The Struggling Cleveland Indians

Winners of six of their last 40 games, but they don't look like a bad team when they play the Pretenders. They, in fact, play like the team that wants to advance to post-season. 

Justin Masterson (11-12, 4.84 ERA) allowed two runs in six innings.Four relievers finished off the P's. Their one-man offense (Miguel Cabrera, two-run homer) wasn't enough. 

Fortunately for the Pretenders, the White Sox don't want the division either. They lost to the Minnesota Vikings 18-9 at Soldier Field,  and keep their one game AL Central lead. But the Orioles beat the team they had to (12-0 over the Toronto Argos at CNE Stadium) and moved into a first place AL East tie with the Yankees; while playing like they're the ones who want that bridesmaid's dress.

Al Alburquerque, back after blowing his arm out throwing too many sliders, retired all four hitters he faced. His presence on the roster creates another amazing, incredible major league first: first ever team in the modern era with a battery whose initials are AA.

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Before the game, The Resident Managerial Genius suggested that the fans, if they didn't like his batting order (Fielder at DH, Jackson sitting, Delmon Young their hottest hitter sitting), submit their own. 

Okay, then: 

Jackson, CF, no more sitting, that's why you give him days off in July and August

Dewayne Wise, RF

Cabrera, 1B

Fielder, DH

Young, LF, no more sitting your hottest hitter, days off in Jul and Aug

Placido Polanco, 2B

Peralta, SS

Infante, 3B

Rob Brantly, C

It's Tribe Time Again

They let Corey Kluber off the hook in the first inning, and it cost them the game. 

Delmon Young had singled in a run, and the sacks were filled for Brennan Boesch. BB hit into a double play. Inning over. 

Kluber settled down, gave up one additional run in six innings, and got his first major league win. Final 3-2 Indians; yet another winnable game that the lack of a timely it or two turned into yet another one run loss. 

Alex Avila hit into a double play to end the game, the Pretenders' MLB leading 132nd DP of the season. He's too nice a guy to appear on a wanted poster, but he's getting there (.241 at day's end, and in a slump that started in April).

Allowing unearned runs is something else the P's lead MLB in, and baseball's 20th best defense let in two more today, the only two runs Anibal Sanchez allowed in six innings. Pitched Well Enough To Win But Didn't.

Extremely Fortunate / 420 Friendly Indians

If the opposing pitcher walks six in the first two innings, you'd better score more than three runs. You'd better, in fact, send him to the showers before he has a chance to regroup and start getting people out.

Ricky Romero was extremely fortunate to leave the second inning down only 3-0. 

He posted zeroes in the third, fourth, and fifth. Walks got him into trouble again in the sixth, and he came out having issued eight free passes on the night. The Blue Jays through six were fortunate to be losing only 5-1.

They scored two in the eighth, off Dotel and the new Public Enemy #1 out of the pen, Phil Coke. Missed scoring chances in the early innings, and ten runners left on base, loomed larger with each Jays run. 

Mr. Ripley would find it hard to believe that Ben Wah and Val Verde came in to restore order, but they did; Ben getting a hold and Val the save. The only blemish being a liner that Quentin Berry misplayed into a leadoff double in the ninth.

The Pretenders should consider themselves extremely fortunate to win this one 5-3. 

But 39K sheeple left Comerica wrapped in smug assurance, that our guys really showed their guys how the game of baseball is played.

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In the wee hours of tomorrow morning back east, the Tribe lost at Seattle -- King Felix dispatching them with ease -- and are now 4-20 since the two homers off Verlander "what happened in the seventh inning?" game played July 26, when they were still in both the division and bridesmaid races.

Jackson Absolved

Austin Jackson may have been the only person in Comerica wishing the Indians would get another hit. 

With two out in the sixth, he broke in on Ezequiel Carrera's drive, froze, and ended up chasing the ball to the deepest part of center field. Scored a triple, the hit ended Doug Fister's shot at a perfect game. 

Fister set them down in order in the seventh, and Jackson's misplay became more glaring.

Michael Brantley led off the eighth with a single, and all became well. In the ninth, the punchless Indians managed a run on two hits, one of them Carrera's second triple of the game;enough to avoid a shutout but not a 6-1 loss.

It's Tribe Time Again / They Designated WHO?

And just in time arrive the Indians, on the last leg of an awful road trip, their starters' ERA resembilng an AM radio frequency (12.40).

The Tigers pounded Justin Masterson for seven runs in four innings. Prince Fielder homered and doubled and drove in four, and Andy Dirks went 2 for 4 in his first game since late May. Final: 10-2 Tigers.

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With Dirks back, someone had to go, and it was Don Kelly, designated for assignment.

Maggie is now sure that Rugburn has pics of certain people in compromising poses, their otherwise nude bodies covered with Jello. I think it's because he hits right-handed, that Kelly and not he was cut.

But sheeeesh  ... Kelly has played every position including pitcher and catcher, and in post-season in the NL ball park -- assuming they get that far -- those guys are invaluable for double switches. Rugburn serves one purpose, providing right-handed punch (hitting .172 at this writing) from left field against left handed pitchers. And he didn't get booed every time he poked his head out of the dugout.

Lemon Jello, Maggie says, in honor of former Tigers pitcher Mark Lemongello.

She might be on to something.

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Also designated today, by the Indians, 231 hits shy of 3000, was Johnny Damon.

He was hitting .222, only .130 since July 1, and saw it coming.  The Tribe, sinking quickly in the standings, had already designated the ineffective Derek Lowe.

Both will re-appear on a big league roster this season. After September 1, when the rosters expand, but somewhere, where one pinch hit at the right time, or one enemy rally snuffed, means the difference between post season and no season.

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The Late Late Scene: three west coast baseball games on the radio after 10 PM; Mets at Padres (and did you know "Tigger" was the name of the Brady Bunch's dog?) Cubs at Dodgers with Keith Moreland's non-sequiters a constant reminder of how missed Ron Santo is (Santo was at least funny), and the Jays at Oakland.

The White Elephants were one strike from victory when Jeff Mathis homered with two on to tie the game at four each.  Then no one wanted to win. The game ended with a Coco Crisp sac fly at four minutes before
the weebitching hour in Oakland, that many short of the rarest of games:: one that's still going past three AM Eastern time. Two baseball addicts were up when it ended, possibly the only two not in Canada not listening on the Internet. We have given each other gold stars for the accomplishment.

What Happened In The Seventh Inning?

With the Tigers up 3-1 and Verlander cruising, Miguel Cabrera ended the top half by grounding into a double play. 

Carlos Santana and Travis Hafner led off the bottom halfwith solo homers. JV, who usually gets better deeper into games, allowed two more runs before retiring the Tribe.

The P Boys, Pestano and Perez, posted zeroes in the eighth, and ninth, to respectively record their 29th hold and save.

With the White Sox idle, the Tigers fall a half game out of first, having the same number of wins (53) but one more loss (46) than the Pale Hose.

Scherzer Prevails

After a 30 pitch third inning in which he allowed two runs, Max Scherzer righted himself and pitched the Tigers to a 5-3 win in Cleveland. 

Tiger hitters built an early three run lead, together, off Derek Lowe. It should have been more. Lowe walked the first three in the third, but escaped with only one run scored.

Travis Hafner homered in the ninth? That's how the last Tribe run scored? Fernando Shut 'Em Down must have re-assumed the closer's role. A check of the box score confirmed that it was, indeed, him.

It's Tribe Time Now

Your blogger knew the final score wasn't going to be 2-0 Indians, and in the seventh, Miguel Cabrera proved him right. With QB on, Miggy hit one deep into straightaway center at Progressive Yards, awaaaaaaaaay back, GAWN! Tie game! 

In the bottom seventh, Travis Hafner hit one in the same general direction, and choogled all the way to third. Aaron Cunningham squeezed him in to give the Tribe a 3-2 lead. 

Vinnie Pestano and Chris Perez, among the best in baseball at shutting teams down in the eighth, and ninth, innings, did so again. Hold number 28 for Pestano, save number 28 for Perez. 

Doug Fister pitched well enough to win, but Ubaldo Jiminez was better. The Indians ace, lately rocked, blanked the Tigers for six innings and got his ERA under five, to 4.97. 

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This is the era of specialization, and the acquisition of Omar Infante means Rugburn has at last found his niche: playing left field against left-handed pitchers. And, when Andy Dirks comes back (get well soon, Andy!), that limited role will be gone. 

I have July 30, next Monday at Boston, in Maggie's Rugburn Off The Interstate pool and, with the limited playing time Infante's acquisition also signals, I ain't gonna win it. The contest may in fact have no winner, and my queen would then have to give everyone their money back. 

And guess what else? Speaking of reviled Tigers ... Oakland swept the Yankees and beat Toronto tonight, are at this moment tied for the AL wild card (depending on what the Angels do), Hinge could end up in post-season playing against us, and wouldn't that be a kick in the head?

Let's Build Something Together

What about a seven run lead off Derek Lowe?

And yes, per the script, a key to the four run first was a hit-and-run single by Brennan Boesch.

The search for a witty blog name for Boesch, then, will be put on hold for at least one day. 

They should consider themselves fortunate to leave town with this W. 

Leave with an L, and the howling could be heard all the way down in Cincinnati. 

Who's Next?

Hinge and Rugburn have been booed out of town. Another Public Enemy #1 is needed if Tiger fans are to have any fun at all the rest of the way. 

Let's try Brennan Boesch. "Bash," I called him on another blog, and last season whan he actually bashed the ball. I'll think of a new name for him. Just give me a while.

On June 6 2012, through almost a third of the season, the Tiger formerly known as Bash is hitting .222 with 20 runs batted in. 

With two on and two out in tonight's first inning, he clanged a catchable fly ball. The next guy, Michael Brantley, homered. Three unearned runs on the pitching line of Max Scherzer. An omen of how the rest of the game would go.

The Tigers scored six, but so did the Indians. The inconsistent Scherzer, after four good starts, allowed seven of the nine Tribe runs. The welding mask was definitely needed. If it protects one's eyes from the sun's direct rays, it should protect them from the moving images of Tiger baseball.

Yet another former Toledo Mud Hen, replacing an injured regular, made his major league debut. Brad Holaday, filling in for the disabled Alex Avila, went 1 for 4. 

But they were floundering with all the regulars healthy.

The crew that was supposed to flatten all opponents on the way to the big October dance is now 25 and 31 and one-half game ahead of the fourth place Royals. That makes the baseball blogger wonder who, among the Tiger uniformed brain trust, might pay for the bad start with his job. And wouldn't that be something if it happened after tomorrow's day game, on the last day of a home stand, when so many similar ritual sacrifices are made?

Someone in the bowels of Comerica might, as I type at 12:18 in the morning, be sewing the name FRANCONA on the back of a Tiger road jersey. 

And Venus Was Her Name

We have two choices for entertainment this evening: the Transit of Venus and the Tigers-Indians game. 

The next Transit of Venus happens in December 2117, when the Tigers will be picking up the pieces of another shattered season, while wondering which of their failed high-round draft picks won't be tendered a contract for 2118.

The Tribe is in town for three games; the next two nights and then a Thursday afternoon game.

My goddess has chosen the Transit. She somehow got her hands on a welder's mask, which she will use to watch Venus crawl across the sun's disk. "There's a little black spot on the sun today," sing the Police. We heard that on the radio today, during the Retro Lunch, of all the days to hear it.

She promised to come in and check on the game now and then. 

You might want to wear that mask while watching the Tigers play, I suggested. 

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What an ugly game of baseball. The mask was definitely needed. The Tribe scored three of their four runs on three triples off Drew Smyly. The Tigers got one in the first, one in the ninth, and did nothing in between. The newly arrived Michael Young struck out four times. The boos grew louder with each whiff, turning to cheers only when he fouled a ball into the seats in his last at bat. 

33,258 fans passed on the Transit to come out to Comerica and watch the Detroit Mud Hens. Your baseball blogger wonders if Detroit has the league's best fans, or its most desperate fans.

Sweeps / QB And The Prince

One swing, Miguel Cabrera's two-run homer in the ninth, saved the Tigers from yet another embarrassing 3-2 loss, this one to the American League's most helpless team.

The sweep at Minnesota, and the Indians' three weekend losses in Chicago, leaves the third place Tigers four in back of the Tribe. It also leaves the White Sox, who did the sweeping at US Cellular, in second place one-half game out. 

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The first baseman still known as Prince went 9 for 12 over the weekend, raising his average to .317 and silencing the toughest critics in town, the regulars in the game story Reader Comment sections of the News and Free Press. 


Quentin Berry isn't Austin Jackson, but has nonetheless been The Man since his call-up from Toledo to replace the disabled Tiger center fielder. He's hitting .381, 8 for 21, and made a nice running catch in today's eighth inning to keep the Tigers close. Discarded by four teams, he might stick when Jackson, eligible to come off the DL in five days, returns to the roster. If he does, someone (Rugburn, he of the .151 batting average?) has to go.

The Justinian Empire

The first Indians' hitter Justin Verlander faced, leadoff man Shin-Soo Choo, launched one into the second deck at Insurance Company Park.

Since Tiger starters have to pitch a no-hitter to have a shot at winning, JV was already in trouble. 

The Tigers scraped together a run in the third off Justin Masterson, on a Quentin Berry double and two groundouts. 

In the fourth, Michael Brantley singled, stole second, and scored on a Jose Lopez single. As quiet a run as ever was scored in the major leagues, but it would be all the Tribe needed to win.

JV showed 'em, though, in the eighth, down by the run that everyone in the ball park knew he wasn't going to get. He struck out the side on eleven pitches, all of them fastballs, some over 100 on the gun. No one touched the ball. Not even a loud foul. Here it is, he seemed to be saying; my teammates can't hit their way out of a wet paper bag and one run is all I'm going to get, but I'm the best bleeping pitcher in the major bleeping leagues and doan yew fergit it !!!

So that's that; we showed those Indians how the game of baseball is played, all right. Now it's off to the Twin Cities, where the Monsters of Minneapolis -- Trevor Plouffe, Darin Mastroianni, Brian Dozier, Drew Butera -- eagerly await the Tigers' arrival. Some of them, it's rumored, will be out at the airport to greet the Tigers when they arrive this evening, and load their bags onto the team bus.

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Tom Brookens, when he wore the Olde English "D,"  was my mom's favorite Tiger. "Little Tommy Brookens," she called him. 

LTB is now the Tigers' first base coach, and he and The Resident Managerial Genius were kicked out of this afternoon's game, between Indians ABs in the fifth inning, for arguing a balk that wasn't called, that may have turned the inning around.

TV replays indicated it should have been called. Lately, seemingly more often than ever, TV has exposed the umperors as guys who can't get it right. Missed ball and strike calls cost them last night's game, as well as hitting coach Lloyd McLendon for the night.

The calls that are arguably costing them games wouldn't be, however, if they could score more than three runs per game and let the pitchers do the rest.

Little Things Mean A Lot

And, when you're scoring two runs per game, they become absolutely vital.

With the score even at two and the bases loaded, Alex Avila was called out on strikes, on a borderline pitch to end the eighth inning.

Predictably, the Indians scored two in their eighth, and went on to win 4-2.

The Poetry Corner

JV, Max, Fister, and kin
Pitchers by now all tuned in
With the offense they got
And good it is not
They need a no-hitter to win!

(Final: Indians 5, Tigers 3.)

The Morning After / Back To Bis As Usual

Last night's Verlander game had a healing quality, not unlike the sun's rays, or a good, long, hot, soaking shower. 

It melted / washed away mental images of the shaky pitching (except for JV), leaky defense, lack of production from the five through nine spots in the batting order, and Rugburn who is in his own private category of dreadful.

It left the baseball fan feeling clean and refreshed, eager for the next game (what time are they playing, again?)

In that next game (this afternoon's), Andrew McCutchen hit two two-run homers, and they were all the Pirates needed to handle the again-helpless Tigers 4-3. 

Andrew McCutchen, yes ... he's the complete package. Hits for average, hits with power, blazing speed, Gold Glove defense. And he'll look great, after accumulating six years of major league service time, in Yankee pinstripes. 

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Over in Cleveland, where winning baseball (23-17) is played, Jeanmar Gomez pitched three-hit ball for seven innings as the Indians shut out Miami (or MIA, as they are abbreviated in the wrapups), 2-0. The win, tonight's White Sox win over the Cubs, and the Tiger loss drops the men from Motown into third place, one-half game behind the Pale Hose and four in back of the Tribe.

Did We Miss Anything?

No, nothing much ...

Doug Fister didn't have it, but even Cy Young award winners have days on which they don't have it. Fister allowed the Twins four runs in six innings, a bad game for him but still a good enough effort to keep any team whose lineup includes Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder, and Andy Dirks (.369) in the game.

And the hitters tried their mightiest, but three solo homers (Dirks and Fielder, and Brennan Boesch) by themselves aren't going to make it happen. When all your runs score on three solo homers, the rest of the batting order isn't contributing. 

Justin Morneau hit a two-run shot for the Twins, and a young man named Babe Plouffe, who entered last night's game hitting .125 and homered, homered today and leaves town with a .145 batting average. 

Fister leaves the ball park this afternoon with a 1.59 ERA and a record of  no wins and two losses. 

Meanwhile, across the lake in Cleveland where winning baseball is played, the Indians scored two in the 11th to defeat the Mariners 6-5. 

The Tribe is 22 and 16, and leads the American League Central Division by four games over the men from Motown who, by now per the script, were to be figuring out where to put all the visiting friends and family during World Series week. And the fan wonders, as he does every year around this time, if he wouldn't have been better off starting the season rooting for, and blogging about, the Indians.

 

Opening Day 2012 / Haha Red Sox !

In the Tigers' 2012 home opener, both Justin Verlander and the Red Sox picked up where they left off last season.

JV pitched eight scoreless innings and allowed two hits. Then, the opening day overflow crowd of 45,000 saw something that never happened all last season: Jose Valverde blow a save opportunity. The Sox got two in a mini rally punctuated by Kevin Yoooo-kilis' triple, and tied the score.

But that's okay, because the Sox bullpen imploded, like it did in game 162 last October. With one out, Peralta and Avila singled, and Ramon Santiago was hit by a pitch. Austin Jackson's single plated pinch runner Danny Worth with the winner. Austin Jackson, he's still the man! He tripled and singled twice batting leadoff, scored a run and drove in one, and avoided the strikeout bugaboo that cost him a lot of productive ABs in 2011.

Some fans and at least one beat writer thought JV should have finished the game. He did throw 105 pitches, it was freezing at Comerica, there's 161 games left, and I thought it was time for him to come out so the big home crowd could see Papa Grande work. Forty-nine times last season, he entered in a save situation and got it done. So why not?

JV took a no-decision in a game he maybe should have finished, but Valverde got the win, we're in first place by a game over the Indians, and all is right with the world. At least until Saturday.

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The Blue Jays and Indians opened in Cleveland, and offered further proof of Annie Savoy's contention that the game of baseball is linear and precise in ways that only Walt Whitman can appreciate. Or Isadora Duncan, I forget which ...

Jack Hannahan and J.P. Arencebia homered, giving each team one player who's homered in the first games of his last three seasons. Hannahan in the last three Tribe openers, and Arencebia in the Jays' last two plus his Show debut in August 2010.

The game was also MLB.com's free televised game of the day. The Jays won 7-4 in 16 innings, and there was lots of time for more new league records, for innings played on opening day, and for consumption of a Jays-Indians game from all four possible sources: both teams' radio including a local Sarnia station for the first time in three years, and both TV feeds via the MLB web site.

So we're a two home team town again. And on FM. For 161 of the next 180 days there will be at least three fewer hours of country music on the local radio dial. That's also a good thing.