Catching Up

I have about a month of material to catch up on here. Haven't had much time to post, with work heating up, always The Boy to attend to, and now we're putting the house up for sale — and we spent the last two months looking for a newer, bigger place.

So here's The Month in Review — in montage form:

*Sowers wins a game — against the Royals. Hooray. Not sure if he's suffering from Second Time Around Syndrome. Jeremy's pitching tonight. The Reds owned him earlier in the month, and he's out there again against Cincy tonight.

*As Hafner continues to struggle, Victor Martinez starts to make a case for the AL Most Valuable Player Award. Not that he has a prayer of winning it, with Magglio Ordonez hitting .363, on pace for 80+ doubles and 150 RBI.

[Sowers just gave up a two-run homer to Jeff Conine — yes, that's Jeff Conine hitting cleanup for the Reds. He had two homers on the year before this series. He's doubled that output in two days. "A costly two-out mistake," is how Hammy just described it.]

*Memorial Day weekend saw the Indians complete a three-game road sweep of the Tigers, to open up a decent-sized lead in the AL Central. Since then, the Indians' play has been largely uninspired — lost two of three to Boston on the road (excusable) and took two of three from Kansas City at home (ho hum). We seem to be in a pattern right now wherein we get three good starts from Byrd, Sabathia, and Carmona, only to have the "crafty lefties," Lee and Sowers, dissipate the momentum. Granted, if the Good Three hold serve, we play .600 ball. Thing is, perfection is too much to expect from them over the course of the year — and .600 ball may not be enough to win the division. In short, Lee and Sowers need to pull themselves together. By which I mean "not downright suck every time out."

*Between the Boston and KC series was a four-game set at home against Detroit. The series opened with two wins, and in the second the Tribe came back from four runs down twice — the second time in the bottom of the ninth, to win the game. A spectacular finish that I would have missed, had not The Boy made some noise and kept me awake. So God bless him: if he hadn't called for that bottle I'd have packed up the ol' bluetooth headset in frustration. Midway through that series, we were up 4.5 games, did not appear capable of losing to Detroit, and looked poised to go for the throat over the next two days. But oh yeah: Lee and Sowers were due to pitch those games. So never mind.

*There are questions in the bullpen. Rafael Betancourt isn't one of them — unless your question is "can you believe we've finally got a bad-ass setup man?" Something happened to Fernando Cabrera. He's completely lost it. There was a stretch of appearances where he didn't even record an out. Hard to believe a guy could be so dominating over the first month, then have it all turn off like someone flipped a switch. If we get anywhere this year, Cabrera plays a big part in it. So he needs to right the ship. Roberto Hernandez is coming apart, and time appears to have run out on Tom Mastny, who looked like a reliable arm until this last week. You wonder when the Indians will call up Matt Miller, who has been lights out in Buffalo. It must be a roster situation: they can't send down Cabrera, because he's out of options.

[Sowers just dealt another home run ball — this one to Josh Hamilton. You've got to feel right now that if Adam Miller weren't hurt, and Westbrook's' injury so slow in rehabbing, Jeremy would have "shuffled off" a week or so ago.]

*Jhonny Peralta is the Real Deal. And you have to love Casey Blake. No one has ever confused Blake with Brooks Robinson or Alex Rodriguez, and he has had long stretches of "anti-clutch" hitting. But boy, has he been terrific at third base for us, and batting second. He has made the most of his opportunity in Cleveland, and he's just a very good Major League Baseball player.

*Saw two of the Fenway games — a loss and a win. They dominated the celebrated Matsuzaka in the win. It was a rather enjoyable night.

MY ASSESSMENT, AT THIS POINT: This is a good team with significant flaws that are starting to catch up with it. The starting pitching we've discussed. I would take Sabathia, Byrd, and Carmona 1-2-3 against anyone in the playoffs. There are holes to fill in relief. Watching the Boston games illustrated what a luxury it is to have more than one lefty in the 'pen. Pronk didn't have a prayer against the sidewinder Lopez, and Okajima is almost unhittable. You can get by with Borowski and Betancourt if the starters go seven or eight innings. But that's a big if. We need the Good Cabrera and another reliable arm at least (Mastny? Miller?). The lineup is solid, and it could be tops in baseball — Detroit be damned — if Pronk ever puts it together. Grady, too, has been inconsistent. He's showing a great eye at the plate, good home-run power, and speed on the basepaths, but still hitting right around .280.

BEST-CASE SCENARIO: Hafner and Sizemore catch fire, Westbrook and Matt Miller return to stabilize the rotation and bullpen, and the Indians break away over the next two months.

[Indians load up the bases with nobody out and the heart of the order — Hafner, Martinez, and Nixon — due up in the top of the third. As Pronk comes to the plate, Hammy says, "This is a grand slam waiting to happen." Hafner lines out to left ("sharply," in the view of the folks at MLB.com, if you're looking for sunshine), and in the end we get one run on a sac fly. Nice.]

WORST-CASE SCENARIO: One of the Big Three starters loses time to injury, the bullpen implodes, Shapiro is forced into another Giles-for-Rincon-style move to try to hold things together, and things don't hold together.