Well, at least they avoided the sweep. But no one outside of Cleveland Indians announcer Matt Underwood actually believes, as Underwood said after the final out Sunday, that all is once again well with the Cleveland Indians. Rather, had the Indians found a way to once again lose to the Oakland A's, more than a few flat screens around northeast Ohio would have been in need of the Best Buy Geek Squad.
Until the Tribe found a way to squeak out Sunday’s 2-1 win, the highlight was the fact that only two of the three games found their way on local television. Sitting through two of them was more than enough to bring back a whole host of last season memories of what this team looks like when it doesn’t hit. It isn’t pretty in the same way that a head-on car crash isn’t pretty.
If there was a bright spot, and geez that would be hard to find, it had to be Cliff Lee, who pitched twice as well as the rest of the team played. For most of the game, it looked like it was Lee’s turn in the “hard luck loser” box pitching for a team that was treating Oakland’s Joe Blanton like he was Josh Beckett.
Sticking with the Cliff Lee theme for a minute, in a weekend that was discouraging on several levels Lee looked nothing like the pretender who was up there last year nibbling at the corners, treating every hitter as if he was David Ortiz and otherwise getting his brains beat in every five days until he took up permanent residence in Buffalo. In his first start of this season, Lee looked mostly confident and mostly willing to challenge the awfully young A's lineup. If that seems like faint praise, it’s really not considering that the rest of the Indians lineup was much less willing to take on that challenge for most of the three game series.
A microcosm of the weekend’s offensive futility was the 7th inning of Sunday’s game. After Jason Michaels grounded out, Andy Marte and Kelly Shoppach singled. The A's then walked Grady Sizemore, the only Indians player putting together decent at bats these days. Asdrubal Cabrera was up next and hit a perfect double play ball to A's first baseman Daric Barton. Barton bobbled it long enough to keep the Indians out of the double play, although Barton was able to get Cabrera at first. The Indians, however, tied the game at 1-1. Give Cabrera the gift RBI.
With first base open, the A's decided to intentionally walk Travis Hafner, which made some sense historically but not if you have access to the hitting charts of Hafner’s last 140 or so games, bringing up Ryan Garko, who traditionally hits Blanton well. After falling behind in the count, Garko walked on a 3-2 pitch to bring home the Indians second run. That brought on Santiago Casilla who proceeded to strike out Jhonny Peralta.
Article comments
1 - John D
I really think you are over-reacting. This is my first time reading your column (I enjoyed it and I like your writing style) and I will remind you that the season is one week old. If you're going to panic now, what will you do when the dog days come? It took the Indians some time last year too but they did come around.
I also disagree that Martinez being out isn't significant, because it clearly is. He is the anchor in the middle of that lineup and without him, everything around that anchor is disrupted.
Perhaps you should change your calendar to May or even June before deciding that the Indians lineup is awful?
2 - Gary Benz
John--No panic here. The key is that this team is largely intact from a year ago when it likewise struggled offensively. Thus, while it's early, the struggles aren't a surprise. You can't have Hafner struggling, Martinez out and then use Michaels and Dellucci in the outfield and expect to score runs.