The college world series?

Yes, that would be an eye-opener for anyone who quickly reads headlines. I can hear someone say now, “How could the Indians trade Grady within their own division? Oh, Scott Sizemore?! Who is that? Is he related to Grady?”

Was I the only one who was totally nonplussed by Scott Sizemore?

I’ll make the counter-argument.

Perez has had three bad outings — but that’s all. That middle outing, it was single, walk, groundout. Not the end of the world.

Prior to those three outings, he had four good outings in a row, retiring 14 batters while allowing two walks, two singles and two doubles. That’s not too bad.

Hasn’t let any inherited runners score.

Perez can get a lot lower than this, and as a lefty who has dominated in the past, he’s going to get picked up.

the way i look at it, lewis has an option, so use it in cases like this. next year, he gets the perez treatment. wait till you’re positive, then expose him to waivers.

Why don’t you like Ambriz?

I too wondered what dgcambridge is asking – Ambriz just got here, has a good arm, and has been halfway (or more than halfway) decent in his limited outings. There’s really no reason why you would offer him back to Arizona now – if that would be the case, why pick him in the Rule 5 Draft to begin with, just so we could make a pick? (And that’s certainly not the case, since we hadn’t picked a Rule 5 player in how many years?) Personally, I’d let Jamey Wright go right now before Ambriz – yes, he’s gotten some DP groundballs, but how many outings has he given up runs, especially critical runs, late in games? Additionally, he falls behind too many hitters and doesn’t have great stuff to make up for that lack of command. Plus, Wright is not a long-term answer anyway; Ambriz COULD be.

I’m certainly not saying that Ambriz is the next Johan Santana or even a future Indian (but has more of a chance to be around in 2011 than Wright does), but I wonder if some in Minnesota questioned whether Santana would amount to anything when he was picked in the Rule 5 Draft several years ago. In other words, don’t write off Ambriz that quickly, especially with the way our bullpen has been – outside of Perez and Sipp, the others have had their ups-and-downs (even Perez and Sipp have too, but not to the extent that the others have had), even Lewis.

Lewis started off better than I expected, but lately, he’s been showing those tendencies of falling behind the hitter, then leaving the ball over the plate and his giving up hits, seemingly in bunches. It hasn’t happened in many games to this point, but he hasn’t been quite as sharp as he was earlier in the season, and with his decreased velocity, his margin for error isn’t as great as it was in 2007. Plus, they can send him back to Columbus without losing him, which is not the same for Perez.

Certainly, you could make the argument that Perez should be the one to go, and if Perez is lost that it is no longer a big deal, but probably the Indians don’t want to take that road yet, hoping he’ll regain at least some of his old form. Reports seemed to indicate that his slider had regained its bite and I believe he actually had a few solid outings early this season, but then the wheels came off again for some unknown reason. Add in the fact that he is left-handed, and that’s probably all the more reason why the Indians aren’t quite ready to release Perez yet.

At about 3:19, I thought of that joke and wished I had used it.

harmonic convergence

Maybe we should try panic moves.

There seems to be a decent argument for all of them going down.

This is it really, they made the safe move sending down the guy with the option, but I don’t think anyone should be defending a reliever who has allowed 9 walks in 10.1 innings pitched. Ambriz in his four innings has four strike outs and no walks allowed. Perez is just as bad as Lewis in walks per innings pitched, but as mentioned Lewis has the option left. Taking everything into consideration, I think an argument can be made that Aaron Laffey has been our best reliever thus far.

well, i think that part has to do with his girlfreind