I'm Not Feeling Good About This One

What? WHAT?

I haven't been following this game very closely — was bathing and getting The Boy ready for bed, and after that spending time with The Wife, with the ballgame playing in the background.

I just heard that the Orioles, after waiting three innings to complain that their player crossed the plate before Miguel Tejada was doubled at first for the third out of the third inning, were finally awarded the run.

And now Fultz just gave up the lead, on Patterson's two-out, two-run double in the 8th. Two runs charged to Cabrera by the way — his first of the season.

I've traced the disaster that was the 2006 season back to an early game against the O's in Camden Yards, when the Indians blew a 7-3 lead in the bottom of the fifth, during which time Rafael Betancourt and Matt Miller both left the game with injuries and Jason Johnson had a diabetic attack in the dugout. All this happened after The Wife took down my framed Cleveland Indians 100th anniversary poster from the wall of our studay — and before I could get the poster tacked back up. The Indians were hot at the time, and they never really got their swagger back after that 18-9 loss.

I assure you, nothing occurred in our apartment to precipitate tonight's bizarre events.

I hear Wedge is playing this game under protest. If MLB upholds the protest, that will be one more home game to reschedule.

While I've been typing, the boys made a quick three outs in the bottom of the eighth.

What a bunch of crap. It sounds like the umpires were clearly in the wrong — twice. First, the run should have counted. Second, according to the rules, as Hammy and Hegan (admittedly, our guys) just represented them, Sam Perlozzo waived his right to complain when the first pitch of the following inning was thrown. I bet they're hoping Cleveland does something in the ninth to bail them out.

"AND HE WAS FLYING!"

A game-winning, three-run, inside-the-park home run for Grady Sizemore. That's four hyphens, if you're counting.

And JoBo — yes, I'm acceding to the syllabonym, in just this one case — strikes out the side to end the game.

You'd like to see a blowout now and then, but I'm encouraged by this team's ability to find ways to win the close ones. Last night they were handcuffed by Steve Trachsel, but they weaseled and cajoled just enough pitches out of him to get him pulled in the sixth. In comes Jeremy Guthrie, who may be a double-agent. No room on our roster for the former first-round pick, so we send him out into the field to serve up big innings for us? You're an evil genius, Mark Shapiro.

Feathers!

Well, that's five wins in a row now, and six of seven since I last posted on the debacle in Yankee Stadium. Looks like the demoralizing carryover we all worried about, coming out of New York, didn't happen. I think the credit for that starts with Eric Wedge. The team has surely handled adversity to this point — they've been jobbed out of a five-inning win, had a four-game series canceled and a home series transfered to another park, and they had their butts handed to them in excruciating style in the Bronx.

What's that? We're now in first place? Way to keep your eyes on the prize, boys.

When I was in the Indian Guides — yes, I was in the Indian Guides — the kids were awarded feathers of various colors for their accomplishments. Sort of like merit badges or Buckeye leaves. I'm going to seize on that model and distribute some feathers to players who made notable contributions over the last week.

Feathers are awarded as follows:

*to Travis Hafner (of course), Red Feather, as in "red hot" — for being consistently exceptional at the plate through the road trip. Maybe there's something to the blather about contract talks being a "distraction" during the season. Talks suspended, and Pronk takes off. Coincidence? Dunno.

*to the bullpen generally, Blue Feather, for freezing out opponents and keeping the team in a lot of close games down the stretch. Today's win over Texas was the rare game in which a starter handed the ball over with a significant lead. These have for the most part been nailbiter games, and for the most part the 'pen has come through. Betancourt? Solid. Borowski? 8 for 9 in save opps: can't complain. Hernandez? Big strikeout with men on last night.

*to Fernando Cabrera, Multicolored Peacock Feather, for finally emerging in style, as many of us were expecting he would last year. I didn't get to listen to him pitch last night — sorry, boys, I went to bed — but it was the same, old same-old: plenty of Ks and no runs. Hammy said today that he's earning some consideration as a back-end reliever. That's an understatement.

*to Shin-Soo Choo, White Feather, for making the most of the callup and infusing some life into the bottom of the order. I've always been a big Choo fan, and he's given me no reason to backtrack over the past few days. I appreciate that he doesn't have any "big tools," but he surely does a lot of things well. Gunning down Kenny Lofton at the plate on a sacrifice fly today was huge. Lofton ain't what he once was, but he's still got 9 steals this year in limited duty. Throwing him out is no mean feat.

*from Fausto Carmona — in this case Feathers come off, along with Tar — for making us forget last year. Carmona drew matchups with the mighty Yankees (yeah, we lost the game, but we lost in spite of Fausto) and Johan Santana, and he shrugged off the pressure and got to work getting batters out. Having a sixth starter who can come in and throw quality starts is a luxury. Fausto could have a big future with this team.

Put those feathers in your caps, boys, and let's get back to work tomorrow.

Swept/Terrible Ways to Lose a Ballgame, Part II

Up four runs, with the closer on the mound and two out and nobody on in the bottom of the ninth . . .

New York's #8 hitter Josh Phelps homers to right field. Jorge Posada singles on a two-strike pitch. Top of the order now, and Posada takes second on defensive indifference; Borowski ultimately issues a walk to Johnny Damon. Derek Jeter singles home Posada on a two-strike pitch. Abreu singles home Damon on a two-strike pitch. Runners advance on a wild pitch, and Alex Rodriguez — to this point 0 for 4 — hits a walk-off three-run home run over the center field wall.

Two outs and six earned runs — and just when we were starting to get comfortable with Borowski.

A stellar effort by Fausto Carmona, wasted. A three-hit afternoon by Travis Hafner wasted. Victor Martinez's clutch three-run homer to take the lead? Wasted.

The two previous games in this series were disasters in their own right, with Westbrook and Sowers absolutely gagging in the early innings, and Our Boys poorly positioned to recover. We were never in those games. I got to watch the Sowers fiasco on ESPN2 last night, and while Jeremy's abbreviated performance was troubling, the offense's failure to deliver even a glimmer of a comeback was downright painful.

Win three consecutive series to start the season, and then — pow! — just like that you're knocked back to .500.

Hammy's just disgusted, and I am, too. The Yankees were starting rookies Chase Wright, Kei Igawa, and Russell Halsey in this series, and I was feeling good about our prospects.

Ugh.

Westbrook Signs!

Looks like a three-year extension totaling $33 million, with some of the dollars front-loaded into Jake's 2007 salary. This, to me, is win-win. Jake gets paid on a level with the crazy deal the Royals gave Gil Meche, and the Indians lock up a #2/#3 starter. It sounds like both sides just wanted to get this done, and they both made the appropriate concessions to get to yes.

Westbrook doesn't set the world on fire, but he's a legit and consistent major league pitcher. Start-in and start-out, he keeps you in games. <knock wood>And he stays healthy, too.</knock wood> Westbrook is the Charlie Nagy of the "oughts" Indians. He's the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie Oven of the Indians' Pitchin' Kitchen: "set it and forget it through 2010.

I suppose I could talk about what this means for the Sabathia negotiations — based on Westie's paycheck, clearly C.C. is entitled to something north of $13 or $14 million — but right now let's just celebrate the fact that we'll have Jake at the Jake for the next four seasons.

On the Road to Milwaukee

Well, I think I've probably already said everything I need to say about the scheduling nonsense. Maybe an "I told you so" is in order to the umpiring crew: because they bit on the Hargrove Filibuster Ploy, we have to make up 4 games instead of 3 and 1/2. MLB should require the same crew to come back and call those games, but I don't quite think Selig and the boys have the sense of justice that I do.

Now it seems we're required to abandon the frozen tundra of Jacobs Field to go play our home games in    wait for it   

Milwaukee.

You've got to be kidding me. I wonder what compensation plan MLB has ready to offer the Indians for lost gate revenue. I just heard on the radio this morning that a spokeswoman for the leagues was complaining of the difficulty accommodating every team's interests in scheduling. Tampa Bay, for example, doesn't want to have too many April games. Cry me a river. If, as seems to be true, MLB has to inflict a significant measure of injustice on somebody in order to draft a 162-game unbalanced schedule for 30 baseball teams — well, you'd think a principle of seniority would be applied. Maybe Tampa Bay should get shafted, if the choice is between scheduling early-season games in the Devil Ray's dome in Florida vs. assigning the Indians their longest homestand of the year in the lion days of April.

Ugh.

Home Opener Travesty/Abomination

Let this post's subject line be a clear indicator: I'm in a mood this morning. The reasons for my outrage are abundant. Here's what I'm carrying around with me right now:

We all share and generally accept the view that certain minimum weather conditions are required to support a competitive baseball game. Although there may be room for argument at the margins, no reasonable person disputes that, unlike, say, football, games can and should be called, delayed, rescheduled when the weather is serving up something outside the scope of what's acceptable.

But here's the kicker: Major League Baseball insists on scheduling games, in the first instance, in certain ballparks at certain times of year where the likelihood of unacceptable, unplayable weather is quite high. We all understand why they do this — at least in part: the owners (and players) are greedy bastards. They could shorten the season to 154 games. It wouldn't be inconsistent with the traditions of baseball. Baseball played a 154-game schedule for over 50 years. But season-shortening isn't a possibility, because the owners aren't willing to sacrifice the gate and TV revenue they get from those additional 8 games. Even keeping the schedule at 162 games, baseball could at least compress the season calendar by scheduling doubleheaders, but again, financial considerations preclude this. Admitting fans to two games for the price of one? You'd suggest less of an imposition if you called on Jerry Reinsdorf to set himself on fire.

So games must be played in early April — and postseason games in late October, because of the owners' greed. Fine. We've been living with owner greed for a long time. But now let's consider why early April games are scheduled in northern, open-air parks where the weather is most likely to prove more hospitable to the Iditarod than a baseball game. This I can't explain, unless I point my Stupid Stupid Stupid Finger at the Commissioner's Office. There are, in the American League, seven teams that play in locales demonstrably more attractive and hopeful in April than the other seven: the Rangers, Angels, Mariners, A's, Twins, Blue Jays, and Devil Rays all play their games in moderate climates, under domes or retractable roofs, or (in the case of Tampa Bay) both. Why not start the season with moderate to lengthy homestands in these teams' parks? This would carry you at least into mid-April, at which point you could mix in cities like Batimore and Kansas City that offer a greater likelihood of moderate weather than Boston, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit.

But noooooooooooooo! Baseball has to slap ballgames down in these northern parks, with thirty-degree temperatures and snow. For no frickin' apparent reason.

Which brings us to yesterday's home opener. Played (or at least started) after the grounds crew pushed away 4 to 6 inches of snow from the field, delayed twice to accommodate sudden-onset snow squalls, and finally canceled, with two outs and two strikes on the losing team in the fifth inning, and rescheduled to be played in its entirety the next day. And in the course of all this, the Indians grounds crew worked itself to exhaustion, Tribe fans sat for hours enduring bitter cold (only to be told by the umpires that their team's 4-0 lead had been wiped away, and they should come back tomorrow), and Victor Martinez — who if you hadn't noticed had been on an absolute tear to start the season — has been lost to a muscle pull directly attributable to the poor playing conditions.

Nice one, MLB. Nice one, umpires.

I don't fault Hargrove, henceforward "the Human Snow Delay," for going out there, one strike away from the game becoming "official," and stalling for time while the snow situation intensified. That's his job. I fault the umpires for failing to instruct him to get his once-beloved butt back into the dugout, so Paul Byrd (who was working on a no-hitter, by the way) would have the opportunity at least to complete the at-bat to Lopez. And I fault them for calling the game just as the storm cell cleared the area, so that — once the field was cleared — the game could have been played to its nine-inning conclusion.

To be fair, I'll admit that the Indians did gain from the weather conditions. Their four runs were all unearned, following directly from Adrian Beltre's three surely weather-related errors. And if the wheels had not come off for Byrd in the fifth, and he hadn't walked three batters, the inning might have been over and the game official before that last squall kicked up and Grover could throw down his trump card. So fine — the situation is only extremely unjust to the Indians, rather than grossly unjust.

This is Seattle's only series at Jacobs Field this year — another problem to hang on the neck of MLB's schedulers (at some later date I'll post my thoughts on the absurd unbalanced schedule) — so now the teams have to come up with 36 innings in three days, under conditions not much improved from yesterday's. Good luck figuring that out, umps. One wonders how we'll handle the catching situation with Victor out: will Garko go behind the plate? Will we have to make a roster move to call up another catcher? Who do you option to the minors? We'll need every pitcher in the bullpen, along with at least one spot starter to pitch one of the games today. I suppose it will be a position player. Ugh.

I hope the rest of the weekend plays out as follows:

*We sweep today's doubleheader, winning both games by ten or more runs.

*Jose Lopez gets plunked at least twice by Indians pitchers.

*Monday's game is canceled due to inclement weather, and the Mariners have to fly out to Cleveland on an off-day to make it up.

All of that taken together, to me, would amount to something approximating justice. It won't heal Victor's leg, but it would go a long way to closing this great, gaping hole in my soul.

Terrible Ways To Lose a Ballgame, Part I

Tie game on the road in the bottom of the ninth: two bloop singles, an errant pickoff throw into center field, an intentional walk, then a hit batter. Game over.

Ugh.

I realize that by appending the words "Part I" to the subject line, I've essentially created a "Department." I should be clear that I would be perfectly happy never to have to write a Part II, but let's be realistic. There are 162 games in a season, and we're bound to lose more than one in heartbreaking, abominable fashion. Here's hoping this won't be quite so frequent an occurrence as it was last year. The '06 Indians managed to lose games in such innovative and complicated ways that I was in the habit of describing their losses as "snowflake" losses — in that every one was unique, and each one left you feeling a little colder than the last.

Let's try to keep the snowflakes to a minimum, boys. It's bad enough that we had a winter storm here in Cambridge yesterday on April 4. After a long winter of discontent, Tribe fans everywhere — including those of us in New England — are entitled to some sunshine.

Shake it off, release Casey Blake, and move on.

Michaels's Game-Ending Catch

Just saw the catch online. The Chicago announcers weren't nearly as enthusiastic about it, but there definitely was drama there.

Sorry for doubting you, Hammy.

Indians 8, White Sox 7

Well, that was a barnburner — so much so that I only dimly remember writing that last post about Marte.

At some point I'll have to log on MLB.com and check out Michaels's catch to end the game. The way Hammy called it, there was significant drama, but that's Tom Hamilton: he can order a chicken sandwich, and everyone within earshot would be on the verge of a coronary.

Sounds like home plate umpire Larry Vanover was nothing short of an abomination yesterday, but at least he was equitable about it. A certain awkward form of fairness emerges when the umpire screws both teams with balls-and-strikes calls.

Encouraging: Victor gets four hits and guns down Podsednik at second base. I've had a good feeling about Martinez this year, from the plate, at least. If he's going to throw out baserunners, it's a bonus. Wedge can get more comfortable with him back there, and a lineup with Victor (C) and Garko or Blake (1B) is stronger than one with Shoppach (C) and Victor (1B). I like Shoppach as a player, and I don't object to innings and games at first to keep Martinez fresh. But if Wedge tacks on more innings and games at first than he would otherwise intend, simply because Victor can't throw out any baserunners, we're not as strong a team — and we probably lost a few games in the interim with teams running all over us.

(By the way, if you ever see the nickname "V-Mart" written here, notify the authorities and have me hanged. Please note that I do reserve the right to use the name ironically.)

Discouraging: Blake in the 5-hole leaves nine men on base. Everyone is entitled to a lousy game, I try to remind myself. And we did win the game. But with a hitter of Garko's caliber languishing on the bench, all those LOBs are harder to forgive.

Somewhere between encouraging and discouraging: Joe Borowski — is he Bob Wickman Lite? Yeesh.

Paraphrasing C3P0

Andy Marte, I never doubted you for a second. Wonderful!

Indians 12, White Sox 5

I took a personal day today — back late from vacation on the West Coast, and it's Opening Day, for crying out loud! — and I was able to watch a lot of the game from the sports bar down the road. I was unpacking, getting things done around the house, and by the time I got settled in front of a television, the Tribe was up 5-0.

I've always known the Sports Depot to be hopping: it's where I go on Saturdays in the fall, when the godforsaken local networks spurn OSU football in favor of some lesser game involving Boston College. Without fail I find the place occupied by swarms of decked-out fan cliques: Buckeyes, Huskers, Gators, Vols, etc. On a Tuesday afternoon in April — with the Red Sox opener scheduled for later in the day — it's just a couple of locals playing Keno, and little old me.

The game was an Extra Innings broadcast on a satellite feed, where the Home Team calls the game. So it was the Comiskey Clowns, Hawk Harrelson and Darrin Jackson, at the mike. Fortunately, audio wasn't available — close-captioning wasn't working, either, as presumably most stenographers find transcribing the words of these yahoos beneath their dignity.

As the afternoon wore on, the bar filled up around me. Sox fans settling in to watch Curt Schilling get (ha-ha!) shelled. The local sports talk station, WEEI, ran a promotion at the bar. They passed out key rings and took people's names to enter into a drawing for "2 tickets to Dice-K's first start." The "Dice-K" phenomenon (nickname included) is already tiresome. Fans cheered when Trot Nixon came to the plate for Our Boys, and the on-screen graphic reported that he was 3 for 4 on the days. They jeered Alex Rodriguez's eighth-inning home run. In Boston sports bars there are always several television sets monitoring the progress of the Yankees. "Typical A-Rod," was the sentiment. "Homers when they're already ahead." I could have pointed out that the Devil Rays' offense is actually pretty good, and the game was still in doubt when Rodriguez homered. But whatever. It was enough that I could smell their fear. I felt no further need to coax more of it into the open air.

In point of fact, Sox fans should have focused their worry on the lone screen over the bar, tuned to Comcast Sports Central, where ominous happenings foretold the rise of a juggernaut in the American League Central. These '07 Indians were exploding all over the White Sox. Exploding. And all these Bostonians went along with their business, sipping their Sammies, shouting out answers to the WEEI PR guy's Red Sox trivia questions, directing insults at Melky Cabrera. They have no idea they're on line to collide with Mark Shapiro's asteroid.

Kind of sad, when you think about it. I'd have warned them, but who wants a Cassandra Complex? And besides, it'll be all the more enjoyable to see these yokels blindsided.

Some thoughts on what I saw — as it's not often I get to see a game, instead of just listening to it:

*Not sure if the game was pulled to widescreen, but C.C. still looks pretty big. Grizzly-bear big . . . I like to think it was widescreen. The Bud Light logo behind home plate looked a little stretched, too. I was glad to see Sabathia back on the mound after the line-drive incident last week (I first learned of this over lunch at the Cliff House in San Francisco; a television over the restaurant bar was on ESPN, and the news passed across the ticker at screen's bottom — I about lost it), glad to see him bear down in the sixth and work out of the bases-loaded jam.

*Liked what I saw of Peralta at the plate. Nice line drive up the middle in the second at-bat — not trying to do too much.

*Grady looks pretty locked-in to me, notwithstanding the horrific spring stats. This is a good thing, as I had picked him second overall in my fantasy draft, after Santana. (This elicited some chuckles from the other GMs at the time, along with a flurry of "NOT PUJOLS?" posts in the online chat. I'll explain the logic behind this selection in a later post.) The leadoff homer was encouraging, but even more so was Sizemore's long drive to deep right center off the lefthander. Caught by Ozuna for a long out, but I liked the swing he put on the ball. If Grady figures out lefties this year, we're talking AL MVP. Easy.

*Marte looks lost at the plate. Completely lost. Nice, soft hands in the field. Made all the plays, but my Gawd. You have to get some production at 3B. You like to think he'll settle in, now that the job's essentially his. In the meantime, yeesh.

*I didn't see the last of the ninth, as I was off to pick up The Boy at day care. I wasn't surprised to hear that the Sox tallied two in the last frame. Let's hope that's the classic "No Save Situation/Closer Don't Care" dynamic at work, and J-Bor was just working on his pitches.

All in all, a terrific start to the season. Projected final season record, at current pace: 162-0. Wahoo! ¡Honron! Let's play ball! Et cetera.