Game 57: Red Sox 3, Indians 2

I guess the Indians lost tonight. Hell, I don't know. I was eating tapas at a work-mandated event! The box score is pretty indecipherable. David Huff went 6 innings with no earned runs. It looks like he K'd 6 Red Socked Players but he lived in the air. He surrendered 3 runs as a result of some terrible Trevor Crowe error. No big surprise there: Crowe's centerfield has never gotten a lot of play with scouts and even my untrained naked eye can tell he's a butcher.

So, whatever, the Indians lost. Shelley Duncan hit a homerun so Ryan will be super pumped about having him under control through his age 44 season (accounting for manipulation of his sweet-16 status). Point being, you could spend all day tomorrow being surly to coworkers because we lost to the Red Sox or you could realize this was about as good a night as one could ask for at a non-major league level.

• Carlos Santana cranked another HR out of Huntington Park, piling more kindling onto Lou Marson's funeral pyre (hey, nice 0-2, Lou! See you in hell!). Santana is now 3rd in the International League (can somebody remind me what's "international" about a baseball game between Columbus and Rochester?) sitting behind two first basemen, one of whom is named Chris Richard but did not win a basketball championship at the University of Florida, and both of whom are on the Durham roster (how is that even possible?). Santana also leads the IL in BB's by a considerable margin (7) and is the only player at the top of the leaderboard with a BB:K over 1.0 (that means he has more BB's than K's for the trogs in the audience). In case you hadn't noticed this bullet point was the commemorative Joe Posnaski (parenthetical) bullet point (cringe). 
• Alex White didn't pitch particularly well but he didn't give up an earned run either. When Huff doesn't give up an earned run but still loses, I roll my eyes. When White doesn't give up an earned run but walks 5, I make excuses. White's ERA at AA is a miniscule 1.40, he recorded 11 GO's in 6 innings tonight, and I'm sure had I been there I could say he "battled" and you wouldn't be able to argue because, dude, I was there. Regardless, I'm not going to complain that we've got a first rounder pitching well in AA considering the other recent first rounders I can remember are either dropping balls in Cleveland's CF, missing fingers, or...
• Sowers got lit up again tonight for Columbus, appearing in relief for an ineffective Laffey. If this doesn't make you smirk a little at this point, c'mon, grow a sense of humor. Sowers is the firstborn that the parents totally screwed up and he's got way more successful young siblings (named Lonnie and Alex), so when Jeremy crashes his new Dodge Neon you just shrug. Lonnie and Alex can probably fix it with a bottle of Drano and guile. At least we hope that's the case: for all we know they'll be huffing Tilex with Jeremy out in some Franklin county field in a year.
  
• Speaking of the Chiz, he went 2-4 with a homerun and a walk. His OPS in his last 10 games is over 1.100. The fact that Santana and Chisenhall are both intact and dominant is thrilling. Chisenhall's numbers are rock solid across the board, with a 15:17 BB:K and an ISO over .120. His MILB.com photo makes it look like he has rosacea, which makes me nervous that he might be a 1920s-style drunk, but other than that I feel pretty good about the kid. 
• Jason Kipnis of Kinston is also on-fire, going 3-4 with 3 2Bs tonight. Kipnis is wearing a 1.132 OPS sportcoat over his last 10 games. The concern here is that the young man flails against lefties (.699 OPS) but he appears to be pretty well stuck at second base and, if you're wondering, my take on his photo is that he looks like a cross between Freddie Prinze Jr. and a caveman.   
  
• Don't look now but here comes the fat man. That's probably an overstatement: I'm not convinced Omar Aguilar is either all that fat or all that good but the K numbers are a lot of fun. Aguilar struck out 3 in 2 innings of relief for Alex "ultimate gamer" White. 
• Beau Mills is awake. Lolz. Kidding. Not at all. But Weglarz went 3-5 with a 2B as he finds his sea legs in AAA. Get it? He's a Clipper. Right? Sea legs? Fine, I'll try something else. Brantley went 5-5. All groundballs. None pulled. Any better? Didn't think so.
  
• Since I can't end a nice bullet run with a cruel joke, I'll just share with you a little guy I like to call Jose "The Founder of The Republic" Flores who has appeared out of thin air and started striking fools out at Lake County. ¡Viva La Venezuela!

There are a whole slew of Cleveland fans who just don't get it. They don't get what a razor thin margin is being worked with here, they don't understand the valuation of major players or prospects, and they don't get how perfect this organization has to be. I'm not saying the organization is perfect. I'm not even ready to say it's approaching competence. I'm just saying there's a lot to follow on the farm as a result of Shapiro's noted horse-trading prowess and the decisions of whoever's pulling the levers on the draft this day. And, as it is draft day, that person did some more pulling today and I, for one, choose to be excited about that instead of sort of perplexed by whatever David Huff did.