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Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Aaron Laffey	.115	Ryan Garko	-.016
Victor Martinez	.114	Ben Francisco	-.016
Grady Sizemore	.106

The pitching was excellent again, but this time, the offense was as well. Grady Sizemore lead off the game with a home run, and before the inning was over, the Indians had a 6-0 lead. Blue Jays starter Dustin McGowan had no command of his fastball, which for a team that loves fastballs was a very welcome development.

But the twelve-run outburst shouldn't overshadow what Aaron Laffey's performance. Pitching with a huge lead most of the game, Laffey still maintained his game plan of attacking the lower portion of the strike zone. The Indians haven't missed Jake Westbrook, and that isn't demeaning to Jake; Laffey's allowed just 4 earned runs in his three starts.

Asdrubal Cabrera had two hits, but his defense was what stood out tonight. Cabrera, playing at shortstop, made several nice throws going into the hole between short and third. Though Jhonny Peralta playing shortstop makes sense today, Cabrera's the future at the position.

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Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
CC Sabathia	.264	Jhonny Peralta	-.118
Travis Hafner	.174	David Dellucci	-.092
Casey Blake	.138	Franklin Gutierrez	-.086

What a fun game to watch, with two pitchers at the height of their powers dueling. CC Sabathia struck out nine but gave up a fifth inning run, meaning that he trailed exiting the field in the seventh. There was a good possibility that CC would lose his sixth game of the season, for Roy Halladay again had Indian hitters in his thrall. Jhonny Peralta especially looked clueless against him, striking out twice, both times on three pitches. Halladay also struck out nine, but the Indians made him work just enough so he was approaching his end of the night in the seventh inning. For baseball's best horse (4 CG already in 2008), this was an accomplishment.

The crucial seventh started with something unexpected: a Travis Hafner line drive single. The hit was the second of the night; he'd only had two multi-hit games in the past three weeks. Ryan Garko was next up; earlier in the game he wasn't able to go the other way with Hafner on second and nobody out. But this time he got Hafner over the Garko way - via a single. Now was an obvious bunt situation, and up came a good bunter in Asdrubal Cabrera. But Roy Halladay in an effort to prevent the bunt, missed with his first couple pitches, and then missed twice while trying to throw a strike. Now the bases were loaded, and Casey Blake, the clutchiest hitter on the team, came up. He gave the Indians the lead with a two-run double that probably would have been a grand slam on many other nights.

Now came a tactical error on the part of John Gibbons. He pulled Roy Halladay, which certainly looked like the right move, in favor of left-hander Jesse Carlson. Carlson took care of Grady Sizemore, getting him to pop out to third base. Gibbons then ordered Franklin Gutierrez to be walked, re-loading the bases. Eric Wedge countered by pulling David Dellucci in favor of Ben Francisco. Gibbons reacted by bringing in Jeremy Accardo, a right-hander to face Francisco, which would normally be the correct move. But Francisco has historically been much better against right-handed pitchers, and his short stint in the majors has shown the same trend. So why bring in Accardo when (a) Carlson looked very good against Sizemore, and (b) there's no matchup advantage to exploit. Francisco got on top of an Accardo fastball and hit a double off the wall in left-center, breaking the game open, and making sure that the Indians beat Roy Halladay for the first time in 10 starts.

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Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Cliff Lee	.401	Kelly Shoppach	-.047
Casey Blake	.064	Victor Martinez	-.045
Grady Sizemore	.048	Travis Hafner	-.023

Sometimes it's best to let the statistics do the talking:

44.2 innings, 39 strikeouts, 25 hits, 5 runs, 2 walks

Cliff Lee allowed seven hits, but several of those were of the bloop or squib variety. And while he continued to rely on command of his fastball, he used his sweeping curve to great effect when ahead in the count. Because the Yankee hitters had to guess fastball with two strikes, Cliff's slow curve was virtually unhittable. And because Lee continued to throw strike after strike, the patience approach normally employed to great effect by the Yankees was nullified.

As Lee was playing with the Yankee lineup as a sleepy kitten bats a hanging piece of yarn, the offense eeked out three runs off Chien-Ming Wang, who was off to a 6-0 start.* Andy Marte finally got consecutive starts, collected a hit, but was pulled for Travis Hafner in the ninth when his spot in the order came up with the bases loaded. Hafner had a terrible at-bat, ending in a weak inning-ending squib double play.

*In most other stats, he doesn't hold a candle to what Lee's done, but wins are what matter dontyaknow.

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Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
David Dellucci	.595	Ryan Garko	-.163
Jhonny Peralta	.317	Kelly Shoppach	-.125
Rafael Betancourt	.097	Fausto Carmona	-.116

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.

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Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
David Dellucci	.090	Franklin Gutierrez	-.133
Jensen Lewis	.085	Rafael Perez	-.126
Grady Sizemore	.073	Casey Blake	-.115

Broken record time: the offense was terrible again, leaving it up to the pitching staff to win with a tiny margin of error. Franklin Gutierrez made a mental/physical error in the seventh inning in not catching a shallow fly ball. For Franklin that's a fairly routine catch, but he upped the degree of difficulty to going into a slide to make the catch. So instead of Kansas City scoring their second and final run of the inning on a sacrifice fly, the inning was extended an out. Billy Butler and Mark Teahen both singled with two outs, and that was the ballgame.

Eric Wedge wasn't happy with the offense after the game:

"There's not much you can really say about it that hasn't been said," Wedge said. "We got guys here with too much experience over the last couple years to be swinging the bats like this. ... I'm just not seeing quality at-bats."

I would expect a roster move on Monday. Jason Michaels for Ben Francisco makes the most sense.

 

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.

 

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Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Cliff Lee	.235	Kelly Shoppach	-.036
Victor Martinez	.114	Asdrubal Cabrera	-.030
Grady Sizemore	.097	Jason Michaels	-.029

Cliff Lee ran out of gas in the seventh inning, probably a result of a string of eight- and nine-inning appearances. But even though his final line denoted a disappointing three runs allowed, Cliff Lee still pitched very well. He continued to pound the strike zone, and while he only struck out three, he did not walk a batter.

Travis Hafner sat out tonight's game, and what looked like a very weak lineup ended up bouncing Mariner starter Jarrod Washburn in the fifth. Franklin Gutierrez collected two more hits; he's having an excellent homestand  (9-for-23). The offense rapped out six extra-base hits. Ryan Garko, who still hasn't gotten a hit since April 22, nevertheless got on base twice. But Grady Sizemore was the star of the evening, hitting a home run, a double, and reaching base four times.

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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.

 

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Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Casey Blake	.116	Jamey Carroll	-.176
Franklin Gutierrez	.101	Ryan Garko	-.136
Jason Michaels	.084	Aaron Laffey	-.134

 

It all changed so quickly in the sixth inning. Aaron Laffey entered the sixth working on a no-hitter, and pitching very confidently in his 2008 debut. He was working both sides of the plate, breaking bats, inducing weak dribblers, and in general being unpredictable.

So what changed in the sixth? Did he suddenly get wild, or start thinking too much? Not really. The inning started with two, for lack of a better word, lucky hits. Then Bobby Abreu got the only solid hit of the inning, a line drive single. After that it was only a matter of putting the ball in play. Laffey couldn't finish the inning despite pitching fairly well, if that can be said of a four-run inning.

When playing the Yankees, and especially when facing the back end of their rotation, one has to take advantage of the starter and the middle relief, because the game essentially ends if they have lead after the seventh inning. And the Indians had opportunities all game long...until the eighth inning.

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Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
CC Sabathia	.308	Asdrubal Cabrera	-.154
Masa Kobayashi	.041	Jhonny Peralta	-.150
Jason Michaels	.017	Ryan Garko	-.128

I've always found it hard to get worked up over a 1-0 loss, because it meant that your teams' pitchers pitched a heck of a game. CC Sabathia allowed five base runners in eight innings, striking out eight. Chien-Ming Wang had one more strikeout and one more walk in one less inning. And one less run allowed, of course.

The lone run of the game, as often happens in a pitchers' duel, came on a home run. When both pitchers are on their game, the easiest way to score is not by bunching two or three hits together in an inning but by hitting the rare mistake out of the park. That isn't to say there weren't opportunities missed by both sides, but merely that scoring runs the smallball route isn't a good percentage play against a pitcher having a good day.

For the first time in 382 team games, Grady Sizemore did not make an appearance.  Franklin Gutierrez got the start in center, and in all honesty looked better defensively than Grady. And this isn't a knock on Grady's defense, either - Franklin's just a really really good outfielder.