This week:  5-2 Overall:  19-19 Scoring:  32-13 Old Mood:  3.1 New Mood:  4.5

W L % GB Minnesota 20 17 .540 - Cleveland 19 19 .500 1.5 Chicago 18 19 .486 2.0 Kansas City 16 21 .432 4.0 Detroit 16 22 .421 4.5

The series:  Visited the Yankees (win, win, loss) and hosted the Blue Jays (win, win, win, loss).

The big story:  The team put together a strong week behind a dominant rotation, but the daily lineups wore the strange hue of a series of odd decisions — moves that occasionally excited but more often puzzled, or even smelt of desperation.

Newly promoted Ben Francisco was used in all seven games, including five starts, performing similarly to (and not demonstrably better than) the man he replaced, who was traded to Pittsburgh for (we can guess) something in between a bag of balls and a case of bats.  Slight-hitting Jason Tyner was also promoted, adding to our already overstocked cupboard of weak-hitting outfielders, or perhaps more accurately subtracting by addition.  Even more strange than Tyner's promotion was his being given a start immediately upon his arrival.  We have four better-hitting outfielders — five if you count Blake — most of whom are also good or great defenders, so what was the point of this?

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it, unless it was to send the other players a message, something along the lines of:  "You guys suck so bad, we might as well be playing Jason freakin' Tyner.  That's right, you guys, it's that bad.  Our hitting is as pathetic as the goddam Twins now."

And then there's Andy Marte, long buried at the end of the bench, who shockingly got three starts this week — and yet already has fewer at-bats this season (22) than Ben Francisco (25), who has been on the roster only 11 days compared to Marte's 43.  Some guys just have to play, apparently, and some guys don't.  (See full screed.)  It's a good thing we don't have to understand these decisions, because who could?

In other news:  Cliff Lee ascended to a new level of other-worldly Chuck Norrissitude, leading a rotation that allowed just nine runs in seven starts, including five games allowing one run or zero.  Five!   Five starts allowing one run or zero!  This week alone!  Since April 17, Indians starters have allowed just 35 runs in 23 games, good for a 2.07 ERA.  Sabathia even managed to climb out of the ERA cellar, having needed four excellent starts to get his ERA down to 6.55 — still awful, but good enough to surrender the "lead" to Nate Robertson at 6.64, of our alleged rivals the Detroit Tigers.  (Happily, the bottom five also includes two other Tigers, Justin Verlander at 6.43 and Kenny Rogers at 5.82.)

Asdrubal Cabrera delivered a stunning series of defensive gems in a two-game stint at shortstop, but he made history when he returned to second base last night, turning just the 14th unassisted triple-play in the history of major league baseball.  Rather than save the ball for himself or for the Hall of Fame, AbaCab casually flipped the ball to some fans sitting behind the Indians dugout as he jogged in from the field — just another routine play, I guess.

Post of the week:  Okay, maybe let's start using that recommend-until-it's-green thingy.  And no, I'm not eligible, thank you.

Who fed it: Cliff Lee pitched 16 scoreless innings, starting a new streak perhaps to rival his previous 27-inning tear.  Carmona and Laffey provided another 16 scoreless innings, Carmona's in a complete game shutout, the quartet of Perez-Lewis-Julio- Breslow contributed eight more, and man, that is just a lot of scoreless innings.  Julio has been pounding on the door of the Circle of Trust, having retired 22 batters since the last time he allowed a run (April 16) while allowing just two singles and two walks.  Breslow meanwhile was fighting just to have his existence recognized, appearing in just his second game in the past four weeks.  Casey Blake had the best offensive line of the week with a 912 OPS, though that was more of a reflection on the team's hitting than anything else.  Sizemore hit another two home runs, matching his pair from last week, and has a 1063 OPS over his last dozen games.  And, well, that's about it for the hitters.  How did we ever score 12 runs in that one game?  Absolute Best:  Lee.  Relative Best:  Lee.

Who ate it:  Garko was the worst-hitting starter this week by far, with just two singles, a double and the obligatory HBP to show for 19 trips to the plate.  He bears an atrocious .140/.219/.175 line over his last 16 games, with as many strikeouts, double-plays and sac-flys (14) as times on base (also 14).  I can't tell if we're supposed to consider Francisco a bench guy or not, but if we assume that he isn't one, then the bench (Carroll, Shoppach, Marte and Tyner) was unbelievably awful this week — 4 for 43 awful, .093/.152/.093 awful — often frustrating Wedge's attempts to shuffle the lineup and give extra days off to his  struggling sluggers, i.e., half the roster.  You know who else sucks?  Rafael Betancourt, whose ERA is something around 9 since being anointed the closer, I can't even stand to look it up.  Absolute Worst:  Garko.  Relative Worst:  Betancourt.

The other guys. false alarms and open questions:   Will return next week; I kind of got sidetracked by the whole Marte thing.

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Cliff Lee	.706	Rafael Betancourt	-.456
Unassisted Triple Play	.185	Kelly Shoppach	-.149
		Asdrubal Cabrera	-.127

99 years ago, Cleveland shortstop Neal Ball made the first unassisted triple play in AL history. Bill Wambsganss made the second one during the 1920 World Series. And tonight Asdrubal Cabrera made just the 14th unassisted triple play (including postseason) in MLB history. Because so much has to go right, it's an extremely rare play. But everything game together tonight. As mentioned above, the Blue Jays were desperate to score a run, so they put the runners in motion with nobody out. If Asdrubal Cabrera wasn't covering second, Lyle Overbay's line drive would have scored a run, and might have lead to a big inning. But because everything fell into place, Cabrera was in the perfect position to catch the sinking liner, though it wasn't a routine catch. But after he got up with the ball, all that remained was to tag second (to double up Kevin Mench, who took off for third) and tag Marco Scutaro (to double up Marco Scutaro, who had just arrived from first).

And the pitcher who watched Cabrera make three outs behind him? Cliff Lee, who saw his magical start to the 2008 season continue. Even with his Nintendoesque pitching stats, maintaining an ERA under 1.00 requires at least some good fortune. Besides the historic triple play, Franklin Gutierrez made a game-saving diving grab in the ninth to assure Lee of at least a no-decision. But still, Lee threw what normally would have been a shutout, striking out five, walking two, and allowing seven hits in nine innings of work. He wasn't on the top of his game; he had to work himself out of several jams, which in my mind was impressive than his first couple dominant outings. He's now pitching unpredictably, that is, using any of his pitches in any count. Lee's hot streak will inevitably end, but when it does, I don't think this new Lee will entirely disappear.

But despite the rare play and almost as rare pitching streak, Toronto finally broke through and won the game in the tenth. The Jays had had opportunities all game long, but finally capitalized off Rafael Betancourt. Two singles to open the game set the inning up; the second hit Betancourt flush just above his left elbow. After a sacrifice, leading to a intentional walk, Toronto scored the game's first run with a no-doubter sacrifice fly. The game was put away by Aaron Hill's two-run single.

 

 

 

 

This week:  2-3 Overall:  14-17 Scoring:  15-18 Old Mood:  5.2 New Mood:  3.1

W L % GB Minnesota 16 14 .533 - Chicago 14 16 .467 2.0 Cleveland 14 17 .452 2.5 Kansas City 14 17 .452 2.5 Detroit 14 19 .424 3.5

The series:  Hosted the Mariners (loss, win, win) and the Royals (loss, loss).

The big story:  The lineup suffered a massive power outage from every player except Sizemore, as our other 12 "hitters" combined for zero home runs, zero triples and just nine doubles over 145 at-bats — and incidentally only 11 walks over 163 plate appearances — for a .262 slugging percentage.  (The major league average last season was .422.)  Our middle infielders produced just one single in 30 at-bats.  Blake and Hafner combined for just four hits, though all were doubles, in 29 at-bats.  The other four regulars (Martinez, Garko, Gutierrez and Dellucci) went the "empty batting average" route, hitting a solid .294 but combining for just three doubles and three walks between them.

The team's curious response was to jettison Jason Michaels in favor of Ben Francisco.  Curious, because after a horrendous 3-for-33 start in the team's first 15 games, Michaels had posted an 880 OPS over the past 16 games and was not part of the team's problems in any visible way.  Curious, because Michaels has a very team-friendly contract.  Curious, because Francisco had gotten off to an equally slow start in Buffalo and had made less of a rebound.  Curious, because the two players bring a very similar mix of skills to the roster.  Curious, because most in the industry expect Francisco to be a role-player or fringe everyday player, just like Michaels.

Curious, in sum, because it's not clear the Indians have done anything at all except replace one face with another, and usually, that kind of superficial move is reserved for the manager's job.  But, you know, they say you can't start a fire without a spark.  I guess.  Whatever.

In other news:  The rest of the rotation also continued to dominate, allowing just one earned run all week before the 7th inning, capped off by Aaron Laffey, who tossed an even better Sunday gem than he did last week, making the Indians look smart for not taking an easy chance to skip his turn in the rotation.  Paul Byrd continued a totally unpublicized four-game tear in which he's given up four home runs but only six runs total, and just one walk total, averaging 6.6 IP with a 1.71 ERA.  Garko more or less broke out of a hellacious 0-for-24 slump.  Wedge seethed a lot.  Betancourt was less than inspiring, failing to record a scoreless appearance in three tries.

Meanwhile, over on the Bizarro Planet, Cliff Lee was untouchable for six more innings before finally ending his un-scored-upon streak at 28 innings — giving up a three-run bomb, reducing his outing to a mere quality start, and ballooning his ERA all the way up to 0.96, still easily the best in the majors this season.  Like two regressions passing in the night, Sabathia's start was eerily similar to Lee's, beginning with six scoreless innings and ending with three straight hits to start the 7th.  Sabathia pitched well overall but still owns the league's worst ERA at 7.51.

Post of the week:  Maybe I need to rethink this.

Who fed it:  Byrd pitched the best game of the week, allowing just four singles and one walk.  Two of those five baserunners were erased trying to steal second, and none of them ever reached second.  Byrd retired the leadoff batter in all eight innings, and only two batters reached base with less than two outs.  Laffey was nearly as good in his start, allowing just one unearned run on four singles and two walks.  Sizemore busted out a 1311 OPS, including as many extra bases (nine) as the rest of the roster combined, and as many walks (five) as the four corner positions plus DH and catcher.  Perez had an odd but successful week, at one point earning a "Hold" without facing a single batter; he faced four batters over three other games, producing three groundballs and one flyball, resulting in a single and three outs.  Jensen Lewis allowed no hits and one walk over 4.1 innings, and Tom Mastny struck out one guy and allowed another to reach on a groundball error, the only two batters he's faced in the last 19 days. Absolute Best:  Sizemore.  Relative Best:  Byrd.

Honorable mention:  in his final start as an Indian (and only start of the week), Jason Michaels hit a double and a sac fly.  The next day, he scored the 11th inning game-winner as a pinch-runner in his final game here.  Not as dramatic as a farewell home run, but a fitting send-off for a role player who always seemed to be working his ass off out there.

Who ate it:  It's been feast-or-famine almost every week for Peralta, and this week, it was an all-out 0-for-13 famine.  Cabrera was nearly as bad at 1-for-16.  Blake's strikeouts (six) were double his times on base (three); he's played every inning of the last nine games, producing a line of .100/.206/.167.  Betancourt, filling in capably for Borowski, yielded two home runs and four singles while retiring only five batters.  Hafner hit two doubles in one game but went 0-for-10 in three others; he's struck out 14 times in his last 56 trips to the plate, hitting just four singles and four doubles and drawing only five walks for a line of .167/.250/.250.  Breslow totally crapped the bed in his only appearance in the last 19 days.  Absolute Worst:  Peralta.  Relative Worst:  Betancourt.

The other guys:    The Twins surged while the White Sox struggled and the Tigers scuffled.  The division more than ever looks like it will go to any team that can manage anything close to 90 wins, as the Tigers' pitching and the Indians' hitting look no more likely to come together than the White Sox or Twins going on a big flukey run.

False alarms:

• Not one single hitter having a good year by his own standards.
  
• Betancourt, terrible.
• Roger Clemens, apologizing for something.
• Not one formidable opponent in the AL Central.

Open questions:

• Can the starters walk on water long enough for the lineup to regroup and win a few games?
  
• Is there something fundamentally wrong with the organizational approach to hitting, and how long can Derek Shelton keep his job?
  
• When Cliff Lee returns to reality, what will that look like?
  
• Which teams are really in the AL Central race, anyway?
• Just how bad will the game have to be going before we see Mastny or Breslow again, and how bad will they be after a 15-day layoff?
• Too soon to write Laffey's name into our starting rotation plans, 2009-2013?
  
• Can Betancourt regain anything remotely resembling his 2007 dominance for any amount of time, or will he scuffle back-and-forth all season as he did in 2006?
• Is Jensen Lewis back on track, sort of?
• How many relievers would have to be failing completely for Adam Miller to get the call to the big-league bullpen?  Do we even want to see him there?
• Could Sowers be on the block soon?
• Could the Indians really consider Marte more or less expendable and Blake more or less untouchable?
• Really?

 

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Paul Byrd	.540	David Dellucci	-.248
Asdrubal Cabrera	.479	Rafael Betancourt	-.182
Travis Hafner	.233	Casey Blake	-.152

This was one of those game which would have been devastating had the Indians not won it. Paul Byrd pitched into the eighth inning, allowing no runs. Of course, the Indians only had a one-run lead, but there was only the matter of Rafael Betancourt pitching the ninth. Right?

Well, the run wasn't really due to Betancourt's pitching. Ichiro singled to start the inning, but after that it was the Cleveland defense that pushed the run home. Betancourt first threw a wild pitch, which if you've seen Rafael pitch you'd be shocked at. Then Ichiro attempted to steal third, and Victor Martinez got off a good throw. Too bad we'll never know if he would have thrown Ichiro out or not, since Casey Blake didn't catch the throw. The ball went down the third base line, and just like that the game was tied. Victor's feed was slightly off-center, and Blake tried to catch and tag in the same motion. Even if Ichio is safe, he's still on third, and given how both offenses hit, it was not a given that they'd get the runner in with less than two outs.

So the game went to extra innings. Enter Masa Kobayashi, who on the first pitch of the inning grooved a fastball to Richie Sexson, Now the Indians were down 2-1, and Seattle closer JJ Putz started to warm in the bullpen. The same guy who lead baseball in WXRL  last season (Betancourt was second). As it turned, it wasn't a good game to be a very good reliever, for Putz struck out Travis Hafner to start the inning, but then allowed three straight base runners to load the bases. Then he walked Grady Sizemore to force in a run and the tie the game. He struck out Casey Blake and David Dellucci to extend the game, though.

The Indians won the game in the eleventh in a similar fashion off of Mark Lowe and Sean Green. After Victor Martinez flied out, Jhonny Peralta walked, Travis Hafner doubled against the no-doubles defense, and Jamey Carroll reached via a HBP. This time, however, the big play came with two outs. Franklin Gutierrez struck out, leaving everyone to gnash their teeth at the probability that the Indians would leave the bases loaded again. But Asdrubal Cabrera lined a single to right and those depressing thoughts evaporated quickly away.

 

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Grady Sizemore	.230	Rafael Betancourt	-.461
David Dellucci	.230	Jhonny Peralta	-.288
Fausto Carmona	.117	Andy Marte	-.126

The Indians have been impersonating an NL team for a couple weeks now: bunting early and often, relying on one or two guys to actually hit for power, and praying that the pitching staff gives them a chance to win scoring two or three runs. We can discuss how Rafael Betancourt blew the game in the ninth, but the root cause of this stinking morass of an April starts and ends with the offense. The power isn't there (12th in AL SLG), and the on-base is below average (8th). No regular is slugging over .500, and only three regulars have an OBP over .350. This plodding lineup is currently hitting like light-hitting smallballers, obviously not a good combination.

As to tonight's game, Fausto Carmona didn't pitch that well, but his stuff is such that even when he's not throwing strikes he can get outs by virtue of the movement on his pitches. He's walked, including tonight, 26 in just over 34 innings. How he's only given up 12 runs in those innings is testament to both stuff and luck. And while his stuff should remain consistent, luck won't; allowing that many baserunners, even considering his ability to induce the double play, will eventually catch up to him.

I guess one of the positives of tonight's game was that we got to see Andy Marte again. It took Ryan Garko going into a major slump to get him a start, though.  Counting tonight, he's made 16 plate appearances in 27 team games, which is not doing any interested party any good. Andy doesn't get regular at-bats, he obviously can't go down to AAA (not that that would accomplish anything anyway), so he's in an overwhelmingly difficult position. The front office isn't going to learn anything one way or the other, which will put them in a quandry when they have to make a decision about third base in the offseason.

 

This week:  5-2 Overall:  12-14 Scoring:  38-20 Old Mood:  2.9 New Mood:  5.2

W L % GB Chicago 14 10 .583 - Cleveland 12 14 .462 3.0 Minnesota 11 14 .440 3.5 Kansas City 11 14 .440 3.5 Detroit 11 15 .423 4.0

The series:  Visited the Royals (win, win, win) and hosted the Yankees (win, win, loss, loss).

The big story:  There were several, and perhaps the biggest was simply that we had a strong week, winning five of seven to move into second place.   But the most significant development for the 2008 season going forward was C.C. Sabathia's total U-turn from trainwreck to dominant starter.  Sabathia gave up just one run over 14 innings, striking out 11 hapless Royals in the first game and tossing an 8-inning gem in which only five Yankees reached base in the second.  This pair of consecutive starts was one of the best of Sabathia's career, surpassed in 2007 only by his back-to-back shutouts in June.  At the same time, his first four starts were so horrendous (13.50 ERA) that even after the extreme two-start bounce-back, his ERA is still the worst in the majors at 7.88 – even worse than Barry Zito's.  Sabathia's excellence ended up being of no real immediate consequence, as the Indians turned the first one into a 15-1 rout, then handed Sabathia a tough 1-0 loss in the second.

In other news:  Jake Westbrook unexpectedly went on the Disabled List with a lower-back muscle strain.  Initially expected to miss only a few starts, he's now expected to be out for a full month after his symptoms persisted for a full week.  His injury, combined with a rain-delay-induced double-header, resulted in a flurry of call-ups and send-downs as the Indians played with an extra outfielder for a few days (Ben Francisco), swapped out for a spot starter (Jeremy Sowers) on Saturday, swapped out for another extra outfielder (Brad Snyder) on Sunday, and finally on Monday swapped out for Aaron Laffey, who will join the rotation at least for the following week.  Both starters made fine 2008 debuts against the Yankees, with Laffey looking significantly stronger than Sowers even though the box scores will claim the opposite.

Lee deepened his improbable run as the game's most effective pitcher with a complete game shutout, as the national media joined Indians fans in collectively dropping their jaws.  The lineup blew up for 24 runs in the first two games but then fizzled with just 14 runs in the next five, a trend led by Casey Blake, who posted a 2125 OPS in two games against the Royals but just a 350 OPS starting all four games against the Yankees.  The post-Borowski bullpen started to come together as Kobayashi asserted himself with a few strong setup performances while Betancourt breezed through his first two Save opportunities, making the closer's job look suspiciously un-different from his old setup-man gig.

Adam Miller finally made his official 2008 debut in Buffalo, following a few weeks rehabbing a blister and a few weeks in extended spring training.  Miller pitched nine scoreless innings in two starts while continuing to build up his pitch count, and his velocity was intact even if his peripherals weren't.  Miller's return, coupled with Brian Slocum's solid start, suggests that the Indians remain an absurd eight-deep in big-league-ready starting pitchers, even after putting Westbrook on the DL and shipping Sean Smith off to Colorado.  At the same time, David Huff, 39th overall draft pick in 2006, overcame a rocky first two starts to pitch his third straight gem for the Akron Aeros, allowing just one run (on a solo shot) and 13 baserunners against 19 strikeouts over the three games, and he picked off a couple guys, too.  If Huff continues to emerge, that may further tempt the Indians to move Miller into the big-league bullpen.

Post of the week:  Now taking nominations.

Who fed it: Sabathia dominated in two starts while Lee was near-spotless in his one.  Julio excelled in two low-leverage outings, while Kobayashi and Betancourt settled into their new roles; the three relievers faced 32 batters and got 29 outs, including two erased on double-plays, and allowed no one past first base.  Blake had the best all-around numbers of any hitter on the week but was abysmal against the Yankees.  Victor batted .375, achieving a 902 OPS on the week with (once again) no home runs.  Dellucci and Peralta each combined a solid average with a pair of home runs.  Seemingly competing for at bats, Michaels and Gutierrez both accounted for a major chunk of our otherwise anemic offense against the Yankees, the former batting .400 while the latter slugged .600, and they looked damned good in the field, too.  Special mention must be given to Aaron Laffey, who no-hit the Yankees for five innings and, through sheer horrendous luck alone, gave up four runs in the 6th when he deserved to give up, at most, one. Absolute Best:  Sabathia.  Relative Best:  Lee.

Who ate it:  It's hard to say what the worst part of Ryan Garko's week was, the .042 average, the .115 OBP or the .083 slugging.  I'm going with the .042 average, because he was just one walk short of decent walk rate, and hey, his isolated power is almost 2.0!  Unfortunately, even those minimal contributions were mostly confined to last Tuesday's game, and Garko's line for the last five games was .000/.048/.000.  Aside from Garko, the rest of the Indians put up a more-than-respectable .302/.360/.451 line for the week.  Hafner continued his harrowing march to the bottom, with week-by-week OPS totals of 824, 761, 592 and (this week) 512 — or, if you prefer, he has a 559 OPS over his last 17 games.  Absolute Worst:  Garko.  Relative Worst:  Garko.  Twenty Other Kinds Of Worst:  Garko.  And Yet The Guy Who Really Makes Me Suicidal Is Still:  Hafner.

The other guys:  We made Wang look like Bob Gibson.  The rest of it, pretty fuzzy, maybe I'll fill it in later, does anybody really care about this section?

False alarms:

• Cliff Lee, greatest pitcher in the universe.
  
• Chien-Ming Wang, second greatest.
• C.C. Sabathia, third greatest (he's actually about tenth).
• Ben Francisco in a Cleveland uniform.
  
• Ryan Garko, worst hitter ever.
• Jhonny Peralta on web gems last night.
• J-Mike, serviceable big-league hitter.

Open questions:

• How long will Jake be out, and once he returns, will he be totally awesome, or merely awesome?
• How long can Chicago stay at the top of the standings?
  
• Since any blogger writing in his/her parents' basement in his/her underwear can notice when a reliever's velocity is down 3-5 mph, and might actually write about it without the team's permission, what exactly do we need newspaper columnists for?
• Too soon to start panicking about losing Cliff Lee after 2010?
• When the hell is Slider's birthday, anyway?
  
• Can Kobayashi confuse hitters with his deathballs all season like Okajima did?
• Can Julio be useful?
• How long will we keep marching Stomp Lewis out there with reduced velocity?
• Just how bad will the game have to be going before we see Mastny or Breslow again, and how bad will they be after a 15-day layoff?
• Has anyone noticed that Eddie Mujica is in his last option year?  Does anyone care?
• How much better can Laffey be than he was last year?  Is his ceiling is higher than we think?
• Can Steel Rafi get settled and find some semblance of his 2007 consistency?
• How many relievers would have to be failing completely for Adam Miller to get the call to the big-league bullpen?  Do we even want to see him there?
• Could Sowers be on the block soon?
• Is it really possible for Marte to spend 120 more days on the roster than Ben Francisco this season, and yet still get fewer at bats?
  
• Is Wedge basically just testing Marte to see how long it takes him to get an obviously bad attitude, at which point they ship him out?
• Will Shapiro fall for this kind of nonsense again?

This week:  2-4 Overall:  5-7 Scoring:  30-35 Old Mood:  6.6 New Mood:  4.8

W L % GB Chicago 7 4 .636 - Kansas City 7 5 .583 0.5 Minnesota 6 6 .500 1.5 Cleveland 5 7 .417 2.5 Detroit 2 10 .167 5.5

The series:  Visited the Angels (loss, win, loss) and hosted the Athletics (loss, loss, win).

The big story:  The 2008 rotation became Bizarro 2007 Rotation.  Westbrook and Lee were the team's biggest problems in early 2007, combining for a 6.99 ERA through June 2, with just four quality starts in just 13 tries, having missed nine starts due to injury.  Their paths diverged after that, with Westbrook returning from the DL to be one of the league's better pitchers in the final three months, while Lee's downward spiral culminated in three straight seven-run trainwrecks and a demotion to Buffalo.  This season, the two have combined for a 1.31 ERA and have the same four quality starts in their four tries.  This week, Westbrook was either one ground ball or 480 feet away from a shutout, depending on how you look at it, while Lee baffled the Athletics for eight innings of two-hit ball.  Lee has allowed just one walk and one extra-base hit in his two starts.

On the flip side, Carmona, so dominant in 2007, started 2008 with fine results but worrisome walk totals, and they finally caught up with him this week in an eight-walk trainwreck in which he was lucky to give up only 3 runs in 3.1 innings.  Byrd, surprisingly good to start 2007, has been surprisingly terrible to start 2008.  Sabathia, the Cy Young incumbent, produced his third trainwreck in three tries, in fact the worst of the three, and has been the worst starter in all of baseball this season.  The last time an Indians starter made three straight starts with an 11-something ERA, he was demoted to the minors the next day, despite his multi-year deal and multi-million-dollar salary.  That man, of course, was Cliff Lee.

In other news:  All in all, it feels like we're closer to 4-8 than 6-6, whether or not that's actually the case.  JoBo served up the first totally incomprehensible and indigestible loss of the year.  Iron Rafi seemed to right himself with two perfect innings following a very shaky start, while Steel Rafi got roughed up pretty good.  Carmona signed a deal almost too good to be believed, with the Indians guaranteeing just $14.5 million for 2009-2011 while securing Carmona's services at bargain prices clear through 2014.  Victor slowly returned to the lineup with little sign of ill effects.  The Tigers deepened their early-season hole with a 2-4 performance, getting outscored 39-18 and suffering the losing side of three shutouts along with a minor rash of minor injuries.  Gutierrez had the sniffles ("I am Jay's total lack of surprise"), leading to the natural conclusion that Wedge should be fired, while Dellucci defiantly emerged as our second-best hitter behind Garko.

Post of the week:  Now taking nominations.

Who fed it:  Peralta slugged a cool 947 with three home runs, now on pace for 40.    Dellucci smacked three doubles in his four starts, scored as a pinch-runner, and pulled a bases-loaded walk as a pinch-hitter, ending the week with an astonishingly useful .400/.526/.600 line.  Lee and Westbrook rocked.  Masa, J.J., Craigers and Stomp gave up 3 runs total in 13.2 innings of mostly long relief, with 10 K, 5 BB and 8 hits.  Jamey Carroll was transcendently solid, pairing deft defense with a .545 OBP.  Shoppach hit .375 with a clutch home run.  Absolute Best:  Peralta.  Relative Best:  Dellucci. 

Who ate it:  Sabathia and Byrd unequivocally crapped the bed in their only starts.  AbaCab went 4-for-19, but it's 4-for-24 if we include last Sunday's game, with just one walk and no extra bases.  Michaels was an empty 2-for-14, no walks or extra bases – which sadly raised his OPS by 50 points, all the way to 315 – and in fact his OBP (.133) was even lower than his average (.143).  Sizemore slugged just .275 over the past ten games, with no extra base hits despite a fine average (the same .275 of course) and decent OBP (.362).  Finally, since his clutch double on Opening Day, Blake's line is .129/.206/.161, and he really might be playing his way out of a job.  Absolute Worst:  Michaels.  Relative Worst:  Sabathia.

The other guys:  Joe Saunders had a terrific outing against us to start the week; K-Rod did not.  Vlad and Torii combined to go 8-for-23, and each smacked two home runs in three games.  Darren Oliver faced ten batters, hit two of them and walked one, but gave up no hits or runs.  Some poor bastard named Fernando Hernandez gave up six runs to us in two outings, recording only a HBP and a run-scoring walk in the first game.  The second time out, he very nearly got through two whole scoreless innings, but then he changed his mind and quickly gave up four runs.  Bobby Crosby went 5-for-11 with a home run and two walks.

False alarms:

• Royals and White Sox, still in first place.
• Sabathia being the worst pitcher in the league.
  
• Cliff Lee as Cy Young candidate.
• Marte getting a start.
  

Open questions:

• Could we stop screwing around and have one really good week please?
  
• Since any blogger writing in his/her parents' basement in his/her underwear can speculate on whether C.C.'s contract situation is distracting him, what exactly do we need newspaper columnists for?
• How good can Cliff Lee really be, and for how long?
  
• Can Dellucci be the nice role player he was meant to be for us?
• Still too soon for a Michaels death-watch?
• Too soon to mention a Caesy Blake death-watch, even in hushed tones?
  
• Martevich?  Martevich Martevich Martevich Martevich?
  
• Still too soon for a Tigers 2008 season death watch?
• How healthy will Victor be this season?
• Could Peralta be charging into a breakout season, just one month from his 26th birthday?
  
• Can Cliff Lee really bounce back to be a pretty good pitcher?
• Does anybody have any clue who will be our 2009 Opening Day starter?
• For more than half our relievers, do we really have the slightest idea if they're really good or really bad?
  

This week:  3-3 Overall:  3-3 Scoring:  24-25 Old Mood:  9.1 New Mood:  6.6

W L % GB Chicago 4 2 .667 - Kansas City 4 2 .667 - Cleveland 3 3 .500 1.0 Minnesota 3 4 .429 1.5 Detroit 0 6 .000 4.0

The series:  Hosted the White Sox (win, win, loss) and visited the Athletics (loss, loss, win).

The news:  Victor injured himself on the basepaths on Opening Day for the second straight year and was replaced in the lineup by Shoppach for the rest of the week, although he has pinch-hit.  The Tigers, expected to compete in a tight division race with the Indians, opened the season with six straight losses, put new star Miguel Cabrera on the shelf, and got outscored 39-15.  And in the biggest news of the week, manager Eric Wedge did not start Gutierrez on Sunday, sparking explosive bursts of existential angst as Indians fans everywhere try to make sense of a mysterious and inexplicable universe.

Post of the week:  Now taking nominations.

Who fed it:  Sizemore and Garko got off to superfine starts, posting near-identical lines right around .341/.442/.568.  Carmona, Westbrook and Lee rattled off easy quality starts, collectively allowing just 3 ER over 21 IP.  Perez blew a late-inning lead on his second batter of the new season but looked dominant in the next two games.  Marte went 1-for-3.  Absolute Best:  Sizemore.  Relative Best:  Lee. 

Who ate it:  Sabathia tanked his first two starts – you might say he was 0-for-4 in quality start criteria – so that'll be the last time I write 800 words about whether he will or won't or should or shouldn't leave after 2008.  Okay, probably not, but that's how it feels at the moment, anyway.  Betancourt gave up seven hits in his first two innings, and he allowed more than one run in a game for the first time since September  2006.  Dellichaels posted perhaps the worst week in the history of LF platoons, batting .050, which even a .20 walk rate can't redeem.  Shoppach looked strangely uncomfortable behind the plate and allowed three passed balls.  Finally, Gutierrez and Blake, after electrifying the faithful on Opening Day, combined for exactly one base hit, a single, in their next 28 at bats.  Absolute Worst:  Sabathia.  Relative Worst:  Blake.

UPDATE:  JulioBernazard helpfully points out that Dellichaels' lone hit of the week actually came while Michaels was playing RF, not LF, and to make matters worse, Dellucci was technically a pinch-hitter when he was HBP.  Taking these key facts into account, the LF platoon's production for the week was actually .000/.238/.000, and not .050/.269/.100 as previously implied.  LGT-WIR deeply regrets this rare understatement.  [Jay]

The other guys:  We rocked Buerhle, Vazquez, MacDougal and Dotel but were baffled by Danks, Duchscherer and Eveland, three guys who collectively had 37 career starts coming into the week.  Dye, Pierzynski, Bobby Crosby and Daric Barton all had big series; Thome hit two Opening Day home runs improbably off our lefty ace but forgot how to hit after that.  Oakland had both Ryan Sweeney and Mike Sweeney in their lineup at one point, like some kind of very weird dream, Alan Embree and Keith Foulke in their bullpen.

False alarms:

• Royals and White Sox in first place.
• Tigers in last place.
• Sabathia and Betancourt being terrible.
• Shoppach fumbling.

Open questions:

• Pronk, or just Travis?
• New Jake or Good Old Jake?
• Why must C.C. be such a disappointment?
• Too soon for a Dellichaels death watch?
• Too soon for a Tigers 2008 season death watch?
• How healthy will Victor be this season?
• Can Cliff Lee really bounce back to be a pretty good pitcher?
• Can Carmona just continue being awesome without interruption?

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Jensen Lewis	.053	Jhonny Peralta	-.119
David Dellucci	.046	CC Sabathia	-.091
Masa Kobayashi	.027	Franklin Gutierrez	-.091

Like his last start, CC Sabathia's problem was control, walking four in 5.1 innings.
He had racked up 107 pitches when he was pulled. This against a lineup that shouldn't have given him any problems. 

More alarming than Sabathia's struggles, however, were the offense's inability to yet again put together any production whatsoever. Victor Martinez was the Indians' best hitter last season, but in a nine-man lineup, one player's absence shouldn't cause that devastating effect. The main culprits in the power outage have been Jhonny Peralta (.143/.190/.143), Casey Blake (.118/.167/.176), and the left field platoon (no hits in 13 at-bats). 

To top things off, Rafael Betancourt, last year's bullpen security blanket, gave up 4 hits and two runs in just one-third of an inning. It didn't affect the outcome of the game (the offense made sure of that), but it's another uncertainty to add to the pile that's accumulated over the first week of the season.

First thing is, we're not going to lose, and there will be a companion article to this one explaining why we're not going to lose.  But let's face the facts here, baseball is crazy, and the most likely scenario is that we face a tight race with the Tigers.  We might lose.  And if we lose, it will probably be for some combination of these reasons.

1. Pure talent.  The Indians have more healthy key players, more talented depth players, and fewer players who stand to regress back from having had career seasons in 2007.  But on the whole, the Tigers have more talented key players, and if guys like Sheffield and Guillen can stay healthy, then their lack of decent depth players won't make much difference.
   
   PECOTA projects the Tigers to score only 15 more runs than the Indians, but that's a weighted-mean projection that significantly factors in the chance of losing key players to injury.  If the Tigers generally stay healthy, the offensive difference likely will be far greater.
   
   The Indians meanwhile are at significant risk for below-average production at three out of four corner positions, and several of our key players are over 30 (Dellucci, Michaels, Hafner, Borowski, Byrd, Kobayashi) and, as a group, not likely to get more healthy or more productive than they were in 2007.
   
   And despite a reputation for starter depth, not one of the four guys slated to man the last two rotation spots (Byrd, Lee, Laffey and Sowers) is a solid bet to post a league-average ERA this season.
   
   
2. Sketchy defense.  Two of our best three starters are extreme groundballers, and both are righthanded.  That means a significant part of our fate will rest in the disposition of groundballs headed toward the left side of the infield, where we will be starting two guys who could fall off a cliff defensively at any time.  Both Peralta and Blake have had moments in their careers where their defense was actually praiseworthy, but they've also both been atrocious over an entire season at least once.
   
   Moving Asdrubal to shortstop probably won't be a serious option, as that would replace Peralta's bat in the lineup with Carroll's or Barfield's.  As for playing Marte at third, even if we take the charitable view that all he needs is a good month or so to settle in as a big-leaguer, exactly how many balls get booted while he's doing that?
   
   
3. Troubled youth.  Much of our 2007 success was due to unexpected performances from rookies, but we don't really know how Asdrubal or Gutierrez will look after more exposure to major league pitching.  It would not be surprising if both of them struggled, and of course Marte has never really performed well in the majors.  Add in Perez and Lewis -- and arguably Carmona -- and you're looking at a significant chunk of the roster in the unpredictably youthful column.
   
   Moreover, we're unlikely to get big contributions from four rookies again in 2008, or in any season, or even from two rookies.
   
   
4. Wacky bullpens.  It just wouldn't be surprising if four or five of our relievers just could not get their acts together this season -- these things happen, bullpens are just like that.  Borowski, Lewis, Kobayashi, Breslow, Julio -- all those guys could tank, and Betancourt has been known to hit the DL now and again.
   
   Even leaving out the pessimism, we simply can't expect Betancourt to have the most impact of any reliever in the game again, and we can't expect to get major contributions from two guys who aren't even on the Opening Day roster, as we got last year.  The Indians 2007 success overall was not particularly flukey, but it was in this area.
   
   
5. Tired arms.  This one has been beat to death already, but that doesn't mean it isn't a significant concern.  Carmona at 24 is out of the notorious "injury nexus," and people tend to ignore the fact that he threw 174  innings at age 21 with no ill effect, so throwing 215 at age 23 is not necessarily that big of a deal.
   
   Sabathia, however, threw 256 innings, which is a lot for any pitcher of any age or experience, and often threw under more stress than Carmona faced.  Thta's 58 more innings than he'd thrown in any season except 2002, and even that year, he only threw 210.  Let's not forget, Sabathia loses three starts or so to injury in most seasons anyway, so how can he be likely to stay healthy following a 30% jump in workload?  He can't be.
   
   
6. Lack of quality depth.  I'm serious.  On our 40-man roster, we've got nine warm bodies for four corner spots -- Garko, Gutierrez, Dellucci, Michaels, Blake, Marte, Choo, Francisco, Aubrey and Snyder -- but only one of them (Garko of course) is a really solid bet to post above-average production in 2008.
   
   In the bullpen, we started 2007 with at least four rookies waiting in Buffalo -- Perez, Mujica, Lara and Slocum -- young, talented, live-armed dudes who'd already gotten their feet wet in 2006.  We don't have the same caliber of reinforcements to start 2008.  It's basically Elarton, Mastny and a diminished Mujica.
   
   
7. That guy, still not helping.  Adam Miller sure could help in a number of these areas, and yet he sure can't be counted on to help in any of them.
   
   
8. Bad timing.  Just as anything can happen in a short series, two evenly matched teams can produce just about any result in a 19-game season series.  The Indians could outplay the Tigers by 6 games against all other teams and outscore them head-to-head with a few blowouts mixed in, but if they lose the season series 13-6, it won't matter.  At the same time, while the schedule is very closely balanced for any two teams in the same division, facing a certain team in May isn't always the same as facing them in August.
   
   
9. Lack of pie.  Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.  Gritty, clutchy, leadership pie -- the kind of pie Trot Nixon knew how to make.  Trot's gone, and we don't know if Dellucci or anyone else can pick up the slack.
   
   
10. Lack of Vizquel, Thome, Millwood, Colavito.  No, not really.  Geez, man, get a life.  Maybe you didn't hear, last year, we won 96 games without those guys, and all of their teams sucked.  Yes, even Colavito's.
    

So that's the bad news.  Of course it's always possible that the Indians will find some other, more bizarre or unpredictable way to tank their season, something nobody could have or would have ever predicted.  Just ask Travis Hafner.