Ten for ten. Playoffs possible?
Posted August 28th, 2008 by Dave Wiley
The Indians completed their third sweep in three series, beating Detroit 9-7 and upping their win streak to ten games in a row. The longest win streak in Indians history is thirteen.
This one was a wild contest. The good news was, the Indians are still cranking out the offense. The bad news, Jensen Lewis gave up a pair in the bottom of the ninth as he looked human at closer. Then again, the good news - he ended up with the save.
Checking out the standings, there is a column that shows how the team has performed in their last ten. The Indians’ reads 10-0. It will be interesting to see how many more days it can stay there. With the victory, and sweep of the Tigers, the Indians open up a 1.5 game lead on Detroit for third place. Now they set their sights on a much higher goal, tracking down second place.
With only roughly 30 games left for MLB teams, the Indians are 10.5 games behind Division leader Chicago, and 9.5 behind Minnesota. Though highly unlikely, you’d have to admit it would be exciting to see them chase down one of these teams. If so, reaching the playoffs would not even be a stretch – if they tracked down one of the teams. Yes, even the thought of post-season is a huge-huge stretch, but one that still exists. Ever put your money on eleven in the middle of the table at craps? A post-season berth would be similar to that. Every once in a while it happens, but it ain’t bloody likely. Oh, and just for yucks, in case you were wondering, the Indians are 12 games out in the wild card race. Johnny Carson would probably say the odds are a BILLION to ONE. He’d probably be about right.
A more realistic goal for the Indians is to finish above .500 for the year. They are currently two games below that figure at 65-67. Win two thirds of the remaining games, and they end the year with around 85 wins, not a bad number.
Fausto Carmona pitched himself to a win, allowing four runs on seven hits over six innings. Justin Verlander took the loss for Detroit going six innings , giving up five runs on seven hits.
The lead was up for grabs through four, as these two traded back-and-forth in the run column.
Cleveland opened the game by going up 1-0 on a David Dellucci double and a Jhonny Peralta single that scored Dellucci sandwiched around ground-out that moved Dellucci to third.
Detroit answered the bell by scoring one of their own when Curtis Granderson led off the game with a home-run, making it 1-1 after one.
Cleveland jumped back out on top in the top of the second on a walk to Ryan Garko, a single by Kelly Shoppach, a successful Andy Marte sac-bunt, a second out Asdrubal Cabrera strike-out, and a Grady Sizemore single that scored both Garko and Shoppach.
Detroit would take their first lead of the game in the bottom of the frame, scoring three runs and giving themselves a 4-3 lead. They produced on a Jeff Larish single, a Carmona balk that move Larish to second, a Gary Sheffield walk, the second successful sacrifice of the night with Edgar Renteria bunting the runners over, and a Brandon Inge single that score Larish (deep breath). Ramon Santiago singled, scoring Sheffield, then Granderson singled scoring Inge. With runners on the corners and still only one out, Carmona was desperate for a double play, and he got it when Joyce grounded to second.
It would take the Indians until the top of the fourth to retake the lead. Garko was hit by a pitch to open the inning and Kelly Shoppach went yard, giving the Indians a 5-4 lead.
The Tribe added a couple insurance runs in the top of the seventh. Shin-Soo Choo hit his seventh home-run of the season, a BULLET SHOT deep into the bleachers, with Peralta, the recipient of a walk one batter earlier, standing on first. Even Grady Sizemore was impressed by the length of this one, and was shown conversing with Choo in the dugout about it. Choo demonstrated the liner with a hand-gesture showing the ball’s flight path straight to whomever it beaned in the outfield.
Seven runs would not be enough to take down the Tigers on this night.
Granderson was issued a free pass by Rafael Perez, then Rafael #2 Betancourt came on and gave up a double to Maglio Ordonez, that scored Granderson. The Indians lead dwindled to 7-5.
The Indians offense stoked up the fire again in the eighth, hitting four singles and getting a pair of runs making it a 9-5 lead. Peralta, Choo, Garko, and Shoppach had back-to-back-to-back-to-back singles off a pair of Tigers relievers, Shea and Farnsworth. Kyle Farnsworth has come up in talking-heads discussions as a possible candidate for the closer role in Cleveland. Let’s hope the Indians higher ups remember how the Tribe shelled him in this last Detroit series and they end up sticking with Lewis.
Speaking of Lewis, he came on in the ninth in a non-save situation surrendering a pair of runs, doling out a single to Granderson and a homerun to Ordonez. On the plus side of the picture, all three outs he registered were strike-outs.
The Indians are off on Thursday (too bad!!!) and resume play Friday at home against Seattle. Seattle comes into Cleveland losers of six of their last ten, but taking two of three from Minnesota prior to the visit.
Felix Hernandez (8-8, 3.28 ERA) will pitch against Cleveland’s Jeremy Sowers (2-6, 5.95 ERA). Game time is 7:05.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am
FIY: You cannot create a save situation for yourself. If you come in with a 4 run lead and give up two, you don't get a save for that just because you made it a closer game. Check the boxscore. Lewis did not get a save last night.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:25 am
…and one gets a postseason "berth", not "birth". also, "dugout" is not a hyphenated word.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I'd like to see the Tribe sweep Seattle as that would set up Monday for 2 important events:
1) Lee goes for 20 wins.
2) Indians go for team record 14th win in a row.
August 28th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
First, Wayne, great point about the 14th win. That assumes that Wedge doesn't end up with a six man rotation, prior to Lee's start, as the idea has been kicked around for September callups.
Dave, thanks for the typo corrections. Dugout came up as a misspell and wanted me to hyphenate it. I KNEW I shouldn't have listened to that darn paper clip.
John. You were right. When I checked the box score, it had Lewis marked as a save, but it is now changed. My ignorance for not knowing you cannot create your own save. Something new to file away in my memory banks.
Thanks for the feedback. Dave Wiley
August 28th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
You see, Tribe excuse-makers? No one wants to hear any of that bullcrap about injuries being the cause for their first-half snoozefest. They've now been without CC, Westbrook, Fausto, JoBlow, Martinez, Hafner, JMichaels, Barfield–and any semblance of a professional bullpen–and, lo and behold, they can actually SCORE RUNS and WIN GAMES when they stop making excuses and swinging the bats like Little Leaguers.
Sheesh! Every other team overcomes major injuries and player losses (see Tampa Bay and Minnesota, for example), and are somehow able to contend for a title. This group of whiney babies sulked, moaned and groaned their way into a lineup of .200 averages for the first two months, effectively flushing the whole season away by mid-May. Way to "man-up," guys!
Can they chase down the ChiSox and Twins? Unlikely, unless there are several head-to-head meetings with those teams, and we sweep…along with both of those teams beating up on each other. Stranger things have happened. But Shapiro, we still need off-season help.
August 29th, 2008 at 2:17 am
three of four following teams in front of us *have* to go into a major tank for us to make the playoffs:
CHI MIN - if we overtake both, we win the division and what the non division teams do becomes irrelevant.
NY BOS
the other teams above us can go around .500 and we can still surpass them, but we're talking something like 23-7, which gives us 88 wins.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
"Every once in a while it happens, but it ain’t bloody likely."
Unfortunately the "once in a while" was last year with the Rockies. The only thing this win streak is gonna do is make Indians management convince themselves once again that we don't need to upgrade at many positions to compete next year.
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:59 am
Well, maybe the three game losing streak will remind them otherwise.