out 11 times in 21 at bats. He's swinging at balls and taking strikes. He's a mess right now. Maybe two weeks on the DL wouldn't be such a bad thing. It would given him some time to mentally re-group.

I can't remember a major league season in which the umpiring has been so routinely bad. The Indians were victimized by blown calls by umpires at least a half dozen times on the trip. The umps are bad for both teams, so this isn't an Indians problem. It's a baseball problem, and I'm not sure how you fix it.

The loss of Jason Kipnis is devastating. He brought considerable energy, production, and confidence to a lineup that needed all three. THIS may be the injury that hurts the Indians the most coming down the stretch.

It's interesting now that Manny Acta seems to be going back to Jack Hannahan over Lonnie Chisenhall at third base. Chisenhall looks a little lost at the plate right now, and if he isn't going to be a major offensive upgrade over Hannahan, then Hannahan is going to play, because of his Gold Glove-caliber defense at third base. I'm in complete agreement with Acta on this one.

Kosuke Fukudome has been very impressive defensively in center field, but the next time the Indians play in Comerica Park, with its spacious outfield, somebody needs to tell Fukudome that he doesn't have to position himself in Grand Rapids. He was playing so deep in the Detroit series, almost anything hit to medium or shallow center field was falling in for a hit.

Jimenez's latest meltdown, and the wild finish in Sunday's loss in Detroit overshadowed another brilliant performance by the Indians' bullpen. This is the best Tribe bullpen since the '95 group (Mesa, Plunk, Assenmacher, Tavarez, Poole), and it deserves tons of credit for carrying the team through much of this season.

No Kipnis? Big problem

2011-08-19T00:36:00.000-04:00

It's still only August, but any series between the two top teams in the AL Central is a big series. That makes the Indians' three-game series that starts Friday in Detroit a big one. The second place Indians are 1 1/2 games behind the first place Tigers, but the two teams are tied in the loss column.

The Indians got some good news and some bad news on the eve of the series. The good news is the Indians won't face Cy Young favorite Justin Verlander in the series. The bad news is the Indians probably won't have Jason Kipnis in the series. They may not have him for the next two weeks, or perhaps even longer than that.

Kipnis has a strained oblique and a strained hamstring. Each of those injuries typically take three to four weeks to heal. Manager Manny Acta said after Thursday's game that Kipnis will likely be put on the disabled list, which means the Indians will have to play the next two weeks, if not longer, without their sparkplug rookie second baseman.

Even though he has only played in 18 games since being recalled from Columbus, Kipnis is sixth on the Indians in home runs, with six. For an Indians lineup that struggles to score runs on a nightly basis, the loss of Kipnis is huge.

The timing couldn't be worse for the Indians. Counting the series that begins Friday they have nine games remaining with the Tigers. All of them are big ones, obviously, especially if the Indians are going to have to play them without Kipnis.

The waiver game

2011-08-15T21:36:00.000-04:00

An interesting bit of gamesmanship climaxed Monday when the Twins traded outfielder Delmon Young to the Tigers. It's interesting on a couple of fronts. First of all, the Tigers, like the Indians when they traded for Ubaldo Jimenez, have chosen to strengthen an area that was already a team strength. The Tigers' hitting is their strength. Monday they added another hitter _ a hitter the Indians could have prevented the Tigers from acquiring.

The trade that sent Young to the Tigers started out as a waiver claim. The Twins put Young on waivers, the Tigers claimed him. At that point the Twins had three options. They could immediately pull Young off waivers and keep him. They could pull him off and attempt to work out a trade with the Tigers for Young. Or they could have simply let Young go to the Tigers in a straight waiver claim.

The Twins chose option number two, and ultimately traded Thome to the Twins for a minor leaguer. What's interesting is that the waiver claim process works in inverse order of teams' won-loss records. In other words, the second place Indians had a chance to claim Young before the Tigers did. So the Tribe could have claimed Young in order to prevent him from going to the first-place Tigers.

Obviously the Indians had no way of knowing whether or not the Tigers would claim Young, but the Tigers did _ and they got him. Young is having a very poor season, hitting .266 with 4 home runs and 32 RBI. However, last year Young had a big season, hitting .298 with 21 homers and 112 RBI. He is, moreover, a right-handed hitter, which the Indians need.

Young's salary this year is $5.375 million, of which only about $1 million remains, which is what the Tigers will be responsible for. Why did the Indians not claim Young? They apparently feel that he isn't much of an upgrade over what they have in left field, although I might dispute that. I don't recall any Indians outfielder driving in 100 runs the last couple years. The Indians also probably felt their chances of re-signing Young after the season were slim.

Young can become a free agent after the season. He'll turn 26 next month and will probably be looking for a big contract this winter. The Indians must not feel Young is worth the kind of money he is going to be looking for as a free agent, so the Tribe passed on claiming him on waivers.

Now they have to hope that Young's bat doesn't help push the Tigers further ahead of the Indians in the AL Central race.

You win some, Ubaldo some

2011-08-06T02:05:00.000-04:00

Well, that was interesting. In his Indians’ debut Friday night Ubaldo Jimenez got enough runs to win, left with the lead _ but didn’t win.

He also didn’t lose, which is a victory of sorts for Indians pitchers these days. The newest Indian did get a taste of the excruciating way in which the Indians sometimes lose. This one, an 8-7 loss to Texas in 11 innings, was the Indians’ third loss on this road trip. All three losses have come on walkoff hits by their opponents, and two of those hits were walkoff homers.

Ouch!

Jimenez probably didn’t deserve to win Friday, since he really didn’t pitch very well. He gave up five runs on seven hits and three walks in five innings.

He also threw a whopping 108 pitches in those five innings. The Indians twice gave him 5-run leads: 6-1 and 7-2. There was also a 3-0 lead after the top of the first.

Unfortunately for Jimenez and the Indians he gave up single runs in each of the first three innings, then left the game in explosive fashion, giving up a home run to Mike Napoli leading off the sixth inning, prior to walking the next batter.

It was hardly a No.1 starter-type performance, but we can probably give Jimenez a mulligan on this start. He is still trying to get over his last bizarre appearance as a member of the Colorado Rockies, in which he actually started a game, pitched one inning, and threw 40 pitches, even though for all intents and purposes he was no longer a member of the Rockies.

Once Jimenez can settle into an every-five-days routine with the Indians he should be fine. His next start will come next week in the Indians’ huge series with Detroit. He’ll presumably be much sharper in that one, although he did strikeout seven in five innings Friday.

“Ubaldo had pretty good stuff, he just didn’t have very good command early in the game,” Tribe manager Manny Acta told reporters after Friday’s game. “His pitch count went up too much in the first three innings and that hurt him. But he showed a good fastball, good breaking ball, and good changeup.”

Even with all that Jimenez would have been the winning pitcher had closer Chris Perez, with the Indians leading 7-5, two outs and nobody on base, been able to close the deal in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Perez didn’t, so Jimenez will have to wait another five days, at least, to win his first game with the Indians.

Explaining the Huff demotion

2011-08-03T01:06:00.000-04:00

So David Huff turns in his third consecutive outstanding start Tuesday vs. the Red Sox, and after the game gets informed that he is being optioned back to Columbus. Seems like an odd move, with Huff pitching great and Carlos Carrasco pitching pitifully. So what's up with that? Well, it may not be exactly what it seems.

In three starts after being recalled from Columbus Huff had a 0.51 ERA. Carrasco, meanwhile, is 0-5 with a 9.13 ERA in his last five starts. So how does Carrasco get to stay and Huff has to leave?

Well, actually Carrasco is going to leave after his start Wednesday night in Fenway Park. He is dropping the appeal of the six-game suspension he received for throwing a pitch at the head of Kansas City's Billy Butler last Friday.

Carrasco, however, has to pitch tonight. The Indians have no other starter with enough rest to make that start. So Carrasco will make it, then begin his six game suspension, which will run through the remainder of this road trip, and the first two games of the next homestand. With the team having an off day Monday, they won't need a fifth starter again until a week from Friday.

Players optioned to the minor leagues cannot be recalled for 10 days. Huff's 10 days will be up on the day the Indians will next need a fifth starter. So don't be surprised if he starts Sunday in Columbus, then is recalled by the Indians to start Friday, Aug. 12 vs. Minnesota, with Carrasco being optioned back to Columbus once he is done serving his suspension.

The friendly confines

2011-08-02T00:33:00.000-04:00

So all it took to get the Indians' comatose offense to stir to life was a visit to cozy Fenway Park. After scoring nine runs in their previous four games combined, the Indians scored nine runs Monday night in a 9-6 win over the Red Sox in Game 1 of a potentially punishing road trip in which the Indians will play seven consecutive games against first place teams.

Nice to see rookie Jason Kipnis have the biggest game of his still brief major league career, smacking a single, double, and home run. Kipnis and double play partner Asdrubal Cabrera were a combined 6-for-10 with a double, three home runs, six runs scored, and five RBI.

Sometimes this happens. Teams struggle at home, then go on the road - it doesn't matter where - and immediately have a big game. Believe it or not there is far less pressure on the road. You're playing in a hostile environment, but that can work in the visiting team's favor because it knows it won't be booed, nobody is expecting the visitors to win, and sometimes, if the visitors really put it to the home team, it's the home team that gets booed - which also works in favor of the visitors.

Let's not get carried away with the Indians' win Monday, however. It came against the least effective pitcher in Boston's rotation, John Lackey. Indians pitchers are going to have to bear down on the Boston lineup the rest of this series, because most of the Sox hitters look locked in. On Monday many of their hits came on some pretty good pitches by Josh Tomlin, who I thought threw considerably better than his line indicates.

Overall, an encouraging start to an ominous road trip. I think if the Indians can win three of the next six on this trip they would be delighted.

Ubaldo: If nothing else, enjoy the name

2011-08-01T12:25:00.000-04:00

Late Saturday night, after the word was out that the Indians and Rockies had reached an agreement on the Ubaldo Jimenez trade, WTAM's Nick Camino came into the press box and said callers on his show were about 70-30 against the trade. I found that interesting, because for all the months fans have spent ripping Indians ownership for not spending any money and not trying to win, here was tangible proof to the contrary - and yet most fans didn't like it.

Reaction nationally to the trade has been mixed. ESPN's Keith Law basicallly said the Indians were delusional in being buyers at the trade deadline. However, most of the other ESPN commentators liked the trade for the Indians. Many observers liked it for BOTH teams. Indeed, this could wind up being a trade that helps both teams. A lot.

It's not out of the question that Jimenez will be the 200-innings horse at the top of their rotation that Indians officials felt it was worth giving up their top two pitching prospects to acquire. It's also not out of the question that Drew Pomeranz and Alex White will be mainstays in the Rockies' rotation for the next six years.

While it's fashionable after trades of this magnitude to declare, or predict an ultimate winner of the trade, it's not always black and white. Sometimes both teams win. Or lose.

The Indians could be losers if Jimenez, for the remainder of this season and the next two years, doesn't pitch reasonably close to the level he did last year, when he was the starting pitcher for the National League All-Star team.

The Rockies could be losers if White and Pomeranz don't blossom into above average major league starting pitchers. There are no guarantees. The road the the Hall of Fame is littered with top pitching prospects who never had even mediocre careers at the major league level.

What I like most about the trade is that it's a big, bold, brassy move by an Indians team that hasn't made one of those in a long time. I'm not crazy about giving up two top pitching prospects and not getting a big-time hitter in return. But I will give the Indians credit for being aggressive at a time when there is a division - albeit an incredibly weak division - to be won, and going out and making a high stakes trade to try to win it.

Hey, if nothing else, the Indians acquired the player with the best name in the majors.

How can you not root for an "Ubaldo"?

Trade vigil

2011-07-13T21:43:00.000-04:00

If the first half of the season told us anything about the Indians it's that they don't have enough hitting. It's important that they improve their hitting because they appear to have enough pitching to win their division, and they have the type of starting rotation, and bullpen, that would make them very formidable in a short post-season series.

The hard part is getting there. To get there it would help if the Indians could add another bat to the lineup. With Shin-Soo Choo out until September following surgery on a broken thumb, with Grady Sizemore not playing anywhere close to his pre-microfracture surgery level, and with Carlos Santana hitting int he low 200s, the Indians are in desperate need of an offensive boost to their lineup.

General Manager Chris Antonetti has said ownership has given him the green light to explore external options to improve the team. That means a trade, and the Indians, if they are serious about winning the division, need to make one.

They need to add another hitter, preferably a right-handed hitting outfielder, who can be a consistent offensive contributor. If the Indians don't add a hitter, and don't win their division, fans would have every right in the world to question the committment to winning by the front office. When you have a chance to win a division, you go for it. With 2 1/2 monhts left in the season, the Indians have that chance. They need to go for it.

Giant Bummer

2011-06-27T00:08:00.000-04:00

Let's not overreact to the Indians getting swept in a three-game series in San Francisco. The Giants have the best pitching staff in the majors, and the Indians right now have arguably the worst offense in the majors, with the possbile exception of the Giants themselves. So this series did not look like a good matchup for the Indians on paper. On the field it was even uglier than it looked on paper.

The silver lining for the Indians was that their pitching, especially their starting pitching, was outstanding in the series. Even Fausto Carmona. In the first two games the Indians' starting pitchers, Carlos Carrasco and Justin Masterson, combined to give up one earned run - and the Indians lost both games. That's hard to do. Carmona on Sunday was better than he's been, although the Giants' impotent offense takes a little of the luster off the Indians' pitching in the series.

What's clear now, however, is that the Indians need to make one or two roster moves to bolster their offense. They cannot compete with a lineup this inept. Granted, the return of Travis Hafner to the lineup once the interleague games are done after this week, will help. But the loss the Shin-Soo Choo for perhaps as much as two months, and the continued cluelessness of Grady Sizemore makes it mandatory for Indians officials to do something - anything - to bolster the offense.

Whether it's a trade or some callups from Columbus, changes have to be made. Although Lonnie Chisenhall hasn't exactly looked like George Brett at Columbus this season, he IS currently on a hot streak. In his last five games Chisenhall has batted .429 (9-for 21) with 2 home runs and 14 RBI. Maybe it's time to look at him. Maybe it's time to look at Jason Kipnis, or outfielder Chad Huffman. I get the sense that there is mounting support within the organization for the return of Luis Valbuena, who IS having a nice year at Columbus (.318, 10 homers, 49 RBI).

I originally thought the Indians couldn't consider calling up some prospects because they were trying to stay in the race in the Central Division. But now, after watching Indians hitters strikeout 16 times on Sunday - 12 of their last 16 outs came on strikeouts - I believe they may have to call up some prospects IN ORDER to stay in the race.

Rolling with the Tribe

2011-05-22T23:45:00.000-04:00

It's amazing, when a team is hot, even when they screw up things turn out Ok. It happened during the Indians' 12-4 win over the Reds Sunday. With runners at first and third, the Indians tried a double steal, but botched it. Travis Buck, the runner at first broke for second, but once the throw went to second, Shin-Soo Choo, the runner at third, was late breaking for the plate. Choo was so late that he got trapped in no-man's land and then tried to retreat to third base before the throw from catcher Ramon Hernandez go there.

Choo should have been out by 10 feet. Instead, Hernandez threw wildly to third. The ball rolled all the way down the left field foul line, all the way to the wall. Choo and Buck both scored, so the Indians scored two runs on a play they screwed up, but one that the Reds screwed up even more.

Stuff like that frequently happens to teams having the type of season the Indians are having. They are now 18-4 at home, the best home record through 22 games in franchis history.

The Indians have played so well for so long that you expect something to break right for them late in every close game. The next three games will be another challenge, however.

The Red Sox are playing well, and the Indians will be facing Boston's three best pitchers, Clay Buchholz, Josh Beckett, and Jon Lester.

It's not a stretch to say that this could be a preview of a post-season series. Certainly the three pitchers the Indians will face in the series are playoff-caliber starting pitchers. And the way the Indians have been playing stamps them as a playoff-caliber team.

Ships passing in the night?

2011-05-18T13:44:00.000-04:00

The Indians are in Chicago for two games stating tonight. The Indians haven't seen the White Sox since the first three games of the season. After losing the first two games of the season to Chicago the Indians are 26-11 since then. The White Sox, over that same span, are 16-25.

The best part about the Indians' hot start is that it has already allowed them to put considerable distance between themselves and the White Sox and Twins, the two teams that many felt were the best in the division at the start of the season.

However, six weeks into the season the Indians are not only in first place, but a whopping 10 games ahead of the White Sox and 13 1/2 games ahead of the Twins.

The Indians are also getting the kind of breaks that seem to come with teams having the kind of year they are having. For example, last weekend, they had two games with Seattle rained out, and the scheduled starting pitchers for Seattle in those two games were Cy Young winner Felix Hernandez, and rookie phenom Michael Pineda.

When you're hot, you're hot.

Ouch!

2011-05-08T22:06:00.000-04:00

Sunday's painful loss to the Angels proved once again that the downside to having a team that is a contender is that the losses are far more painful than are losses when the team is an also-ran.

Of course, the wins are also far more enjoyable, so it's a tradeoff. The Indians had three of each on their West Coast trip that ended Sunday, a trip that may have been a validation of the Indians being a team that can stay in contention all year.

The Indians played .500 ball in six games against the A's and Angels, the two teams with the two best pitching staffs in the American League. The Indians actually came within six outs of going 4-2 in the six games, which would have stamped it as a sensational trip.

To this point in the season the Indians are following the battle tested formula for being a contender: win big at home, and break even on the road. The Indians have won 13 games in a row at home, and are 13-2 overall at Progressive Field. They are 9-9 on the road. That kind of a home-away split, if maintained for the rest of the season should keep the Indians in contention all the way through September.

This West Coast trip was another opportunity for us to judge whether the Indians are for real. The verdict six games later: Yes, they are for real. And they will remain for real until their play suggests to us that they are not.

Testing time

2011-04-24T20:47:00.000-04:00

The Indians Sunday concluded a dreary road trip to Kansas City and Minnesota. They lost four of the six games they played on the trip, including both of the games they played against the Twins. They started the trip down one starting pitcher, and they may return home down a second starting pitcher.

With Mitch Talbot already on the disabled list with a sore elbow, the last thing the Indians need is for another starter to go on the DL, but Carlos Carrasco could be headed there, with a similar injury, no less. Carrasco was removed from Sunday's game with "tightness" in his elbow. He will be examined by Tribe doctors on Monday's off day.

Whether or not Carrasco joins Talbot on the DL remains to be seen, but it's obvious that the next couple of weeks is going to be a good test for the resiliancy and depth of the Indians' roster. If Carrasco is placed on the DL, a potential replacement would be former No.1 pick Alex White, who is off to a strong start at Columbus, where he has a 2.00 ERA in his first three starts.

Another area of potential concern is second base, where veteran Orlando Cabrera made a critical error in the seventh inning Sunday that led to a two-run Minnesota rally. Cabrera is a gamer, but as the season unfolds, we're beginning to see a lack of range in him that could be a potential problem as it relates to the Indians' infield defense, on which the Indians' starting rotation is so dependent.

The Indians come home now to play six games with Central Division rivals Kansas City and Detroit before leaving on another west coast trip. The next two weeks should be very interesting.

Talking the talk

2011-04-18T00:00:00.000-04:00

Grady Sizemore is back. That's great news for the Indians. It's good news for the reporters covering the team because it makes the Indians better, more interesting, and more exciting. It does not, however, make them any more quotable.

Grady is a great guy. He's just not a great quote. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. It's just the way it is. Some players are great quotes, some are not. Grady is not.

Part of a professional athlete's job is to talk to the media. It's a way for the players to talk to the fans. The media is the conduit. So players are encouraged, if not required by their organizations to talk the media. They are not required to give the media dazzling quotes.

Some players love this part of their job. They enjoy talking about themselves, about their jobs, about the games, about the sport in general. Some players hate this part of their job. They don't like talking to reporters about anything, and when they do they talk, but they don't really say much.

Fortunately, every team has one or two "go-to" guys. These are players who members of the media know they can count on, win or lose, great game or ugly game, to be available after the game, and to say something of substance in such a way that it's colorful enough to use in the reporters' story.

Some players are intentionally not very quotable. They know if they talk in cliches and in short, sometimes just one word answers, the media will eventually leave them along, because it's waste of everyone's time. Other players are unintentionally boring quotes. I would put Sizemore into the latter category. He's always very polite, very accomodating. Usually very accesible. He honestly does try. But he doesn't seem to have the personality for it. He just doesn't enjoy talking about himself. That in itself is pretty rare in the world of professional sports, where out-of-control egos is frequently the norm.

Sunday, Sizemore himself was the story. As if playing in his first game back with the Indians after spending almost a year rehabbing from major knee surgery wasn't enough, Sizemore also hit a home run in his first game back.

He was clearly the story of the day. He just didn't say much on either of those two subjects - his return or his home run - that was very interesting. Reporters tried repeatedly to get Sizemore to say something colorful or interesting about his return. He answered all our questions, but without really saying anything colorful or interesting.

So Grady's back. Hopefully he'll continue to do great things for the Indians. He's a fun player to watch. He's a good guy off the field. He just isn't very quotable.

Generally speaking I'd rather cover a good player who's not very quotable than a bad player who is very quotable. In professional sports, winning is what matters most. If a player consistently helps his team win games, it doesn't really matter whether or not he's good at talking about it afterwards.

Getting good, and getting lucky

2011-04-11T10:58:00.000-04:00

Here's how good things are going for the Indians right now. The day after they leave Seattle, Mariners ace Felix Hernandez is scheduled to start. The day before the Indians get to Anaheim, Angels ace Jerad Weaver pitched. So in their six-game west coast trip against two different teams, the Indians, through sheer chance, miss both of those two teams' best starting pitchers, one of them the reigning Cy Young Award winner.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, but so far this season the Indians have been lucky AND good. Lucky in that they don't have to face Hernandez or Weaver on their trip. Meanwhile, their 7-2 start (all those losses coming in a row and all the wins coming in a row) is not a fluke. They deserve to be 7-2, with a seven-game winning streak, because they are playing very good baseball.

Their defense so far has been sensational. The hitting has been great - only a couple guys not hitting, and one of them is Shin-Soo Choo, their best hitter, so you know he'll start to hit soon. Their starting pitching, after the first two games of the season, has been way better than expected, and their bullpen has been bullish, when needed.

Overlooked somewhat during the winning streak has been the great work by the Indians' three most important relievers: Chris Perez, Rafael Perez, and Tony Sipp. Those three relievers have made a combined 15 appearances. In those 15 appearances, the two Perezes and Sipp have pitched 16 scoreless innings, allowing just four hits.

In other words, when the Indians take a lead into the late innings, they don't blow it. The two Perezes and Sipp have made sure of that. Obviously the bullpen perfection by those three relievers won't go on all season. Each of them will have some bad games now and then. But if the Indians are going to sustain the momentum they have built up over the first 10 days of the season, their bullpen, especially the back of the bullpen, will have to carry a big part of the load.

So far, the two Perezes and Sipp have been equal to the task.

4-2? Who knew?

2011-04-07T21:41:00.000-04:00

Two games into the 2011 season the Indians' record was 0-2, and they were looking at a schedule for the remainder of the homestand that included one more game with the White Sox, who had scored 23 runs in the first two games against the Indians, and then three games with the Red Sox, picked by many to win the American League pennant.

But the Indians went 4-0 in those games, and a homestand that started out looking like it would be a nightmare turned out to be anything but. In fact, Indians officials couldn't have drawn up a more encouraging four-game sequence to end the homestand.

In those four games the Indians pitched well, they got some timely hitting, they were fundamentally sound, and they caught the ball. True, it's only four games, but as former Indians manager Mike Hargrove liked to say, it sure beats the alternative.

Probably the most encourging part of that encouraging finish to the homestand was the work of the pitching staff. Starters Justin Masterson, Josh Tomlin, Mitch Talbot, and Fausto Carmona all pitched well, and, in the case of Masterson, Tomlin, and Carmona - really well. Also, the bullpen came up big, getting big outs at important times during the games.

The starting rotation was the biggest question mark coming into the season. but in the season-opening homestand, the Indians got good work from their starting pitcher in four of the six games. The Indians will gladly take that percentage for the rest of the season, because when you get good starting pitching it gives your hitters a chance to win it, and it keeps your bullpen from being overworked.

Again, it's just one week's worth of games. But the early returns on the pitching staff, and on the team overall, are very encouraging. That's especially so given the fact that the Indians played two quality opponents, and won four of six games under less than ideal weather conditions.

After Thursday's win Manager Manny Acta was clearly very happy about how his team played during the homestand. Acta desperately wants the Indians to show some progress in the early weeks of the season, and in their first six games they did. Acta himself had a very good homestand. Most of his moves worked out, his lineups worked, his pinch hitting calls and pitching changes were right on, and his gamble on a suicide squeeze in the eighth inning Thursday won the game for the Indians.

All in all, the Indians couldn't have been happier with how the first week of the season went. Now, let's see if they can do on the road.

So far, so so-so

2011-04-05T12:10:00.000-04:00

The Indians' season-opening series with the White Sox confirmed what I am expecting to see from the Indians all season: pretty good offense, very questionable starting pitching. Fausto Carmona and Carlos Carrasco, who are supposedly the numbers 1 and 2 starters in the rotation, were hammered for a combined 17 runs in nine innings. Needless to say, that isn't going to cut it if the Indians hope to imnprove in 2011. No.3 starter Justin Masterson pitched very good in the third game of the series.

I'll give Carmona and Carrasco a pass on their two starts. The emotional Carmona tends to be high strung in certain situations, and with this being his first career opening day start, I'm sure his adrenaline was in overdrive that day. He should be much more calm and under control in his next start, Thursday vs. the Red Sox.

This is the first time in his career Carrasco has been in the starting rotation of a big league team. I'm sure he was a little jittery as well in his first start, although after the first two bumpy innings he was pretty good after that.

The offense was very encouraging in the three games, particuarly Travis Hafner, who hit the ball hard, and pulled it, several times in the series. Carlos Santana hit well in the series, as did Orlando Cabrera and Jack Hannahan. Ironically, the Indians' best hitter, Shin-Soo Choo, didn't hit at all. The Indians scored 20 runs in the three games, and I'm sure if you asked Manager Manny Acta if he would take 20 runs per every three games for the rest of the season he would sign up for that in a heartbeat.

He would not, however, sign up for 17 runs given up by his top two starting pitchers.

Very classy

2011-04-01T23:28:00.000-04:00

I give the Indians and the Feller family a lot of credit for the Bob Feller memorial service held Thursday at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights. It was very well done, with just the right balance of everything. There were great stories, funny stories, poignant stories, told by the speakers. The pace of it was great. The musical choices were great. It's the first time I've ever heard "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" played in church, and it sounded great.

The most emotional moment was when Bill Tunnell, representing the USS Alabama, the battleship on which Bob Feller served, presented a flag from the ship to Annie Feller.

Jeff Idelson, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, gave a terrific talk. Jeff knew Feller very well, and some of the stories he told were priceless.

To me the only disappointment was that there weren't more Indians players in attendance. I presume the ballclub made it optional for the players to attend, and only four did: Travis Hafner, Justin Masterson, Shin-Soo Choo, and Chris Perez. If I was running the Indians I would have made attendance mandatory for all the players. Bob Feller is the greatest Indian of them all, and all the currrent Indians players should have been there. The team's workout that day was later in the afternoon. That wasn't an issue, obviously, because four players found a way to attend.

I think it looked bad to have such a meager turnout from the players. Bob Feller deserved better than that.

But everything else about the service was first class in every way.

Nix to Nix at third

2010-08-20T00:30:00.001-04:00

Kids: Don't try this at home. These men are highly trained professionals.

In case you missed it, the Indians Thursday night made five erorrs and still won the game. Easily. They beat Kansas City 7-3. I'm not sure which is harder: to win a game while making five errors, or to lose a game when your opponent makes five errors. Let me get back to you on that.

Five errors. That's only four short of averaging one per inning. Jayson Nix, who started at third base, had two errors. Andy Marte, who finished at third base, had one. In case you missed it, the Indians are having trouble at third base. Big trouble.

Since the Indians traded Jhonny Peralta, third base has been a black hole. The Indians have tried Jayson Nix, Andy Marte, and Luis Valbuena at third base. Maybe the Indians should put an ad in the paper.

Of the three, Nix has done the most spectacular job, though his performance, of announcing to Tribe officials: "Attention Tribe officials: I am not your third baseman of the future!''

Nix has done that by doing this: He has started nine games at third base and made five errors. For the sake of argument - not that anyone is going to dispute the point I'm trying to make here - at his current pace, if Nix played 150 games at third base he would make 83 errors. I'm no infield coach, but I don't think that's very good.

Not that Marte or Valbuena have been doing any Brooks Robinson impressions, either. Marte has 9 errors in 23 games at third base, and Valbuena has only made one error at third, but it's early: he's only started five games there.

In defense of the Indians' defense, there is no defense. This is a bad, bad defensive team, and the badness starts at third base. The Indians might want to address that issue in the off-season.

Fausto fading?

2010-08-18T22:53:00.000-04:00

Is Fausto Carmona running out of gas? Carmona got knocked around Wednesday night in a 9-7 loss to Kansas City, giving up 7 runs in just 5 innings. This has continued a downward trend for Carmona that has lasted for a month. In his last five starts Carmona is 1-4 with a 7.07 ERA.

Carmona has been the Indians' best pitcher for most of this season, but he has started to fade of late. That may be due to Carmona's workload. He has pitched 156 1/3 innings. That may not sound like a lot of innings, but it's the most Carmona has pitched at the big league level since 2007 season, when he was a 19-game winner and helped lead the Indians to within one game of the World Series.

On July 23 of this year, Carmona's record was 10-7 with a 3.51 ERA. Five starts later he is 11-11, with a 4.15 ERA. It's the first time Carmona's ERA has been over 4.00 since April 30. It could be that the season is catching up to him.

Is this possible?

2010-08-17T23:59:00.000-04:00

The Indians Tuesday night had 13 base runners, and only scored one run. That's not easy to do, but the Indians aren't always an easy team to watch. In their 2-1 loss at Kansas City they drew 7 walks and had 6 hits, but only one of those 13 base runners wound up scoring. They left 12 runners on base.

As the Indians look ahead to next year one of their biggest needs is adding not one but two run producers in the middle of their lineup. One will be Carlos Santana, assuming he returns healthy. But they need another one, at least, and at this point, who that or they will be is anyone's guess. Although Travis Hafner has had two strong games since coming off the disabled list, until Hafner starts stringing together weeks of strong games, there is no reason to believe he'll ever be the consistent run producer he was before his shoulder injuries.

With Hafner still a question mark and Santana out for the year, the Indians are hurting when it comes to guys who can drive in a run now and then. Shin-Soo Choo can do it, but unless he hits a home run it's hard for him to drive in himself. The Indians' biggest problem for the rest of this season, in case you hadn't noticed, isn't winning games. It's merely scoring some runs.

Ahh, Choo!

2010-07-21T22:09:00.000-04:00

The Indians will get Shin-Soo Choo back Friday. That's about nine months earlier than expected. Choo will have missed just slightly less than three weeks with a right thumb injury that originally looked like it might require season-ending surgery. Turns out it only needed a little season-continuing rest.

Is Choo the Indians' best player? All-around player, yes. Grady Sizemore gets more publicity, but Choo is the better all-around player. Choo is clearly the better hitter. Choo's career marks: a .294 batting average, .387 on base percentage, and a .487 slugging percentage.

Sizemore's career numbers: a .272 batting average, .363 on base percentage, and .477 slugging percentage.

Choo has a stronger arm than Sizemore, although Sizemore makes more memorable catches in the outfield, because he's fearless in going after balls near walls, while Choo seems a little gun shy of the wall. Sizemore is faster, but Choo is a very good baserunner as well, and a very good base stealer.

The return of Choo makes the Indians' lineup deeper and better. So that should help the Indians offensively for the remainder of the season. This is a big season for Choo financially because he will be eligible for salary arbitration next spring, and there's a chance he will be coming off two quality seasons, which means he will command a hefty raise from the $461,100 salary he is making this sesaon.

Will the Indians explore trying to sign him to a long term deal? Choo's situation is similar to that of several Indians players in the past who have been offered, and accepted, multi-year deals with the Tribe, but one gets the sense that ownership may not be willing to continue that tradition.

We'll see.

Win, win, win.

2010-07-20T23:31:00.001-04:00

Say, you don't think they're going run the table now, do you? Win all the rest of them? Now THAT would be a winning streak. The Indians beat the Twins Tuesday 4-3. It's the Indians' sixth win in a row. That's their longest winning streak since September of 2008.

And, of course, everyone could see this streak coming. Yep, it was so obvious. The Indians set it up by losing five of their last seven games before the all-star break. Then they come roaring out of the break, winning their first six games. The pitching has been great. The hitting timely. The defense, not horrible.

Put it all together and you've got the hottest team in the majors right now. And, theoretically, the Indians should be getting even better in the coming days. Tuesday Asdrubal Cabrera was activated off the disabeld list, where he'd been for two months with a broken arm. On Friday Shin-Soo Choo is scheduled to come off the disabled list, where he's been since July 4.

The addition of Choo will mean the Indians' lineup will be as complete as it's going to get this season. Grady Sizemore is still on the DL, but he isn't coming back. Not this year, following major knee surgery.

So for now the Indians are 6-0. Undefeated for almost a week. Go figure. Almost makes you forget about LeBron, no?

Who'd have thunk it?

2010-07-20T00:38:00.000-04:00

With their win over the Twins Monday night the Indians have now won five games in a row since the all-star game. That has never happened before. Who would have thunk that this Indians team would do something this year, in a positive way, that no Indians team had ever done before?

Not only that, but the Indians have done it against two of the best teams in the Central Division, the Tigers and the Twins. And the Indians have done it with outstanding pitching. How many improbables can you stack onto one week's worth of work?

How should we interpret this winning streak? Well, it's a good sign that the team is progressing, even though it is shorthanded. The Indians have only had the first three hitters in their lineup - Asdrubal Cabrera, Grady Sizemore, and Shin-Soo Choo - in the lineup at the same time in just 28 games this season. The loss of those three players for varying degrees of time has been countered, to a certain degree, by the promotion of Carlos Santana, who has changed the lineup by, even as a rookie, being the most mature hitter in the lineup.

Santana's rare ability to work the count, reaching a 3-2 count a ridiculously high percentage of the time, has had a positive effect on the lineup. But the biggest reason for the Indians' imnproved play lately has been the pitching staff, which very quietly has put together a nice two or three week-run in which the starters have kept the team in the game and the relievers have been able preserve most of the leads late in games.

The result has been one of the Indians' best runs of the season. Can they keep it up? Probably not. But they are at least capable of sustaining it for this long. That, in itself, is progress.

Would some team take Jake?

2010-07-08T22:03:00.000-04:00

Is Jake Westbrook tradeable? He didn't help his cause much Thursday night, giving up three home runs in six innings in a 5-2 loss to the Rays. Westbrook is now 5-5 with a 4.75 ERA. Those aren't exactly numbers that will have GM Mark Shapiro's cell phone ringing endlessly with calls from other GM's.

And ironically, that might work in the Indians' favor. If the Indians get no decent trade offers for Westbrook - and by decent I mean a mid-level prospect, at best _ they may just keep him and try to re-sign him after the season.

The Indians don't have a good record of re-signing their own free agents. But given that Westbrook is in the final year of a three-year $33 million contract for which he has produced a record of 6-7, and given that Westbrook is one of the most high-character guys on the team, I could see him re-signing with the Indians, even at a reduced salary, feeling like he owes him something more than 6 wins in exchange for $33 million. Remember, he missed one full season on the contract due to elbow surgery.

It will be interesting to see how the Westbrook situation plays out.

Acta: We wuz robbed!

2010-07-07T23:39:00.000-04:00

Manny Acta almost never gets thrown out of a game. He argues with umpires even less than that. Wednesday in Texas he did both. I don't blame him.

After watching two of his hitters, Shelley Duncan and Jason Donald, get called out on strikes on what were clearly checked swings, but were ruled swings by first base umpire Tim Timmons, Acta went ballistic. After the second of the calls, on Donald, Acta leaned back on the bench in the dugout and took off his hat. Timmons, who was obviously staring in at the dugout after making the call, immediately threw Acta out of the game. It's Acta's first ejection as manager of the Indians and only the third ejection of his four-year managerial career.

After the game the normally calm and controlled Acta erupted with a tirade directed at Timmons, and major league umpires in general.

"I got thrown out for taking my hat off,'' Acta told reporters after the game. "That's a shame. Everyone is talking about the pace of the game, and I have to delay the game and run out there 150 feet away to argue after I get thrown out for taking my hat off. It's sad.''

Acta was just getting warmed up.

"I've been doing rebuilding jobs for four years,'' he continued. "These kids on rebuilding teams don't get the benefit of the doubt from those guys (the umpires). If they don't know your name, you don't get a fair shake. I don't care what anyone says. I've seen it for four years. Kids they don't know don't get the same checked swing calls that other guys get. I know we're not supposed to criticize those guys (umpires) in public, but so be it. I'm fed up with it. I've seen it for four years. Look at my record. I'm probably one of the easiest guys for them to deal with over the years. And that's what I get? I take my hat off and get thrown out of the game right off the bat? I don't know. I guess it's part of the game. The check will be on the way.''

That last line is an acknowledgment by Acta that he's probably going to get fined for publicly criticizing the umpires. But in this case I think's he's right. Unfortunately for him, however, that comes with the turf of being the manager of a rebuilding team. When a good team plays a bad team, the good team will almost always get the benefit of the doubt on any close calls. It's been that way in baseball, and other sports, for as long as there have been umpires and referees.

It is refreshing, however, to hear a normally mild-mannered manager such as Acta point it out. It won't change anything, of course. But it's still refreshing.

Marte's decline

2010-07-06T23:19:00.000-04:00

How about the career curve of Andy Marte? In the space of just a few years he has gone from can't miss blue chip minor league prospect to a waivers-clearing unwanted spare part, who is in danger of playing his way out of the major leagues for good. And the transition from phenom to flop was instantaneous. It wasn't like Marte hit the big leagues as a phenom, had several quality years, then slipped into journeyman status.

Nope. Marte, seemingly, was a phenom one day, a bust the next. Tuesday night Marte had another forgettable game while subbing for Matt LaPorta at first base. In addition to striking out twice, Marte had an inexcusable mental blunder at first base. He watched second baseman Jayson Nix field a grounder behind second base then throw to first for what should have been an out. But it wasn't an out. There was just one minor problem.

The Indians' first baseman wasn't standing on first base. The Indians' first baseman was Marte.

He was about three feet off the base, watching Nix make the play. Nix's throw to first seemed to take Marte by surprise. As he caught the ball about three feet from the first base bag, Marte tried to shove his foot back onto the bag. Too late. The runner was safe because the Indians' first baseman wasn't on first base.

And this is the first baseman who comes into games late as a defensive replacement for LaPorta. That play pretty much sums up Marte's career. And because his career has dissolved into him hanging on as a utility infielder, Marte cannot afford to be making mental mistakes like the one he made Tuesday night.

Jayson and Jason

2010-07-05T23:53:00.000-04:00

In the Indians' 9-3 win over Texas Monday second baseman Jayson Nix belted two home runs and shortstop Jason Donald had a career-high four hits. What does that mean in the big picture for the Tribe? Probably not much. It's only one game. Nix is still only hitting .214 since joining the team. Donald is up to .280, but once Asdrubal Cabrera comes off the disabled list Donald will either have to find a seat on the bench, or have to accept an option to Columbus.

Nix is trying to prove to Indians officials that he could be a long term fit for the Tribe at second base. He'll probably get considerable playing time the remainder of the season, but he'll turn 28 in August, so it's not like he's a hot young prospect. The only reason the Indians have him is that the White Sox released Nix, and the Indians' claimed him off waivers.

Being a last place team doesn't have many advantages, but one of the few breaks you get from being the worst team, or close to the worst team in your league is you get first crack at players placed on waivers. The order in which teams can claim players off waivers goes in inverse order to the team's won-loss record. In other words, the worst teams in the league get first crack at those players.

That's an advantage of sorts for the Indians, who obviously could use some better players. Donald, who was acquired from Philadelphia as part of the Cliff Lee trade, and Nix are both players who were discarded by their former teams. Whether they can carve out a niche for themselves on the Indians' roster beyond this year remains to be seen. And I guess hitting two home runs or collecting four hits in a game are always better for a player trying to win a job than not hitting any home runs or getting any hits in a game.

So in that sense what Nix and Donald did Monday night are significant achievements for both of them, even if many Indians fans aren't exactly on the edge of their seats.

Are we having fun yet?

2010-06-24T18:28:00.000-04:00

So what have we learned from the first six games of the Indians' nine-game interleague road trip? This: Not only aren't they as good as the Phillies, one of the elite teams in the majors, but they may not even be as good as the Pirates, one of the worst teams in the majors.

Next comes three games with the Reds. Bet you can hardly wait, huh? On a brighter note, the Indians claimed Laynce Nix off waivers from the White Sox. To this point in his career Nix is most known for the unconventional way he spells his first name. What he hasn't done much of this year is hit.

Sent to Columbus to make room for Nix was Luis Valbuena. You wouldn't think the Indians could add a guy to replace Valbuena who was actually hitting LESS than Valbuena, but the Indians managed to do it. Nix was hitting .163 for the White Sox. That makes Valbuena's .166 average with the Indians look positively Maueresque.

The other roster move was to demote Jensen Lewis in order to make room on the roster for Aaron Laffey, who will be recalled from Columbus today and will start tonight in Cincinnati. The demotion of Lewis was surprise. It seemed more likely that Tony Sipp had earned a demotion, in order to get himself straightened out. Sipp has been a mess for the last three weeks. Apparently, though, Manager Manny Acta prefers to have a second lefty in the bullpen to pair with Rafael Perez, and is willing to live with Sipp's ongoing struggles.

The Indians are 1-5 on the nine-game trip that will end with the three games in Cincinnati. For the trid, the All-Star break can't get here fast enough.

Who would want Wood?

2010-06-23T23:04:00.000-04:00

If Kerry Wood is hoping to get traded to a contender, this is no way to go about it. Wood's spectacular blown save Wednesday night will draw the attention of contending teams, but for all the wrong reasons. Giving up a two-run walkoff homer in the bottom of the ninth inning is a good way for Wood to keep himself anchored to the Indians' roster for the rest of this going-nowhere season.

Following his night at the office Wednesday, when he gave up a two-run home run to Jimmy Rollins with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning, giving the Phillies a 7-6 win over Indians, Wood now has a record of 1-3, with 3 blown saves and a humongous 7.98 ERA. Those numbers aren't going to generate any phone calls to Tribe GM Mark Shapiro from other GM's asking about Wood's availability. Ironically, Wood is very available, but the way he is pitching, who would want him?

The Wood-Indians marriage has been a disaster from day one. The Indians signed him prior to the 2009 season, under the assumption that they were contenders. Instead, they were pretenders. By mid-season they had begun a fire sale to strip the roster and begin a rebuild that has carried over into 2010. Through it all, Wood has been the elephant in the room - a wildly expensive closer for a team with no money and no hope of contending. In other words, a team with no need for a closer.

The Indians would love to trade Wood, and what's left of his $10.5 million 2010 salary, but he has pitched so poorly it's unlikely any team would have interest in him, unless he suddenly turns his season around. That's probably not going to happen because the last place Indians have so few save situations that Wood rarely pitches in meaningful games, and when he does get the odd save situtation he's usually rusty.

All in all it's bad situation for the Indians and Wood. He appears to be an untradable player at the moment for a team that desperately wants to trade him.

Please, no more Moyer

2010-06-22T23:58:00.000-04:00

Some losses are downright predictable. The Indians’ 2-1 loss to the Phillies Tuesday night was one of them. You could see this one coming three days ago.

With a lineup filled with young and inexperienced hitters, the last kind of pitcher the Indians need to see is 47-year-old Jamie Moyer. Moyer was pitching in the major leagues before many of the players in the Indians’ starting lineup were even shaving.

Moyer survives, no, make that flourishes, by changing speeds, hitting his spots, and many times letting the batter get himself out by swinging at pitchers’ pitches. In other words, young hitters can be easy prey for a crafty veteran like Moyer.

Even veteran hitters can be dominated by Moyer, when he is at his best. The Indians found that out in the 2001 Division Series, when Moyer was with Seattle. In two starts in that series against the Indians, Moyer was 2-0, with a 1.50 ERA.

That 2001 Indians lineup was an all veteran lineup (Lofton, Vizquel, Robbie Alomar, Juan Gonzalez, Ellis Burks, Jim Thome, Travis Fryman, Marty Cordova), but Moyer, then a spry 38-year-old, made that lineup look just as bad as he made the Indians’ mostly inexperienced lineup look Tuesday night.

So the Indians couldn’t beat him when he was 38. They couldn’t beat him at 47. Maybe they’ll have better when he’s 56.

Rebuilding is in the eye of the beholder

2010-06-17T12:44:00.000-04:00

On more than one occasion, Indians manager Manny Acta has said following a game, usually a loss, that the Indians have to play a near perfect game in order to win. That's true. It's also unfortunate, because even the best teams rarely play a perfect game. The Indians are one of the worst teams, so you can reduced the chances of them playing a perfect game accordingly.

Because of the lack of talent on their roster, the Indians have almost no margin of error when it comes to trying to win games. Their pitching has to be near-flawless, their hitting has to be timely and productive, and their defense has to be error-free. All three of those things rarely happen on the same night, so it's no surprise that the Indians lose on most nights, and that they are in last place.

I think back to the day Acta was hired. He was asked how the Indians' situation compared to that of the team he had managed the previous 2 1/2 years, the Washington Nationals. Acta refused to even acknowledge that the Indians were rebuilding. He emphasized that the Indians had way more talent on hand than did the Nationals. I wonder now, nearly halfway through his first season as manager, how Acta views the talent level of the team he is managing.

With two starters, Grady Sizemore and Asdrubal Cabrera, out for the year (Sizemore) or for much of the year (Cabrera), what's left of the Indians really does resemble an expansion team. On most nights their lineup includes a few veterans sprinkled in with several young players trying to establish themselves at the major league level. The Indians' entire pitching staff fits that profile.

Occasionally they will come close to playing nearly perfect, and they'll win that game. More often, though, they will play like the young and inexperienced team that they mostly are, and they will lose those games.

That, essentially, is what expansion baseball looks like. That is what a rebuilding team looks like, and whether Acta wants to admit it or not, that's what the Indians are.

Changes coming?

2010-05-27T16:37:00.000-04:00

After stumbling through a 2-6 homestand, the Indians now face a daunting upcoming schedule. Eleven of their next 14 games are against three of the top teams in the American League, the Yankees, Tigers, and Red Sox. And seven of those 11 games will be on the road. Not that playing on the road is necessarily a bad thing for the Indians, who have the worst home record (8-14) in the league.

As the Indians begin this stretch of their schedule, there is the potential for a couple major pieces of news. Don't be surprised if Justin Masterson doesn't make his next scheduled start, which is Sunday in New York. Manager Manny Acta danced around the quesiton of Masterson when asked recently if a change is going to be made in the rotation. If Masterson is pulled from the rotation nobody can accuse Acta of being quick with the hook. Masterson is 0-5 this year and 0-11 in 16 starts since his last win, which came on Aug. 20 of last year. The most logical replacement for Masterson would be Aaron Laffey. The Indians may wait to see if they can get through the games Friday and Saturday without needing Laffey as a reliever. If they can, Laffey could be moved into Masterson's spot in the rotation, and would make the start Sunday vs. the Yankees.

The other looming news is the condition of Grady Sizemore, who is on the disabled list with a deep bruise in his left knee. The Indians are being very vague about Sizemore's condition. But Sizemore spent the week flying around the country getting second and third opinions. One of the options, apparently, is micro-fracture surgery. If that's what Sizemore has, his season is over, and the rehab from that surgery might even carry over into next season. He could have another type of surgery, or he could have no surgery at all. It seems like a decision of some sort will be forthcoming at some point during the weekend.

The Wood watch

2010-05-09T11:23:00.001-04:00

I have to say that it was surprising to see Indians closer Kerry Wood make his 2010 debut Saturday not in the role of closer but as a middle reliever. In 25 years of covering the Indians I have never seen a closer come off the disabled list and not go right back into the closer's role. Wood's first appearance came in the seventh inning of a tie game. Manager Manny Acta later explained that he wanted Wood's first couple of appearances to be in the middle of games, "So we could see if he is ready to close games up here.''

That was an odd explanation. If Wood is deemed physically healthy enough to be activated off the disabled list, wouldn't that, by definition, mean Wood is ready to resume closing games? It's not like it's the middle of September and the Indians are in a heated pennant race, and ever game is critical. It's early May. The Indians are in last place. The stakes aren't exactly huge. Why not just put Wood back into the closer's role, which is what the Indians are paying him $10 million to do? If he struggles in his first few outings, so what? He's the closer. If he's healthy enough to pitch he should probably be closing games.

The way this was handled makes you wonder if maybe Wood didn't want to do any more minor league rehab appearances, and Indians officials wanted him to. The compromise may have been the Indians telling Wood, "Ok, you can come back, but we're not going to use you as the closer until you prove you're ready to do it (by pitching first in middle relief).'' Acta may have used Saturday's appearance by Wood as essentially another rehab outing.

When asked about the situation following the game, Wood, who hadn't pitched in the seventh inning as a reliever in three years, seemed a little brusque with reporters. Hard to tell whether he was just upset with how he pitched, or with how he was used.

Eye on pitching

2010-04-19T11:27:00.001-04:00

The Indians began their first homestand of the season with a record of 2-4. They ended it with a record of 6-6. It was a homestand that featured terrific starting pitching and generally horrific hitting by everyone not named Choo. In other words, the Indians thus far have been the exact opposite of what was expected.

What was expected was a team that would score runs but one that would have trouble preventing their opponents from scoring runs. What has been reality, so far, is a team that has been great at preventing runs, and not so good at scoring them. So much for the so-called experts, myself included, who badly mis-read this team coming out of spring training.

So far, anyway. The Indians' excellent pitching thus far must be tempered by the fact that half of the 12 games they have played this season have been against a White Sox team that looks like it is going to be at or near the bottom of the American League in hitting this season. Right now Paul Konerko is the only hitter in the Sox lineup that scares anyone.

Let's see how the Indians' pitchers perform when they face better hitting teams. That will begin immediately on the road trip that starts Tuesday night in Minnesota. The Twins are picked by many to win the Central Division, and one reason they are the popular pick is their killer middle of the order foursome of Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer, and Jason Kubel. Let's see how the Indians are able to handle that group in the next three days.

The Indians' offense, meanwhile, continues to basically be Shin-Soo Choo and not much else. Four of the nine hitters in the Indians' starting lineup Sunday were hitting under .200. Sure, it's early. The weather has been cold. But it's early and cold for many of the other teams in the American League, and most of them are hitting better than the Indians.

The Indians embark on their three-city trip to Minnesota, Oakland, and Anaheim with a record of 6-6. If they can return to Cleveland with a .500 record, that would be a good road trip. And it would perhaps be an indication that perhaps the Indians' pitching staff has a chance to be better this year than anyone expected.

Pleading the eighth

2010-04-11T23:21:00.000-04:00

An interesting moment occurred in the Indians' chaotic 9-8 loss to the Tigers on Sunday. It involved some decision making by Indians manager Manny Acta and his bullpen.

In the eighth inning, with the Indians leading 8-4, and right-hander Joe Smith, who came in to get the last out of the seventh inning, the logical choice to stay in the game and pitch the eighth inning, Acta instead brought in left-hander Rafael Perez. Acta brought in Perez even though none of the next six batters due up for the Tigers were left-handed hitters.

Sure enough, Perez gave up three straight singles to the first three batters in the inning, all right-handers, and that led to a two run rally, and helped give the Tigers the momentum they took into the ninth inning, when they scored three more runs against a crumbling Chris Perez to win the game.

I asked Acta after the game why he didn't stick with Smith in the eighth inning and he basically said that he wanted to give Perez a trial as the eighth inning setup man. Chris Perez is normally the Indians' eighth inning setup man, but he's the closer now because Kerry Wood is hurt.

Acta's decision to take a winnable game and basically turn the eighth inning into an audition for Rafael Perez suggests that the manager, while obviously wanting to win, in this particular instance gave more priority to player evaluation than to winning. That's an interesting decision because it runs contrary to the team's party line in which club officials have stated that they are not ruling out contention in 2010. Acta didn't manage that way in the eighth inning.

Acta said he would have brought Smith in if the game was closer than a four-run margin. I don't agree with that. The Indians had a four-run lead, and needed to get six outs to get a win that would have meant a respectable 3-3 record on their season-opening trip to Chicago and Detroit. If the Indians really do think they can be contenders in 2010 they owe it to themselves to go for the win in situations like that. That is not the time to audition a pitcher for a key role.

If the team had openly said that they are using 2010 for player development and evaluation, then bringing Rafael Perez into the game there makes sense. But the Indians haven't said that, and therefore Acta - and this is just my opinion - shouldn't have done that.

Faustastic

2010-04-08T01:21:00.000-04:00

Ok. So maybe "fantastic'' is a bit of a stretch. But Fausto Carmona's 2010 debut Wednesday night was a heaping helping of hum baby for Carmona and the Indians. Sure, he gave up six walks in six innings. That's bad. But this is good: one hit allowed. That's it. One. In six innings. You can live with six walks in six innings if you're only going to give up one hit.

For Indians officials the most encouraging facet of Carmona's debut is that the White Sox couldn't hit him. This is a guy who last year gave up an average of 10.8 hits per nine innings. Opposing batters hit .295 against him. Wednesday night the White Sox had one hit in six innings and batted .059 against him (1-for-17). Ten of the 18 outs recorded by Carmona were on ground balls, which are Carmona's bread and butter outs because it means his sinker, his bread and butter pitch, is working. That's another encouraging sign.

In other words, aside from the six walks, which were negated by the fact that Carmona came within one hit of not giving up any, the 2010 debut of a pitcher who HAS to be good for the Indians as a team to be even mediocre, couldn't have gone better.

It's only one start, of course. But it was a really good one. The few times the walks got him into trouble, he didn't cave in emotionally and start trying to pump 150 mph fastballs by hitters. He stayed calm and he pitched. This was not a five-alarm fire Carmona start, like so many that he's had the last two years. It was a measured, thoughtful, controlled outing. The kind of outing Carmona had all the time as a 19-game winner in 2007.

The one common denominator between Carmona in 2007 and Carmona Wednesday night? When he threw the ball over the plate, the hitters couldn't hit it. And that is the essence of good pitching and a good pitcher.

Opening Day

2010-04-06T00:39:00.000-04:00

Being the hopeless romantic I am, I feel like it's always right that the home team should always win its home opener, just on principle. There are 162 games in Major League Baseball's regular season. But there is only one home opener for each team and its fans. Even the bad teams. In fact, home openers are probably even more important for the bad teams. Because, let's face it, the good ones are going to win the majority of their games, home and away during the season.

The same can't be said of the bad teams. The bad teams will lose the majority of their games. But they should never lose their home opener. That's the one day of the season where it's perfectly all right for the home team and its fans to believe that anything is possible.

Even if it isn't.

The reality is that there are probably 10 teams in the major leagues that we can safely say on opening day that they have no chance of making the playoffs. None. Another 10 teams are long shots to make it. Eight of the remaining 10 teams will make the playoffs, and three of them will be the Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies. That means seven teams are fighting for five spots.

That's basically what the regular season comes down to. Finding out which five of the seven teams teams with a chance will make the playoffs. Everyone else is playing for their marketing departments.

So when the White Sox, a projected good team, beat the Indians, a projected bad one, in Chicago's home opener on Monday, it might have seemed like a bully picking on a skinny kid. But it wasn't. It was a home team winning its home opener. I have no problem with that. Just as it's only right that the Indians win their home opener on Monday. Hope springs eternal at home openers, whether the home team is a good one or a bad one.

For the bad ones, i.e., those teams whose entire payroll is less than the Yankees' starting infield, the home opener is that one time during the year when their fans can dream. And if a bad team wins its home opener, well then, hey, you never know, right? Stranger things have happened.

Not really, but that's what home openers are about. To give the home team fans a chance watch the home team win, and afterwards to dreamily observe, "Hey, you never know!''

Even if we do know.

Who's on first?

2010-03-28T20:06:00.000-04:00

Funny how fate works sometimes, isn't it? Indians officials on Sunday made what was hardly a surprising announcement: that Russell Branyan will start the season on the disabled list. Many of us were wondering why the Indians signed Branyan in the first place. Now it looks as though the baseball gods wondered the same thing.

The Indians didn't need to add a first baseman in the off-season. They had no need for another left-handed hitter. And since the club is rebuilding for the future, they certainly didn't need to sign a 35-year-old, left-handed hitting first baseman.

But that's exactly what they did when they signed Branyan. Branyan's presence on the roster almost certainly would have bumped promising young outfielder Michael Brantley to Class AAA Columbus, even though Brantley is ready for the big leagues, and the Indians have a ready-made spot for him, left field.

Why would a rebuilding team with one of the top prospects in minor league baseball choose to block the progress of that player by signing a veteran nearing the end of his career, to play first base on a team that didn't need more age, much less another first baseman? A team, moreover, that isn't expected to contend?

Many of us were still asking ourselves all those questions when the Indians announced Sunday that Branyan will start the season on the disabled list. Oh yeah, Branyan also has a history of back problems, which is still another reason why the Indians' decision to sign him was so baffling.

Sure enough, Branyan hasn't even played in a spring training game yet, because of his back condition. So he'll start the season on the disabled list, which will presumably give Brantley the opportunity to play every day in the big leagues, an opportunity he should have had anyway.

What comes next? Stayed tuned. If Brantley gets off to a good start - remember, he was very impressive during his September callup last year - what will the Indians do when Branyan is ready to come off the DL? It would make no sense to send Brantley down. They conceivably could send Matt LaPorta down. But what if Brantley and LaPorta are BOTH playing well when Branyan is ready to be activated?

Then, and maybe only then, Indians officials might have to ask themselves, "why DID we sign Branyan?''

No Wood? Not good

2010-03-20T20:17:00.000-04:00

Well that didn't take long. The Indians have already suffered their first major injury of the 2010 season - two weeks before the start of the 2010 season. Closer Kerry Wood, who the Indians were counting on to get the last three outs in games they are winning, will miss from six to eight weeks with a strained muscle in his upper back.

That Wood is injured isn't really news. This will be the 13th trip onto the disabled list for Wood in his 11-year major league career. Wood will begin the season on the DL, meaning the Indians will play the first four to six weeks of the season without their $20 million closer. But it's not like the Indians figured to wear out Wood in those first six weeks. Last year, Wood had six saves in the first six weeks of the sesaon.

So the loss of Wood is unfortunate, but not exactly crippling.

On the other hand, there is nothing more devastating to a team than blown saves leading to ninth-inning losses. So the Indians may be in danger of having some of those while Wood is out. But the injury to Wood will give the Indians a chance to look at Chris Perez in the closer's role.

Perez is the projected closer of the future for the Indians, a future that could start sometime this season, should Wood be traded, or next year for sure, since the Indians won't re-sign Wood, should he not be traded or fails to finish the 55 games that would automatically vest his option for 2011.

So while Wood is out it's a chance to see how Perez handles the closer's role. And it also means a reliever who otherwise wouldn't have been on the opening day roster, will open the season with the Indians. That will give the Indians a chance to further evaluate another pitcher early in the 2010 season.

The bottom line: if the Indians had been projected to be contenders in 2010, the injury to Wood would have been a bigger deal than it is now. As it is, with the Indians not expected to contend, it's unlikely that a blown save or two in April, due to the absence of Wood, will come back and haunt the Indians in September.

Meaningless games?

2010-03-07T12:05:00.000-05:00

Spring training games, in terms of winning or losing, are meaningless. So is it important for the Indians to win as many spring training games as possible? No. . . No, wait, yes.

Yes, in this case, winning some spring training games - preferably a lot of them - is important for the Indians. There are several reasons why.

To read the rest of this blog and comment, click here:

View from the bottom

2010-03-01T09:24:00.000-05:00

In the last couple years the Indians have had trouble living up to expectations going into the season. That shouldn't be a problem this year because there are no expectations.

To read the rest of this blog and comment, click here:

Embarrassing

2009-10-05T10:33:00.000-04:00

Thankfully, it's finally over. The Indians' 2009 season sputtered to a predictable conclusion Sunday, with another loss in Boston, capping a four-game sweep by the Red Sox. All you need to know about the Indians' season is the lineup lame duck manager Eric Wedge ran out there for game number 162. The last three batters in the Indians' lineup had batting averages of .176, .144, and .143. Six of the nine players in the Indians' lineup were rookies.

So the Indians finished the season with a record of 65-97. It's the seventh highest loss total in franchise history, the most since they lost a club record 105 games in 1991. In a season-long collapse, the Indians out-did themselves at the end. They lost their last five in a row. They lost 17 of their last 21 games. They finished the season losing a team-record 15 consecutive road games. Their last win on the road came on Aug. 30. Since that date their overall record was 7-26.

Going back to Aug. 27, if you eliminate the games they played against Baltimore, the only team in the league with a worse record than the Indians, the Tribe's record through the end of the season was 4-28.

I think an argument could be made that, given the expectations for the team going into the sesaon, and given the reality of its final record, that this is the most disappointing season in franchise history. Certainly it's one of the most embarrassing.

From mid to late August through the end of the season the Indians ceased to be competitive. They played four, five, and sometimes six rookies in most of the games over the last six weeks of the season. The manager and all the coaches were fired. Home attendance was the second lowest in 18 years. The 2009 season has been a complete and utter disaster.

Going forward, there are some promising young players on the roster, and a handful more _ acquired, naturally, from other teams, not home-grown _ in the minor league system. But it's going to be a long time before the Indians have a season as sour as this one.

In 1991, nobody expected the Indians to be any good, and they weren't _ they lost 105games. In 2009 almost everybody expected the Indians to be very good _ and they were horrible, losing 97 games.

It was a season of embarrassment for an organization that has a long way to go to re-establish itself as a competitive team in the American League.

Strange day

2009-10-01T15:38:00.000-04:00

Wednesday was one of the more awkward days I've spent in the Indians' clubhouse. The Manager and all the coaches had been fired, but everyone tried to go about their business as though nothing had happened. If you'd just walked in there for the first time you'd never have guessed the drama that took place over the previous 24 hours.

In situations like this the media tends to go to the veteran players to get their reaction to the news, but veteran players are almost non-existent in the Indians' clubhouse. Except for Travis Hafner, Jamey Carroll, Kelly Shoppach, and Grady Sizemore, almost none of the other players had been on the team all year.

It was s difficult day for everyone. The players, especially the rookies, didn't know quite how to act. The coaches talked to reporters and said all the right things. Wedge spoke during a press conference and said all the things you figured he'd say.

Regardless of how you feel about Wedge as a manager, his comportment and demeanor during the last couple of weeks was expemplary, especially given that he was all but certain that he was going to be fired. Still, Wedge answered all the questions from the media, even those that referenced next season, as though he was not only going to be the manager through the end of this season, but into next year as well - even though both parties (the media and Wedge) knew that was a longshot.

All around it was a very strange 10 days. There is no handbook for how a manager should act when he knows he is probably going to get fired, but if there was, Wedge would be a good choice to write it.

Why the DL?

2009-09-15T20:50:00.001-04:00

You may be wondering why the Indians placed Grady Sizemore and Joe Smith on the disabled list Monday. There wouldn't seem to be any need to do so because in September teams are permitted to expand their rosters from 25 all the way up to 40 players, if they so choose. So there is no need to place an injured player on the DL in order to call up a replacement from the minor leagues. Teams already have plenty of manpower in September.

So why did the Indians put Sizemore and Smith on the DL? It's a complicated issue, but the short answer is that it was done in case Sizemore and Smith are not ready to play by opening day next year, in which case insurance would cover their salaries while they were out with their injuries. That insurance only kicks in if the player is on the DL, so that's why those moves were made.

What's wrong with this picture?

2009-09-08T09:55:00.000-04:00

One of the more revealing moments in this Indians season happened on Friday, Sept. 4, when the Indians' starting left fielder was utility infielder Jamey Carroll. The Indians were short on outfielders that night because Shin-Soo Choo had left the team to be with his wife, who was about to have a babey, and Trevor Crowe, who was activated off the disabled list the day before was not able to play the outfield. This raises a couple obvious questions: First, why was Crowe activated if he was still hurt enough that he couldn't play the outfield? And, secondly, how, with major league rosters able to be expanded in September, could the Indians run out of players for ANY position?

Playing an infielder in the outfield because you don't have enough outfielders in the month of September, when teams are allowed to expand their rosters up to 40 players, if they so choose, is inexcusable. It's also the latest in a series of strange decisions made by Indians officials throughout this season.

The decision to start Carroll in the outfield instead of the injured Crowe carried with it considerable irony as well. The Indians chose not to play Crowe in the outfield because he was injured, yet they played Grady Sizemore in the outfield virtually the entire season even though Sizemore was not only injured, but injured to the point that he needed not one but two surgeries.

It's been not just a bad Indians season, but a very strange one.

Carrasco and Brantley debuts

2009-09-02T14:45:00.000-04:00

Carlos Carrasco's debut with the Indians Tuesday night in Detroit was shaky, and not unexpected. Major league debuts for pitchers can be dicey. It's difficult to pitch effectively when the pitcher is also battling nerves. Carrasco's first inning looked like that of a pitcher who lost a battle with his nerves. The first six batters Carrasco facaed in the first inning all reached base, and he gave up six hits and four runs in the inning.

Carrasco threw 74 pitches in three innings, before being removed from the game, and I would dismiss his pitching line. You don't make a judgment on a pitcher off one start, good or bad, much less one start that is also the pitcher's major league debut. Let's wait until the end of the season, when Carrasco will presumably have had three or four more starts, before forming any opinions on him. This much is certain, though: Carrasco needs to be a significant addition to the pitching staff, and the sooner the better. The Indians traded Cy Young winner Cliff Lee to Philadelphia to get Carrasco and three other players, none of whom were ready for the major leagues at the time of the trade.

Carrasco is the first of the group to make it to the big leagues. If he's ultimately not at least a middle of the rotation starter, the Lee trade is going to look even worse than it already does.

Outfielder Michael Brantley also made his major league debut Tuesday night. Brantley brings two much-needed qualities to the Indians' lineup: He's fast, and he doesn't strike out very much. That should make him a good fit in an Indians lineup that has too many players who are slow and strike out too much. Brantley didn't hit for a high average at Columbus, but he is supposedly an above average defensive outfielder. He's a very interesting player who bears watching in September. An impressive showing in the last month of the season by Brantley may convince Indians officials to move Matt LaPorta to first base, in order to make room in the outfield for Brantley in 2010.

The Wedge Watch

2009-08-22T20:12:00.000-04:00

With the Indians having now settled into the business of finishing this disappointing season, with the Browns underway, and with the Cavaliers never very far from being in the spotlight, the furor over the future of Eric Wedge as manager of the Indians has died down somewhat.

But it is still an issue, one that won't be resolved, one way or the other, until after the season. Only General Manager Mark Shapiro and club president Paul Dolan know which was the organization is leaning on that crucial decision. But, given the magnitude of the underachieving by the team this year, it's difficult to imagine that the club will go into the 2010 season without making some changes. The only question seems to be how sweeping those changes will be.

Will Wedge be fired? Will Wedge stay, but his coaching staff fired? Selected coaches fired? Or will it be a back up the truck wholesale housecleaning, with Wedge and all his coaches being shown the door and the Indians starting next season with a completely new field staff?

The spectrum of potential change ranges from no changes at all to changing everyone. Suffice to say that the most interesting upcoming date for the Indians future will be Monday, Oct. 5. That's the day after the last game of the season. And that will likely be the day when the changes, if any, changes are made.

Who's next?

2009-08-11T09:59:00.000-04:00

Is there anyone left on the Indians' roster that another team would want? Talk about an "everything must go!'' sale. The Indians have just about stripped their roster clean of all tradeable veterans. In the last six weeks the Indians have traded Cliff Lee, Victor Martinez, Mark DeRosa, Rafael Betancourt, Ryan Garko, Ben Francisco, and Carl Pavano. That's almost one-third of their opening day roster. That's almost unprecedented.

It wasn't just one white flag trade. It was a flurry of them. The Indians would undoubtedly love to make a couple more such trades, but don't look for General Manager Mark Shaprio to be getting any calls asking about the availability of Travis Hafner and Kerry Wood. Shapiro would love to trade both of them, given that the Indians are still on the hook for about $50 million to those two players through 2012. Wood has one year left at $11 million. The rest of that $50 million will go to Hafner, who is signed through the 2012 season.

Clearly the Indians would love to trade one or both of those players, but it's very unlikely that will happen. Thus, the Indians will go into next season with two players in their mid-30s coming off bad years making huge money. Those two contracts have become albatrosses for the payroll-cutting Tribe. The best Indians officials can hope for is Wood getting off to a great start next season, perhaps setting the table for a potential mid-season trade, since by that time the remainder of Wood's salary would be about $5 million, which a contender, desperate for a closer, might be winning to take.

Hafner? It's unlikely he would ever be able to hit to the level that would make what's left of his contract attractive to another team.

After the deluge

2009-08-04T10:30:00.000-04:00

Now that the Indians have stripped their roster of most of their marketable assets and embarked on a full blown - even if General Manager Mark Shapiro refuses to acknowledge it as such - rebuilding of the roster, what is left for Indians fans, those still inclined to pay attention to the team, to watch for over the remainder of the season?

Unfortunately, most of the key players acquired in the many white flag trades made by the Indians are in the minor leagues. But one who isn't is Justin Masterson, the pitcher acquired from Boston in the Victor Martinez trade. Masterson is currently in the bullpen but the Indians intend to move him into the starting rotation in the not too distant future. Masterson is worth watching, because the Indians are obviously in need of starting pitching for next season, and they hope he can fill one of those spots in the rotation.

Jake Westbrook, speaking of next year, should be activated off the disabled list sometime in the next week or two. Westbrook is over a year removed from Tommy John surgery, and after exeriencing a recent setback in his rehab, he is back pitching again in the minor leagues. Because of his injury the Indians have gotten virtually noting out of Westbrook in the first two years of his three-year $33 million contract. Next year will be the final year of that contract, and the Indians are hopeful that he'll be a productive starter, and they can get some return for that $33million.

Carl Pavano could be pitching his way into a trade to another team by the end of this month or, beyond that, into a multi-year contract this winter. Pavano does not seem to be the kind of pitcher - older, and seeking a multi-year contract - the Indians would bring back next season, but stranger things have happened.

The Matt LaPorta vigil, meanwhile, continues. It remains one of the great mysteries of this lost season that the Indians have refused to recall LaPorta, who cost the Indians CC Sabathia last year, even after Shapiro himself, totally unprompted, told the media on June 27 that LaPorta would be recalled "very soon.''

Should the closer on a contending team get injured this month there is an outside chance that the Indians might get a call inquiring about Kerry Wood. Trades can still be made until the end of the month, with any players acquired still elgibibe for post-season play. But in order for any trade to be made, the player has to first pass through waivers unclaimed.

The Indians will probably, if they haven't already, put Wood's name on waivers, hoping somebody will claim him, so they can get out of the $11 million they owe him next year. That's a lot of money to be paying a closer on a team that doesn't figure to win again until 2011, at the earliest. Any contending team with a serious interest in acquiring Wood wouldn't have to worry about another contending team claiming Wood off waivers to prevent him from getting to the team that really needs him. Because all teams know that if any team puts in a claim on Wood, he's theirs. The Indians would be delighted to get out from under that contract.

So there ARE some plot lines for the last two months of this Indians' season. Unfortunately, however, an attempt to win their division is not one of them.

Here we go again

2009-07-29T11:24:00.000-04:00

The Indians have started to win some games. Unfortunately for them it has come after they played their way out of the division race. This is another distressing trend with the team. The Indians seem to perform the best when the pressure is at its least.

In each of the last two years the Indians have been considered one of the favorites to win their division. They have gotten off to horrendous starts. Those starts have been so bad that it has forced the front offic to make white flag trades. Then, and only then, after the team has conceded it won't be a contender, the performance of the team and its players has improved.

I don't know how the Indians can change this trend, but something needs to be done. Maybe they have to look at how they are preparing the team in spring training. Clearly the team hasn't been ready to start the season the last two years. The fact that the team only starts to play better when all expectations for the season have disappeared is a harder riddle to solve.

It would seem that changing some of the core players might be the best way to approaach that problem. Maybe the chemistry on the team has to change. Maybe there needs to be more and better leadership among the players. How do you teach players to play their best when expectations are high, instead of waiting until the expectations disappear before playing up to their expected level?

Those are some of a issues facing the Indians in a season that seems to have raised more questions than it has answered.

What's the point?

2009-07-23T09:47:00.000-04:00

In Wednesday night's game with Toronto, the Indians' starting right fielder was Chris Gimenez, a 26-year-old non-prospect, whose best-case scenario for a career in the majors is as a bench player. Meanwhile, Matt LaPorta and Michael Brantley, two legitimate prospects to be everyday players in the big leagues, who are excelling at the Class AAA level, remain at Columbus.

The Indians' lost season is a perfect chance to bring up prospects such as LaPorta and Brantley to begin their transition to the major leagues. Unfortunately for LaPorta and Brantley, Manager Eric Wedge is basically managing for his job in the second half of the season. Wedge needs to win as many games as possible to save his job.

So, with his job on the line, it's no surprise that Wedge has a reluctance to go with younger players. But it's also difficult to understand what's to be gained in the big picture by giving non-prospects playing time at the major league level when there are players at Class AAA who figure to have a greater impact on the big league club's future, but remain stuck at Class AAA in a lost season such as this.

Fasten your seatbelts

2009-07-15T22:18:00.001-04:00

As the Indians begin the second half of another lost season, be prepared for another bumpy ride. There are a lot of potential other shoes that could drop in the second half, beginning with the approach of the July 31 trade deadline. Will Cliff Lee be traded? Victor Martinez? Both? Neither? How about Rafael Betancourt or Jamey Carroll or Carl Pavano?

Don't be surprised if the Indians play better in the second half than the first. The history of this group is that they play well when it means the least. And the stakes couldn't be much lower for the American League's worst team. It would seem to be an ideal time to callup outfielders Matt LaPorta and Michael Brantley from Columbus, but with Manager Eric Wedge basically managing for his job in the second half, he may not be too keen on the notion of playing rookies when he needs to win as many games as possible.

The Indians will likely continue to keep the revolving door in the bullpen spinning, looking for someone, anyone, who can get some outs. Assuming they sign No.1 draft pick Alex White, the reliever from North Carolina, maybe they will even bring him to the big leagues for a trial, should he get off to a good start in his first few minor league appearances.

The rotation continues to be an open wound. Jake Westbrook is due back at some point in the second half, but what's the point of rushing him back? For this? Jeremy Sowers, the best five-inning starter in the minor league system, figures to be back sometime early in the second half. Maybe even Hector Rondon will get a look-see in the rotation.

Will Grady Sizemore's elbow blow out and necessitate season-ending surgery? What, by the way, is the point in having the face of the franchise playing everyday with a sore elbow during a lost season?

So many questions. So few victories.

Sticking with Wedge

2009-07-06T09:43:00.000-04:00

The decision by Indians general manager Mark Shapiro to announce that Manager Eric Wedge will remain on the job through the end of the season was not a popular one among many Indians fans, and understandably so.

You can only disappoint a fan base so many times before the fan base becomes convinced that changes, major changes, are necessary. In this case, firing Wedge would be a major change. However, Shapiro's reluctance to make an in-season change is understandable. Nothing smacks of organizational disarray more than firing your manager in the middle of the sesaon. And nothing reflects more poorly on a general manager than organizational disarray.

Firing a manager during the season gives the appearance of instability, creates even more uncertainty, and leads to endless speculation the rest of the year, assuming an interim manager is named, on who the next manager will be. In other words, firing a manager during the season can lead to even more distractions than not doing so.

The only good reason to fire a manager during a season is if it becomes clear that changing managers might actually lead to the team playing better and climbing back into contention in a division race. That certainly isn't the case with the Indians. Had Wedge been fired, whoever the interim manager would be would still be stuck with the same flawed roster with which Wedge is trying to win. The Indians don't necessarily have the wrong manager. They have the wrong roster. There simply isn't enough talent on the Indians' roster to win a division.

That said, I still believe there's probably a 50-50 chance the Indians change managers after the season. Wedge has been given a reprieve, not a mulligan, on this season. Unless there is a dramatic improvement in how the team plays in the second half of the year, Wedge's situation will heat up again immediately after the season, and it wouldn't be a surprise at all to see the Indians make a change then.

Beating the heat

2009-06-30T08:50:00.000-04:00

Eric Wedge has apparently dodged a bullet. For now. The embattled Indians manager may have beeen cut some slack in terms of his immediate job security. Now that the Indians have traded Mark DeRosa and essentially conceded they are incapable of competing for the division title many felt they were the favorites to win, it turns down the heat on Wedge, whose job is likely now safe for the remainder of the season.

Once the season is over, that could all change. Certainly it's to be expected the front office, including ownership, will take a look at the entire organization after this season, because there are clearly some changes that need to be made. This is the second consecutive year the Indians have been one of the favorites to win their division but by mid-season they were so far behind in the division race they began trading some of their veteran players.

Whether it's poor evaluation of players, poor exectution by those players, poor leadership by the manager or coaching staff, or poor player acquistion at the major league level and/or poor player development at the minor league level - all of that will presumably be put under the microscope by ownership following the season.

It's become obvious that there some changes need to be made in the way the Indians are operating. The only question now is what changes will be made, how many will be made, who will be effected, and how soon after the end of the season those decisions will be made.

On owning the Tribe

2009-06-22T23:57:00.000-04:00

As the Indians desperately try to avoid sliding not just out of sight in the AL Central race, but towards total irrelevancy for the remainder of the season, the pressure mounts on Indians owner Larry Dolan and his son Paul, the club president.

The current state of the Tribe is the biggest crisis faced by the Dolan family since they bought the team in 2000. It's bigger than the decision to fire Charlie Manuel as manager and begin a massive rebuilding of the organization. It's bigger than the free agent issues involving Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, C.C. Sabathia, Travis Hafner, and Jake Westbrook.

The current state of the Tribe is the biggest challenge the Dolans have faced as owner of the team because it is not one on which they necessarily can lean on General Manager Mark Shapiro for counsel. For most of the biggest baseball decisions they've made since buying the team, the Dolans have had Shapiro, and Eric Wedge, since the latter was hired as manager, as sounding boards for potential moves.

Now, however, it's the futures of Shapiro and Wedge themselves that have become issues, given the Indians' second consecutive trainwreck season. For the second year in a row the Indians were picked by many to not just win their division but possibly make it to the World Series. For the second year in a row the Indians won't even come close. For the first time in nearly 20 years the Indians are in danger of finishing in last place.

As owners of the team, the Dolans must ask some hard questions about what's wrong with the way the organization is being run. Two of the biggest decision makers on how the organization is being run are Shapiro and Wedge. The Dolans can't go to Shapiro and Wedge for advice on that. The futures of the general manager and the manager are decisions only the Dolans can make.

The Dolans have never before faced a situation quite like this. They must decide whether their team needs a new direction. They must decide if Shapiro and/or Wedge have had enough time to prove they are up to the job of building a championship team, or if it's time now to replace one or both. . . or neither.

Rock bottom?

2009-06-20T00:06:00.000-04:00

Friday's loss may not have been the Indians' worst of the season - the competition for that honor, so to speak, is extremely intense - but it's at least in the top five. Maybe the top 3.

When you have a 7-0 lead with the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner on the mound, you should probably win that game. The Indians lost that game, 8-7 in 10 innings. They lost the game because their bullpen is a lost cause. When Cliff Lee, pitching magnificently again, left the game in the eighth inning, the Indians were leading 7-2. All Lee was was asking from the bullpen was for six outs.

Instead, the bullpen blew sky high again and the Indians gave up four runs in the eighth inning, one in the ninth, and one in the 10th. Manager Eric Wedge tried most of what's out there, all the usual suspects - with the exception of Jensen Lewis (and how buried is he right now?) - but nobody could stop the bleeding.

The most revealing moment of the day, however, came before the game started, when Wedge was talking to the media about the decision to release reliever Greg Aquino. "We probably could have sent out two or three guys,'' said Wedge.

That's how bad the Indians' bullpen is right now. There is nobody that Wedge can count on, and that includes Kerry Wood, who has already given up five home runs in 24 innings after giving up only three homers in 66 innings in the entire 2008 season. Wood's problem, however, is he simply isn't sharp due to a lack of consistent work.

There are no such excuses that apply to the other relievers. Based on what we've seen so far, this has a chance to be the worst Indians bullpen in not years but in decades.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

2009-06-16T10:55:00.000-04:00

It was more than ironic to go from Cliff Lee's clinic on pitching during his three-hitter Sunday night over St. Louis to the four-alarm fire drill that was the Indians' chaotic 14-12 loss to Milwaukee Monday. Beyond the irony of having two such disimilar games on back to back nights, the two games displayed what will be the fatel flaw in the Indians' hopes of crawling back into the division race.

That flaw is the lack of a consistent, productive No.2 starter behind Cliff Lee. Ideally, of course, you'd like to have at least three productive starters at the top of your rotation. The Indians currently have one: Lee. The former No.2 starter, Fausto Carmona, is such a mess right now that the Indians sent him all the way back to rookie ball to try to get him straightened out. He won't be back anytime soon, and can't be counted on to contribute much, if anything, the rest of this season - if and when he does return.

Carl Pavano, Monday's starter, was a stretch as a No.3 starter. To presume he could assume the role of a No.2 is unreasonable. The way he's pitched so far this year is probably as good as the Indians can hope for. He's probably a .500 pitcher, at best, this year. That won't cut it as a No.2 starter. Jeremy Sowers, David Huff, and Tomo Ohka? Please.

Jake Westbrook and Aaron Laffey could be back in the rotation by the end of the month. But Westbrook is barely a year removed from Tommy John surgery. It's unrealistic to expect a pitcher in that situation to assume the heavy responsibilities that come with being a No.2 starter. Laffey is too young and inexperienced to fill that role.

What all this means, of course, is that no matter how much the Indians keep "grinding'' they simply don't have the starting pitching with which to make any kind of serious run towards contention. The only reason they are still marginally in the race is that the AL Central is so bad it's virtually impossible to fall OUT of contention. If the Indians were in any other division they would be mere afterthoughts in those races.

The lack of any consistent starting pitching behind Lee makes it impossible to take the Indians seriously as a contender this year. And it's also the number one reason why all those Cliff Lee trade rumors are utterly ridiculous. Imagine what this Indians rotation would look like this year, and next, without Lee.

Now that's a demotion

2009-06-05T22:27:00.000-04:00

The Indians tried everything else with Fausto Carmona. Friday they tried some shock therapy. The Indians sent Carmona to the minor leagues. The low minor leagues. How low? You can't get sent any lower than Carmona got sent. The Indians sent their struggling No.2 starter to the Arizona Rookie League. That's a league typically filled with first year professionals. That's how much work Indians officials apparently feel Carmona has ahead of him.

The numbers support that feeling. A 19-game winner just two years ago, Carmona is 2-6, with a 7.42 ERA. His earned run average over his last three starts is almost 20. How could Carmona go from so good two years ago to so bad this year? Part of it is that Carmona is a big man physically, and big pitchers are more prone to mechanical problems because of their size. Carmona also has a violent delivery, which frequently requires maintenance. Carmona is also a very emotional pitcher.

All of those are factors in Carmona's demise as a pitcher. The question now becomes, can Carmona be fixed, and how soon? The Indians' minor league staff will undoubtedly take their time with the big right-hander. Surely Indians Manager Eric Wedge and pitching coach Carl Willis don't want to bring Carmona back until they are reasonably sure he's ready to compete again at the major league level.

Until then, the Indians' starting rotation is Cliff Lee, Carl Pavano, and three shaky tomorrows. The bottom three spots in the rotation are currently manned by Jeremy Sowers, David Huff, and Tomo Ohka. My guess is we haven't seen the last change to that rotation.

Everybody hurts

2009-06-03T00:27:00.000-04:00

Never mind winning a game. The Indians can't even get through a game now without losing a player. Saturday it was Victor Martinez who went down with an injury. Sunday it was Rafael Betancourt. Tuesday it was Asdrubal Cabrera. They currently have eight players on the disabled list. If Cabrera, who suffered a shoulder injury Tuesday night, goes on the DL, that will make it nine players on the DL.

The list of injured players includes three of the top four hitters in the Indians' lineup: Cabrera, Grady Sizemore, and Travis Hafner, plus two pitchers _ Rafael Betancourt and Joe Smith _ who were supposed to be cornerstones of the bullpen this year.

So the Indians have a lot of injuries now, but let's not get carried away and blame all the losing on the injuries. The Indians were losing games before they started losing players. Losing players may make it more difficult to avoid falling further behind in the Central Division race, but let's be clear about this: the Indians are where they are not because of injuries, but because of underachieving players and a lack of performance teamwide. The injuries, obviously, don't help. But this was a bad team before it started having bad luck.

Carl Pavano?

2009-05-27T13:15:00.000-04:00

In case you missed it, Carl Pavano has more wins in the month of May than any pitcher in the major leagues. More than Johan Santana, more than Justin Verlander, more than this year's flavor of the month, Zack Greinke.

Pavano has won five of his six start this month for the Indians. Carl Pavano. Who knew? Who expected this? In his first start of the season Pavano gave up nine runs in the first inning. There was no second inning. Now he's 5-1 in May and the winningest pitcher on a staff that includes the regining American League Cy Young Award winner, Cliff Lee.

There some snickers when the Indians signed the perpetually injured Pavano to a low-risk one-year deal during the off-season. Who's snickering now? Pavano and Lee are the only ones holding the Indians' starting rotation together.

General manager Mark Shapiro said at the start of the season that for the Indians to contend they needed big years from the numbers one and two starters, Lee and Fausto Carmona. Shapiro may get those two big years from starters, but it might be Lee and Pavano instead of Lee and Carmona.

Bad idea

2009-05-20T06:30:00.001-04:00

There are certain times when managers must go against the book. Tuesday night was one of them. The Indians had a 5-2 lead after eight innings. They are paying closer Kerry Wood $10 million this year to close games. It was a save situation. So bring in your closer to pitch the ninth. A no brainer, right?

Wrong.

In that particular situation, Wedge owed it to starter Cliff Lee to allow him to finish the game. Lee, the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, had the game under control. He was leading 5-2, and was cruising to a much-needed win for himself and a desperately-needed win for the Indians.

Lee had only thrown 101 pitches. That's fewer pitches than he has thrown in any of his starts this season, with the exception of opening day. Lee also had an extra day's rest since his previous start. Put it all together _ a starter who is dominating the opposing team, a relatively low pitch count, and a pitcher working with an extra day's rest _ and there was no reason for Lee to be taken out of the game after the eighth inning, unless Lee said he was tired.

Another factor is Lee is the Indians' No.1 starter. The No.1 starter has earned the right to, within reason, finish any game in which he's in position to. Wedge owed it to Lee to allow him to finish that game. The Indians, moreover, had lost three games in a row prior to Tuesday. They had their ace, Lee, matched up against Kansas City's No.3 or 4 starter, Brian Bannister. Wedge also knows the Indians will be facing Zack Greinke - the best pitcher in the league thus far - in the final game of the series. That made winning the first game with his ace on the mound, an even bigger priority for Wedge.

The Indians were in a position to win Tuesday's game. Their ace was cruising, his pitch count was down, he was working with an extra day's rest. There was no reason not to allow him to finish. Had any of the Indians other starters been in that situation, it would have been justified to bring in the closer. But not with Lee. Not there. Not after Lee had been denied so many wins this season due to a lack of run support, and was, on Tuesday, in position to close out his own victory.

But instead Wedge removed Lee from the game, brought in closer Kerry Wood, and a few minutes later the Indians had lost four in a row.

Help wanted

2009-05-16T00:16:00.000-04:00

Luis Vizcaino Friday night made his first appearance out of the Indians' bullpen. It looks like he'll fit right in. Vizcaino's appearance lasted just six pitches. The last of those pitches was turned into a walkoff home run by B.J. Upton, handing the Tribe another excruciating loss, this one 8-7, to Tampa Bay.

Can it get any worse, any uglier for the Indians' bullpen? Probably not. In this loss the Tribe was unable to protect a 7-0 lead. Jensen Lewis probably punched his ticket to Columbus with another dreary outing. And what does it say about how buried Masa Kobayashi is in the bullpen that the Indians used a reliever signed off the street just 24 hours earlier - Vizcaino - ahead of Kobayashi?

The Indians in the offseason added two relievers in hopes of bolstering what was the worst bullpen in the league last year. Those two relievers were Joe Smith and Kerry Wood. Smith is on the disabled list, and Wood hardly ever pitches, because the relievers in front of him have been so bad they can't get the game to him.

Look for more bullpen moves in the next couple days. Lewis could be optioned to Columbus to make room for a starter who will have to be called up to make a spot start Sunday. Or the Indians could send Tony Sipp down. Or they might even release Kobayashi, which means they would eat what's left of his $3 million salary, ending what was one of the club's more ill-advised (two years, $6.25 million) contracts given to a free agent reliever.

Where's LaPorta?

2009-05-11T10:37:00.000-04:00

Since the Indians season began to go down the drain club officials have done some very uncharacteristic things. Start with the fact that they have already begun to make wholesale roster changes, and minor league callups. These moves have come far sooner than in any year since Eric Wedge became manager. They moved their No.4 starter, Aaron Laffey, to the bullpen, not because he was failing as a starter, but because the bullpen was so bad. That, again, is pretty much unprecedented since Wedge became manager. Usually, when a pitcher is pitching well in the rotation, he stays in the rotation.

It's clear the Indians are grasping at straws trying to figure out how to get the team winning again. Getting swept in a three-game series at home by Detroit, a series in which the Indians only scored three runs, adds a further sense of urgency to everyone running the team.

In the midst of all that, however, there have been some curious decisions by Wedge, relating to who is and isn't in the starting lineup. Outfieldre Matt LaPorta, for example, didn't get one at bat in any of the three games against Detroit. That's the same Matt LaPorta about whom Wedge said, "We brought him here to play,'' when LaPorta was recalled from Columbus.

Going into Monday night's game LaPorta had sat out four of the Indians' last five games, which makes no sense at all. As one of the Indians' top prospects, LaPorta needs to be playing every day, not sitting on the bench for a last place team with the worst record in the major leagues. If LaPorta isn't going to be in the Indians' lineup every day - which he should be - then he needs to be sent back to Columbus, where he can continue to develop by getting consistent playing time every day.

The way the Indians are currently using, or not using LaPorta, isn't helping him or them.

A bull with no horns

2009-05-06T22:59:00.000-04:00

Last week they made six roster moves in one day. Wednesday they moved the No.4 starter from the rotation to a setup role in the bullpen. All that from an organization that prides itself on its patience?

You've got to give this much to Indians officials: it's obviously broke, and they are trying to fix it. And they aren't wasting any time. That's how bad the bullpen has been. So bad that the front office is making moves a full month earlier than usual. During the Mark Shapiro administration the Indians typically wait until about the 40 game mark to make any judgments on the team. Not this year. When you've been in last place every single day of the season, when your longest winning "streak'' is two games, and you've only got one of those, it's time to start making moves, and plenty of them. What's the worst that can happen? You can't go any lower than last place.

Specifically, Indians officals are trying to fix a broken bullpen that has become a threat to sabotage the entire season. So far the bullpen has been even worse than last year, which is almost inconceivable. Wednesday they called up 39-year-old retread Matt Herges, who wasn't even pitching particularly well at Columbus. Why? Because they were getting tired of looking at bullpen by implosion.

Next, Indians officials moved one of their better starters, Aaron Laffey, not just into the bullpen but into a key spot in the bullpen: a setup role. A setup role that Laffey performed so well Wednesday night that he was allowed to be the closer as well, picking up a rare three-inning save.

They demoted the lost-at-sea Rafael Perez to Columbus. Jensen Lewis would probably already be at Columbus, if there were any options down there to replace him. Masa Kobayashi's job security can't be much better. Tony Sipp has already been overused and he's barely been on the team a week. Rafael Betancourt? He hasn't pitched well either, but it takes him so long to throw the ball it's not as apparent.

Jeremy Sowers will be called up Thursday to take the place of Laffey in the rotation, etc., etc., etc. If you're getting the idea the Indians are making this up as they go along, that's exactly what they're doing. They don't have much choice. The season is over a month old, and it is in danger of slipping away. It still could, unless the bullpen starts pulling its share of the load.

Like pulling teeth

2009-05-05T00:31:00.000-04:00

So let's see. The Indians are held hitless and scoreless for the first 6 1/3 innings Monday night, then score 9 runs on 15 hits in the next 5 2/3 innings. Kerry Wood, who was previously 5-for-5 in save situations, blows a save in the ninth inning. Rafael Betancourt, who previously was one of the problems, not one of the solutions, in the bullpen, pitches two scoreless innings, with three strikeouts and gets the win.

The Indians' 9-7 win in 12 innings over Toronto was the Indians' season in miniature. Wall to wall inconsistency. Alternating instances of poor performance followed by bursts of clutch play. It's the kind of hot and cold pattern of play that will make it almost impossible for the Indians to put together any kind of long winning streak. Winning streaks demand consistency. The Indians have no chance at the former until they master the latter.

All that inconsistency also makes managing the Indians extremely difficult, because there aren't many players on the roster whom Eric Wedge can count on for consistent performances from day to day. In short, this has been a nightmare start to the season for Indians officials, who are already making wholesale roster changes, which is against their nature. They typically are patient to a fault, waiting until the season is at least two months old before making any significant decisions or moves.

It's probably a measure of the degree of exasperation felt by club officials that they have been much quicker to pull the trigger on so many roster moves so early this year. That's what happens when winning games has become as difficult as pulling teeth.

Adam Miller

2009-04-29T07:43:00.000-04:00

The most tragic story involving the Indians thus far isn't their won-loss record or poor pitching. It's the plight of Adam Miller, who at one time was not only the brightest prospect in the Indians' minor league system, but one of the most promising prospects in any team's minor league system. Miller had it all. A perfect pitcher's frame, a blazing fastball that could at times push radar gun readings towards 100 mph, and a seemingly unlimited future.

Now his career is potentially over before he even pitched a single inning in the major leagues. Miller's career is in jeopardy due to, of all things, a freak finger injury. An injury so rare that nobody can recall any pitcher anywhere having the exact same injury. It's more typically a rock climbing injury, for crying out loud! Seriously.

It's a complicated injury to explain, suffice to say the ligaments and tendons in the middle finger of Miller's right hand are a mess. Tuesday he had surgery for the second time in less than a year on the same finger. The prognosis does not appear to be good. When club officials who are traditionally in the habit of spinning even the grimmest news in a positive light admit publicly that an injury could be a career-ender, you know it's bad. That's what Tribe officials have said about Miller - that his career is threatened by the surgery he underwent Tuesday.

If Miller never throws another pitch it will be a tragedy for the 24-year-old right-hander and another dose of bad luck for the Indians. Miller was a potential No.1 starter on a major league staff. And there aren't many pitching prospects in any organization that you can say that about. It's not out of the question, moreover, that Miller could have eventually moved into the role occupied now by Cliff Lee, when Lee leaves as a free agent, as he almost certainly will, in a couple of years.

Miller's major league career was set to begin this season, starting as a reliever in the Tribe bullpen, where he also could have eventually evolved into a closer. He appeared to be a budding Kerry Wood, to mention another Texas-born flame thrower who was drafted out of high school. A big career, and big money, was just around the corner.

But Miller's finger injury has changed all that. It's bad enough that it's a career-threatening injury. That it's a finger injury makes it even more frustrating. I mean, come on! How many athletes have you heard of who had their careers ended by a finger injury? Here's how cruel fate can sometimes be. Of all the jobs, all the professions, all the life styles in the world, the only one that would be this seriously affected by the kind of injury Miller has, which otherwise wouldn't be that big of a deal, was the one occupation Miller had: professional pitcher.

Sending a message

2009-04-26T18:59:00.000-04:00

It's always interesting to see how long a manager will wait before publicly criticizing his team. For Eric Wedge this year the answer was 18 games. That's how long it took for Wedge to blow his stack. It came after the Indians' 5-1 loss to Minnesota Saturday night. With that loss the Indians had scored one or no runs in there of their previous four games.

That, as Wedge likes to say, isn't going to get it done. So in his post-game meeing with the media, Wedge ripped his team's hitters, criticizing them, collectively, for their poor approach to hitting, and inability to generate any rallies or score runs. One of Wedge's biggest annoyances was his team's sudden lack of discipline. Counting that loss Saturday night Indians hitters had gone three full games and 26 consecutive innings without drawing a walk.

That's ridiculous.

Wedge thought so, too, which is why he chose to do something he is typically very reluctant to do, which is to publicly rip his team. In his six-plus years as manager of the Indians Wedge averages about one public scolding of his team per season. Usually, however, it comes in the second half of the season. It's very unusual for Wedge to lose his patience this early in a season. The explanation for that probably lies in the fact that the Indians in the previous four games looked so bad that Wedge felt he had to say something. But another explanation is that Wedge knows, and welcomes, the lofty expectations for the Indians this season.

Many so-called experts both in and out of Cleveland predicted the Indians would win their division this season. Through the first three weeks of the season, however, the Indians haven't looked anything like a team capable of winning its division. The pitching overall has been horrendous. The hitting was good for the first two weeks but awful the last week. Clearly Wedge feels the one facet of the team he needs to get consistent production from is the hitters. That should be the least of his worries this season.

But over the last week it has been the MOST of his worries. And that led to his rip job of the team Saturday night, which, by the way, was completely calculated by Wedge. When managers rip their teams they do so with a purpose. In this case Wedge wanted the Indians' hitters to read what he had said about them, hoping to shake them from their lethargy.

Did it work? Well, they scored four runs Sunday. You be the judge.

Yikes!

2009-04-21T23:30:00.000-04:00

Even when an Indians lead seems bullpen-proof, they have trouble closing out wins. It happened again Tuesday as the Indians were six outs away from a 6-1 lead when they went to their bulllpen, and before you knew it they were crawling across the finish line, escaing with a desperate 8-7 win.

Following the game the Indians recalled reliever Tony Sipp from Columbus. That roster move was made one day after Indians general manager Mark Shapiro said that there were no relievers at Columbus who were any better than what the Indians had in Cleveland.

Apparently all it took was one more day of watching the struggles of the big league bullpen to change the mind of Shapiro and other Indians officials. Sipp's arrival further emphasizes Manager Eric Wedge's pre-game revelation Tuesday that the formerly dependable Rafael Perez will no longer be used in an eighth inning setup role. At least not until Perez starts pitching closer to the level he was at the last two years when he was the Indians' most reliable reliever.

Sipp gives Wedge another left-handed reliever to use late in games, which they now need since Perez is being rolled into the garage for an overhaul. In the meantime, the rest of the bullpen isn't much better. Sipp could be the first of multiple roster moves inovloving relief pitchers. The Indians can ill-afford to wait around for their relievers to round into shape. The club is already off to a poor start. More poor work by the bullpen could threaten the Indians' ability to avoid dropping out of the division race almost before it begins.

New York, New York

2009-04-15T19:24:00.000-04:00

The Indians Thursday will help the Yankees open their modest little new ballpark in the Bronx. It will be CC Sabathia vs. Cliff Lee. After producing just one Cy Young Award winner in the first 50 years of the award, the Indians have now produced the last two. Of course, only one of them still currently works for the Indians. The other used his Cy Young Award as a trampoline to a seven-year $161 million contract that he signed as a free agent with the Yankees.

Let's think about that for a second. Let's say Sabathia stays with the Yankees for the entire seven years of his contract, and averages a normal starting pitcher's yearly workload, which is about 32 starts. Over those seven years the Yankees will play 1,134 regular season games. Sabathia, if he stays healthy, will start 224 of them. So in other words, the Yankees over the next seven years will pay Sabathia $161 million, even though he will not appear at all in 910 of the games the Yankees will play over the course of his contract. Talk about nice work, if you can get it.

It's good to be the Yankees. And it's good to be a Yankee. It's also not so bad to own the Yankees. In 1973 George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees for $10 million. In 2008 Forbes Magazine estimated the team's value at $1.3 billion.

Imagine what the Yankees would be worth if they had a mascot?

The return of Manny and Thome?

2009-04-13T21:08:00.000-04:00

It's not hard to imagine the cringing that went on in the Indians' offices Monday by Tribe officials over the story in USA Today in which Manny Ramirez was quoted as saying what a great idea it would be for him and Jim Thome to finish their careers in Cleveland. With all the problems the Indians have had getting out of the gate in the 2009 season, the last thing Tribe officials need is to have to react to a hot button issue such as this.

On the surface, bringing back Ramirez and Thome, both of whom could coneivably be free agents following the 2009 season, would undoubtedly be a wildly popular move among Tribe fans. Thome (334) and Ramirez (236) rank 1 and 3 respectively (separated by Albert Belle) on the Indians' all-time list for career home runs. Both are also 500-homer sluggers. The 38-year-old Thome ranks 14th on baseball's all-time list with 543 career home runs. Ramirez, 37, ranks 17th, with 527.

Imagine how formidable the first six spots in the Indians' lineup could look:

Grady Sizemore
Shin-Soo Cho
Victor Martinez
Manny Ramirez
Jim Thome
Jhonny Peralta
Travis Hafner

Of course there's just one minor detail. Where would everyone play? Hafner is the Indians' designated hitter. Thome is a designated hitter, and Ramirez SHOULD be a designated hitter. There's also the small matter of money. Ramirez's salary this year with the Dodgers is $25 million. Thome is being paid $13 million by the White Sox. In other words, Ramirez and Thome combined are making about half of what the Indians are paying their entire roster this year. Both players would have to give the Indians mammoth "home town'' discounts for the Indians to even consider signing them.

And even that wouldn't be enough to convince Tribe officials to grant Manny's apparent dream of him and Thome returning to Cleveland. Emotion has no part in the decision making process of General Manager Mark Shapiro and his assistant Chris Antonetti. Indians fans, without question, would react emotionally to the notion of Ramirez and Thome returning to Cleveland. It's fun to think about it and dream about it. But it has no chance of happening, because it's unrealistic on numerous fronts: logistically, economically, and socially.

That's right, socially. Manny being Manny, and all the separate rules and special treatment that frequently entails, is not, for that very reason, an Eric Wedge-type player. Thome being Thome is never a problem for a manager. Manny being Manny frequently is.

Still, the image of Thome and Ramirez in the Indians' lineup once again is one that would give any Indians fan pause. You're talking, after all, about two future Hall of Famers, a combined 1,070 home runs, and off-the-charts star power.

Delicious to contemplate? You bet. Realistically do-able? Not hardly.

Pitching, pitching, pitching

2009-04-06T22:13:00.000-04:00

A general rule of thumb in baseball is the team that wins on a given day is the team whose starting pitcher pitches the best that day. It was true again on opening day, in the Indians' disheartening 9-1 loss to Texas. Kevin Millwood totally outpitched Cliff Lee, and it wasn't even close. Millwood dominated a good hitting Indians lineup. The Indians only had five hits, all singles. Very rarely was a ball even hit hard. There weren't many Indians who even had comfortable-looking at bats.

Lee, on the other hand, looked a lot like he looked in spring training, although everyone in the Indians' clubhouse seemed to think he was better than spring training. Lee's biggest problem that he was unable to pitch out of jams. In the second inning he had two outs and had not allowed a run to score, but then gave up four two-out hits, two of which were two-run hits. Last year Lee rarely had to pitch out of jams, but when he had to, he did.

Given the makeup of their rotation, the Indians can't afford too many bad games by Lee, because he is now the ace, and aces are supposed to win the highest percentage of starts on the staff. Millwood is the Rangers' ace, and he looked like it. After Texas' four-run second inning there was never any point in the game when it looked like the Indians were going to get to Millwood. He was removed from the game not because the Indians were starting to figure him out, but because his pitch count got over 100.

Lee was removed because his pitch count was high, but also because he wasn't fooling many Texas hitters. It should be noted, however, that the Rangers also have a very good-hitting lineup. And on this day it was more than Lee could handle.

Opening day

2009-04-05T22:57:00.000-04:00

Can the Indians win their division? Yes. They could also finish fourth, or anywhere in between. It will all hinge on their starting rotation, unfortunately. Because this is probably, on paper, the weakest starting rotation the Indians have gone into a season with in several years. Cliff Lee is the only starter in the rotation from whom the Indians can be reasonably sure what they are going to get. That, obviously, is not good.

You could probably make the argument that the Indians have the worst starting rotation _ or at least the rotation with the most question marks _ in the division, including Kansas City. Indians officials feel they have the depth to overcome injuries or poor performance by their starters, but until a Jeremy Sowers, an Aaron Laffey, or a David Huff comes up and pitches consistently well at the major league level, the starting pitching depth they offer is more one of quantity than quality.

Think about it, the Indians are asking for positive outcomes from three spots in their rotation that are huge question marks: Carl Pavano and Anthony Reyes have injury histories, and Scott Lewis is a rookie. How many wins can the Indians reasonably expect to get from those three spots? Even Fausto Carmona is not a given. He's had one really good year and one not so good year as a starter at the major league level.

It's very difficult to contend for an entire season without a starting rotation that is reasonably productive. Three things happen if your starting rotation becomes an ongoing problem: your team ends up playing several games in which it gets blown out early, it causes you to overwork your bullpen, and all that, especially the loses, can be demoralizing to the team, especially to the hitters who feel like they have to score eight or more runs a game to give the team a chance to win.

In other words, the biggest worry for Indians officials going into the season is one they should rightfully be extremely worried about: their starting rotation. Because it could potentially be the downfall of their season.

Cliff and Koby

2009-04-01T22:42:00.000-04:00

Cliff Lee was horrible again on Wednesday, giving up seven runs in five innings during a 14-14 football game between the Indians and Mariners. Lee has been horrible all spring, or at least his numbers have been horrible. However, he seems to be happy with the way he's throwing, and so do Eric Wedge and pitching coach Carl Willis. They seem to think that the dry Arizona air that limits movement on breaking balls is hindering Lee's effectiveness. But they also seem inclined to give the reigning Cy Young Award winner the benefit of the doubt, and remain confident that once the bell rings Monday Lee will be fine.

However, Masa Kobayashi is another story. Wedge typically doesn't like to publicly show impatience with any of his players, but he is clearly growing weary of Kobayashi's up and down spring. When Kobayashi has been bad this spring, he has been really bad, such as Wednesday, when he gave up a single, double, triple, and home run to the first four batters he faced. I don't know if it's because he's facing tougher hitters in the major leagues than he faced in Japan, or whether, at age 34 - he'll turn 35 in May - he's just running out of gas. But there's never been any "wow'' factor for me when watching him pitch, either last year or this spring. Hitters seem very comfortable facing him, they rarely take bad swings, and he really has a hard time making any adjustments during an appearance. If he's bad when comes into a game, he tends to stay bad.

My guess is Indians officials will keep a close eye on Kobayashi in the first six weeks of the season. If he continues to struggle - he gave up some monstrous home runs at the worst possible time in many appearances last year - it wouldn't be a surprise if they tried to shop Kobayashi to other teams, or even consider releasing him. He's in the last year of his contract, though the Indians do hold an option for 2010 (yeah, right!), so they are only on the hook for the $3 million owed him this year. Like most managers, Wedge loathes relievers who are inconsistent because you never know what you're going to get from them when you bring them into the game. That's where Kobayashi is now, and that's why you probably won't see him pitching late in close games anytime soon.

Remain calm

2009-03-31T19:39:00.000-04:00

Don't overreact to the Scott Lewis implosion in Tuesday's game. Yes, it's the second consecutive egg laid by Lewis since he was told he had won a spot in the Indians' opening day rotation. But that's not an unusual spring training scenario for a young player. I've seen it happen several times in past springs. A player plays well enough to earn a spot on the roster, then as soon as he does his performance takes a dramatic turn for the worse.

Let's wait until Lewis gets a few starts into the regular season before passing any judgements. Even his 4-0 record last September is suspect because many baseball people will tell you the two worst times to evaluate players is spring training and September. That's not to say Lewis gets a pass going into this season. Far from it. In fact it wouldn't be a surprise to see Lewis struggle early this sesaon. If he does, the question then becomes how quickly can he make the necessary adjustments in order to improve his performance?

The last three spots of the Indians' rotation - Carl Pavano, Lewis, and Anthony Reyes - will bear watching all season. There are injury issues and lack of track record issues with those three pitchers that suggest that the Indians will likely need contributions from as many as eight or nine different starting pitchers this year in order to remain in contention all season.

A few notes off the top

2009-03-31T12:27:00.000-04:00

Reliever Edward Mujica, who did not make the opening day roster, is out of minor-league options, meaning the Indians will have to put him on waivers at the end of the week, and can outright him to Columbus only if he clears waivers unclaimed. The 24-year-old Mujica was 3-2 with a 6.75 ERA in 33 appearances for the Tribe last year.

The Indians announced that the team's home opener April 10 vs. Toronto is officially a sellout. It's the 16th consecutive opening day sellout at Progressive Field since the ballpark opened in 1994.

Although the Indians have finalized their 25-man opening day roster Wedge said the club will take infielders Graffanino, Wilson Valdez, and Andy Marte, plus catcher Damaso Espino with them to Houston, for the final two spring training games Friday and Saturday at Houston. Those four players will then report to Columbus.

In today's final spring training home game at Goodyear, the Indians will host Seattle. Scott Lewis will start for the Tribe. Also scheduled to pitch are Joe Smith, Masa Kobayashi, and Jensen Lewis. Chris Jakubauskas will start for the Mariners.