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.

Let's recap two!

via www.fangraphs.com

In spite of some wildness, Fausto Carmona pitched a very efficient shutout in the first game of today's doubleheader. Of course, a cursory look at Fausto's basic stats (3-1, 2.95 ERA) would make you think I had confused him with Paul Byrd, but take a look at his walks and hits, and you'd be puzzled again, in this case how he'd manage that low an ERA in the first place. The Toronto offense has been in a miserable slump - until the 10th inning of the nightcap, they had only scored 1 run in the four-game series. As much as we'd love for the near-domination to be entirely due to the Tribe pitchers, the Toronto offense played a significant role in the Blue Jay offensive brownout. But in a season where he'd often be his own worst enemy, Fausto stayed in the strikezone enough to shorten his innings and finish the game.

AJ Burnett, who had awful career numbers (8.46 ERA in 4 starts) against the Indians, pitched well, keeping the game scoreless into the sixth inning. David Dellucci broke the deadlock in that inning by singling in Grady Sizemore. Burnett stuck around into the eighth, and came within one out of completing the game.

Asdrubal Cabrera accounted for the second and third runs of the game by hitting his first home run of the season. Not counting tonight's action, he's hitting poorly by any standard, but he's playing excellent defense, and more importantly, Josh Barfield isn't exactly pressing the issue. It also bears remembering that Asdrubal is only 22 years old and has just over 300 major-league plate appearances.

via www.fangraphs.com

I guess it would figure that the Indians come back to win a game after the starter barely got through five innings.

Fausto Carmona's frequent walking spells, which would have sent a pitcher with lesser stuff to the minors by now, shortened his outing tonight. Even though the Yankee lineup tends to chew up starters before their normal finishing point, I don't really think it was their patience that forced Fausto out. It was Fausto's mechanics that acted up; like most of his starts, he'd be in the strike zone for several batters at a time, then his pitches would go off the radar. Carmona has now walked 30 batters in almost 40 innings, an astounding number, especially if you consider how low his ERA remains.

Victor Martinez was a late scratch, making Jhonny Peralta (.216/.276/.392) and Ryan Garko (.242/.361/.354) the #3 and #4 hitters. The scary thing is that those were the proper choices, unless you wanted to move Sizemore down. Ben Francisco was in the lineup, just up from Buffalo, not to mention one of Andy Marte's rare appearances. (Side note: If you throw out Jamey Carroll, every one of those in tonight's lineup either made their major-league debut with the Indians or still had rookie eligibility when they debuted with the Indians. And that includes all the pitchers who made appearances in tonight's game as well.)

But despite another shaky outing from Carmona, despite not doing much against Andy Pettitte, the Indians won the game. The offensive production came on two swings of the bat. The first swing was Jhonny Peralta's home run to right-center in the fourth. The second came in the eighth inning off Joba Chamberlain when pinch-hitter David Dellucci flew out to the short porch in right field. Dellucci's home run came after Ryan Garko seemingly let Joba off the hook by weakly flying out when ahead in the count.

For a game in early May, this win was pretty significant. The Indians haven't been the only team struggling early this season, and even with a below-.500 record, they are now just 1.5 games behind the first-place Twins. For all the trials and tribulations April brought, the Indians don't really need to make up much ground.

via www.fangraphs.com

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.

Indians 9, Royals 6

Fausto Carmona struggled through five innings, with control again his nemesis. The Indians were fortunate that Carmona matched up up against Tomko instead of Bannister, for Fausto might have been pulled much sooner had the Indians not scored seven runs off the Royals' starter. Many of the Tribe hits were of the bloop variety, but, as in recent games, the hitters were patient enough in their at-bats to wait for Tomko's inevitable mistakes.

 Indians 2, Royals 0

Cliff Lee's stat line after four starts:

31.2 IP, 0.28 ERA, 1563 ERA+, 11 H, 29 SO, 2 BB

The lone misgiving I have about Lee's success is that it has come against Oakland, Kansas City, and Minnesota, all offenses that will probably finish in the bottom half in the league. But still, that's domination.

However you want to look at the context of Lee's domination, the performances haven't been flukey. Hitters aren't making loud outs. He isn't relying on double plays to bail him out of innings, though his ground ball percentage (45.2%) is much higher than his career averages. He's placing his ~90 mph fastball on the edges of the strike zone. And he's not walking anybody.

The series:  Hosted the Red Sox (loss, loss) and Tigers (loss, win) and visited the Twins (win, loss, loss).

The big story:  We got six quality starts out of seven, but our offense got exactly one win out of those six quality starts.  These weren't borderline quality starts, either – in each of the six, the starter either made it into the 7th inning or gave up less than 2 runs, and in three out of six, he did both.  Five regulars put up averages under .170 while only one hit better than .250 – but they maddeningly continued to draw walks, drawing the fifth-most this week in the AL despite apparently not being able to hit.  The Indians were only outscored by five runs on the week but managed to distribute their runs badly, winning two games by 14 runs and losing five games by 19 runs.  The net result is that the Indians missed an opportunity to get a little distance in the standings from the Tigers, joining them in the cellar instead, and fans are forced to start wondering just how inevitable a crash is for first-place Chicago.

In other news:  Sabathia and Borowski, nominally our #1 starter and reliever respectively, further bombed out.  Already the worst starter in baseball entering the week, Sabathia gave up his second nine-spot in a week's time, one of just two pitchers to give up more than six runs in a game, twice, in 2008 – and his co-honoree Tom Gorzellany has an ERA more than four runs lower.  Borowski, meanwhile, failed in such spectacular and obvious fashion – struggling to throw a  fastball over 80 mph – that many felt relieved to see such his agonizing career as Indians closer end swiftly (at least for the moment) by a trip to the DL for "noodle-like symptoms."  It turned out that Borowski's giddyup deficit was well known to the staff, which raised questions as to why he was allowed to attempt to close four games.  Sabathia and Borowski's struggles led directly to five of our 12 losses this season, and we survived Sabathia's Opening Day blowout and nearly overcame another on April 11.  So it's not wishful thinking to believe that even with all the team's other problems, we'd probably be 11-8 right now had these two pitchers not failed so profoundly.

Lee continued his improbable run as the game's most effective pitcher, leading the majors in RA, ERA and FIP.   Byrd made a more or less unheralded return to form this week with two very fine starts, while Carmona quieted fears following last week's  nine-walk adventure.  Hafner hit a game-winning home run but otherwise struggled to keep his OPS over 700, as Indians fans start to wonder if we haven't even seen him hit rock-bottom yet.   Perez bounced back from a shellacking the previous weekend to pitch effectively in four games, but he was finally touched for a run on his 11th batter of the game yesterday, his first game facing more than 9 batters since moving out of long relief last June.  Despite being tagged with a loss yesterday, he actually made great strides toward re-asserting himself as an 8th-inning ace.

Post of the week:  Now taking nominations.

Who fed it:  Byrd pitched far better than your typical #5 starter, giving up just one run over 13 IP in two starts.  Lee put up eight innings of two-hit, shutout ball and fans looked on in disbelief.  Victor surged back with a 12-for-27 week, but his searing .444 average was a little empty, accompanied by just one walk and one extra-base hit, a double.  Carroll continued to perform well in a supporting role, supplementing his .200 average with a beefy .500 secondary average and his usual fine defensive play.  Perez was unlucky on base hits but overall very effective over four games and 4.2 IP, allowing just one walk and no extra-base hits to go with 6 K's – 11 groundballs, 3 flyballs and just one line drive.  Absolute Best:  Lee.  Relative Best:  Byrd. 

Who ate it:  Sabathia and Borowski were complete disasters – although in fairness, Sabathia's ERA for the week (20.25) was twice as good as Borowski's (40.50) .  While many hitters were terrible, nothing was more awful than Peralta's slugging average of .136, or more disappointing than Sizemore's overall line of .160/.300/.240, or more troubling than Hafner's overall line of .167/.259/.333.  Stomp Lewis had two miserable outings out of two, lucky to give up only two runs to Boston after allowing two doubles and two walks in the two-run loss, and allowing two walks before getting just one out a few nights later.  Absolute Worst:  Peralta.  Relative Worst:  Borowski.

The other guys:  Indians pitchers got mugged pretty good by Manny, Lugo and Pedroia for the Red Sox, as well as Renteria, Cabrera and Inge for the Tigers, but nobody inflicted as much damage as Youkilis, who collected a walk, a single, three doubles and a home run in just two games, good for a 2075 OPS.   Ortiz produced an empty 3-for-10, 600 OPS, and needed some luck even to do that well.  Pudge went 0-for-6, stranding ten, in a game where his teammates were teeing off on Indians pitchers to the tune of 11 runs.  Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez, both 22-year-olds acquired in the offseason, combined for just one single and one walk in 23 AB.  On the other side, the Indians dispatched Verlander, Lester and Liriano handily only to get manhandled by the utterly unheralded Armanda Galarraga and Nick Blackburn, plus the somewhat heralded Scott Baker.  The Indians put up a five-spot on Detroit's Zach Miner to seal their one strong offensive game, but against Boston, Papelbon and Okajima each sealed a two-run victory with a two-strikeout perfect final frame.

False alarms:

• Paul Byrd as an excellent starter.
  
• Sabathia being the worst pitcher in the game.
• Borowski being sent in to close a game.
  
• Perez looking rough.
  

Open questions:

• Can we turn it around quickly enough that we don't dig a 2006-sized hole for ourselves in the standings?
  
• 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?
• Too soon to start the Cy watch for Cliff Lee?
• How long can Byrd keep it together?
• How long can Sabathia keep it apart?
• What kind of production will the team consider acceptable from AbaCab? 
  
• Why are the Indians so strangely unwilling to play Blake in LF or RF, which would allow them to give Marte playing time in lieu of Micheals and sometimes Gutierrez?
• Is there anything more to the lack of playing time for Marte, other than his just being low-man on the totem pole to start the season?
  
• How much playing time will Carroll siphon from Peralta and especially AbaCab, and will his performance hold up given more exposure?
  
• Will Borowski ever return to the active roster, and if so, in what role?
• Kobayashi, Breslow, Julio – seriously, can these guys pitch?
  

via www.fangraphs.com

Excerpts from Managing to Win (11th Edition), by Leo Martin:

If your charges aren't putting out, the first step is always a chewing out. First of all, it usually will shock the lackadaisical guys out of a rut. And the public will just eat it up. Trust me, you can never go wrong with a good old verbal tirade.

On building team unity:

If team chemistry just isn't there, try building it with a beanball war. This especially works with a big rival. You don't need much of a pretext - any old brushback will do. If you get lucky and the other guy plunks one of yours, you probably won't even need to start the ball rolling, if there's any starch in the boys at all. As an added touch, nail the biggest SOB on the other side - this way everyone's behind you. And if some hack asks you about it after the game, act all indignant and so forth, like you would never dream of stooping to that level of indecency, all the while grinning like a cheshire cat inside.

On the secret to winning:

Do you actually think I can answer that? Get some [deleted] good pitchers and [deleted] good hitters, and you have a chance.

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?
  

The Indians announced today that they have signed Fausto Carmona to a three-year guranateed extension through 2011, while also extending his commitment to the Indians through the end of the 2014 season, weeks before his 31st birthday.  Carmona becomes the longest-committed Indian on the active roster, and he's one of ten who are signed through 2012 or beyond.  (Travis Hafner is committed through 2013, as are rookies Asdrubal Cabrera, Craig Breslow and Jensen Lewis.  Grady Sizemore is committed through 2012, as are second-year players Ryan Garko, Rafael Perez, Andy Marte and Franklin Gutierrez.)

Carmona's contract is guaranteed through 2011, paying a total of $14.5 million over in addition to his $500,000 salary for 2008.  The deal further gives the Indians three successive single-season club options for 2012, 2013 and 2014.  No buyouts have been reported for the three club options, but the option-year salaries will increase if Carmona is in the top five in the Cy Young voting in two successive years.

Signing bonus:  $750,000 in 2008, in addition to $500,000 salary.
Guaranteed salaries:  $2.75 million in 2009, $4.9 million in 2010, $6.1 million in 2011.
Club options without incentives:  $7 million in 2012, $9 million in 2013, $12 million in 2014.
Club options with incentives:  $9 million in 2012, $11 million in 2013, $14 million in 2014.

To put these numbers into context, this past offseason saw Carlos Silva, a decent but thoroughly unexceptional starting pitcher, sign a four-year deal with the Mariners for an annual salary of $12 million, and of course our own Paul Byrd is making $8 million based on a deal signed two years ago, a deal that is now somewhat under-market.  In fact, Carmona's potential salary for 2012-2014 are only 3% higher than Westbrook's guaranteed salary for 2008-2010, even though salaries are likely to climb by 40% over the four years in between the two deals, and Westbrook's deal is a slightly under-market and team-friendly to start with, and Carmona's money isn't even guaranteed.

Carmona will be paid a maximum of $48 million over seven seasons, from 2008 through 2014, if all options and bonuses are exercised.  This is reportedly the richest deal ever given to a pitcher not yet eligible for arbitration, continuing the Indians' recent trend of setting new industry benchmarks for rewarding talented young players.  If Carmona continues to be a top-20 starter, he may well have earned more than the $14.5 million guarantee through arbitration by the end of 2010, let alone 2011.  In this way, "lockup contracts" such as this generally reduce a team's overall payroll commitment, or at least have a neutral effect, such that Carmona's extension should not adversely affect the Indians' ability to acquire or retain other players.

Although not seriously considered by Cy Young voters, Carmona arguably was the most effective pitcher in the AL in 2007, possibly in either league, posting a 151 ERA+ that was better than Sabathia's or Beckett's – in any season of their careers.  At the same age of 23, Sabathia had already produced almost four whole good seasons in the majors, but on the other hand, Sabathia didn't even approach Carmona's 2007 level of dominance until he was 25, and he has never matched it.  Though obscured by Sabathia's Cy Young campaign, Carmona's season was probably the best by any Indians starter of the past 35 years, dating back to Gaylord Perry's stellar 1972 Cy Young season, and seriously rivaled only by Dennis Martinez's 28 starts in 1995.

Continue reading this post »

Apropos of nothing, the most baserunners you can squander in an inning is five — squander meaning only that a guy got on base, wasn't swapped out for another guy on a fielder's choice, and didn't score.  You get to five by making the first two outs on the basepaths, after the batter and any runners have all reached safely, and then ending the inning with the bases loaded, stranding three.

The Indians scored three runs in the top of a very, very strange 9th, and it may seem gluttonish to suggest that they should have scored more, but really, it isn't.  They put seven men on base and only there scored.   That isn't a bad rate for a whole game, but for a single inning, it's kind of atrocious.  After the third run scored, we did have the bases loaded with only one out and the top of the lineup coming to the plate.

As for what followed, I'll defer to our astute occasional contributor TribeJay (no relation), who may be confused here for a negativist but is not one.  Posted he:

The elephant in the room that the media isn't talking about is that JoBo's velocity is DOWN. He threw 88-89 for much of last year. In Lakeland he topped out at 86 with most of his fastballs at 83-84. Today he was at 85 for the one fastball I saw on the scoreboard (STO's radar readings weren't working later in the game), and his fastball just doesn't look as firm as it did last year. Not that he ever threw smoke, but I can tell a noticeable difference, and the radar readings I've seen back that up. Hopefully it's just temporary and he just needs to improve his arm strength, but I can't imagine how he's going to be able to keep the closer job the whole year if he can't increase his velocity. I mean, he was very hittable LAST year

Mind you, he did not post that last night.  He posted it the night before.

Earlier in the game, eight other innings just happened.  The offense was anemic though occasionally sparked by a strong return performance by Victor.  Fausto had an unsteady performance, pitching six shutout innings, or rather, allowing only one unearned run.  It is what it is.