5/08/2008

Game 32: yankees

Indians: 3 7 0
Yankees: 0 7 0

Cliff Lee was once again, phenomenal. 6 hits, 7 strikeouts, no runs. Chien Ming Wang suffered his first loss of the year. Clevelands hitters were able to elevate the ball off of Wang which is generally a difficult thing to do. Wang didnt pitch that bad, Lee was just simply better. Cleveland has taken the first two games against the yankees on the road making it the first time since 1992 the indians have won a season series against New York.

WP: Lee (6-0, 0.81)
LP: Wang (6-1, 3.21)
SV: Betancourt (3)

5/07/2008

Game 31: Yankees

Indians: 5 6 0
Yankees: 3 8 1

A home run by david dellucci secured the indians late inning heroics tuesday night. Fausto Carmona (3-1, 2.95 era) went 5 innings, walked 5 and gave up 3 earned runs on 6 hits. although he wasnt completely terrible, it was arguably his poorest start of the season. Sizemore and Peralta walked and dellucci pinch hit for Gutierrez and it turned out to be a wise decision. Dellucci jumped on the second pitch from Joba Chamberlain and put Cleveland ahead for good.

WP: Perez (1-1, 4.11)
LP: Joba Chamberlain (1-2, 3.38)
SV: Betancourt (3)

5/06/2008

The Francisco era begins.

Taken from Indians.com ..."The Cleveland Indians today announced the club has recalled OF BEN FRANCISCO from the AAA Buffalo Bisons. To allow room for Francisco on the Major League roster the Indians designated OF JASON MICHAELS for assignment."

This pretty much spells the end of Michaels in Cleveland for good, Save the september call-ups, but lets hope the indians are playing for something and leave michaels in buffalo when the time comes around. word also is that Michaels has already left for his home state of florida and appears that hes not going to report to the Bisons.

I've been a huge Ben Francisco fan and have followed him throughout the minors for years. All the scouts that have watched Francisco are often left wondering what kind of adjectives to use when describing Franciscos potential. At 6'1 190lbs, he is extremely quick with a very fluid swing. deceptive power and has an above average arm for a left fielder. To me, francisco is the best outfielding prospect in the entire indians system (sizemore and gutierrez are no longer considered prospects) and I believe he is considered to be above players like Shin Soo Choo, Brad Snyder or Trevor Crowe.

Again, Francisco has good pop in his bat and looks like he could hit anywhere from 15-20 home runs a season, perhaps more. He only had 3 homeruns in 62 at-bats last year but consider the musical chairs that was our outfield last season. Maybe this move will put some life into the Indians offense. I've actually got to give credit to shapiro for really starting to make moves no matter who the player is. Demoting Cliff Lee was the last move I saw coming last year.

5/03/2008

Game 28: Mariners

Indians: 3 8 1
Mariners: 2 9 0

It looked as though the indians offense was once again going to ruin another solid inning by one of its starters. Only able to muster 3 runs after scoring 8 the night before, it took extra inning dramatics by Asdrubal Cabrera to solve this one. The bases were loaded with Peralta at 3rd, Hafner at 2nd and Jamey Carrol at 1st. Gutierrez was retired on strikes and all cabrera needed to do was find a hole and he did. He drove an 0-1 pitch up the middle. Game over.

Fridays night game was rained out. Saturday nights game is a 7pm start. C.C. Sabathia (1-4, 7.88) looks to make it 3 quality starts in a row against the Royals promising young pitcher Luke Hochevar (1-1, 5.91).

5/01/2008

Game 27: Mariners

Indians: 8 11 0
Mariners: 3 9 1

Grady Sizemore led off the game with a home run and the indians gave Mariners started Jarod Washburn an early night. Cliff Lee wrapped up the first month of the season in the same fashion he began it. Lee went 6 full innings and faced a few batters in the 7th before getting into trouble. Wladimir Balentien hit a 3 run home run but Jensen Lewis and Jorge Julio kept the game in hand. Cliff Lee is now 5-0 with an unbelievable ERA of 0.96, the best in all of baseball.

The series wraps up tomorrow night at 7pm. Paul Bryd (1-2, 4.85 era) goes against either Miguel Batista(injury) or former Orioles ace Erik Bedard (2-0, 2.04)