Breaking Through

Game 2 was absolutely loco. Tom Mastny? Trot Nixon? Seven runs in the 11th inning? Wow. I was exhausted afterward, so I can't imagine how the players must have felt. Probably pretty pumped, judging by the post-game celebrations. If there was ever a doubt in my mind that Cleveland could hang with Boston in this series, it was erased during Game 2.

Fausto Carmona did not fare well in this game. Like Sabathia in Game 1, Carmona struggled with his control all night, walking five on 100 pitches. Carmona appeared to be overthrowing from the start, consistently throwing in the 94-97 MPH range. As sick as a 98 MPH sinker is (just ask Dustin Pedroia), it's not going to get you many strikes if you can't control it.

Fausto threw just 51% of his pitches for strikes and had many erratic breaking balls that Sox batters weren't swinging at. Fausto failed to use his changeup or off-speed slider tonight, allowing the opposition to settle in. I may have missed it, but I don't think Fausto threw less than 90 MPH until the fourth inning (he used two off-speed pitches on Varitek for a K).

Fortunately for the Tribe, Curt Schilling was just as bad, surrendering 5 ER over 4.2 IP. Schilling was far from his best tonight and the Tribe's batters were able to capitalize on his mistakes. Tribe batters worked over the former ace, making him throw 85 pitches before getting pulled early. The Tribe also launched two taters off Schilling, including a 3-run bomb by Peralta to regain the lead in the 4th.

The trio of Jhonny Peralta, Grady Sizemore, and Victor Martinez continued their postseason tear on offense. Peralta leads the team this postseason with 6 RBI, while Grady leads the team in runs with 6. Tonight's line:

Peralta: 3-5 / 3 R / 4 RBI / 1 BB / 1 HR
Sizemore: 3-5 / 3 R / 1 RBI / 1 BB / 1 HR
Martinez: 3-4 / 2 R / 1 RBI / 2 BB / --

Peralta has been a pleasant surprise this series and has shown no signs of cooling off. Jhonny is a great example of why October is considered the second season; all those regular season stats tend to go out the window.

The key to the game for both teams was the bullpen. With both starting pitchers out of commission by the 5th inning, the game switched from a shootout to a pitcher's duel. Cleveland's bullpen depth was what really swung Game 2 in their favor. By the time the 11th inning rolled around, Boston was left with the dregs of its bullpen while Cleveland had yet to use their closer.

It's difficult to say which pitcher had the biggest impact on the game, since Lewis, Betancourt, and Mastny were all outstanding. Each pitcher had a different challenge to face in the team's win: Lewis had to hold Boston to their 6 runs until the Tribe could climb back in it. Betancourt faced off against Papelbon in the 9th and had to contend with an 11 pitch at-bat from Indian killer, Kevin Youkilis, with a man on 2nd.

The breaking point came with Tom "Indonesian Pride" Mastny on the hill. Mastny came on in the bottom of the 10th to face Ortiz, Ramirez, and Lowell. Boston knew their bullpen was spent, so the 10th was their best chance to win, but Mastny threw a perfect inning to let Cleveland face Eric Gagne the next inning. So many guys stepped up tonight, but Mastny is the one that stands out for me; he took his game to another level when it mattered most.

Just how deep is Cleveland's pitching staff? Well, when your best starter and second best reliever give up 6 runs over 4 innings, almost any other team would be toast. Instead, the Tribe's remaining relievers (Lewis, Raffy, Mastny, JoeBo) gave up just 3 hits over 6.2 innings, while striking out 5 to win the game. That, is depth.

Boston couldn't keep pace, utilizing every reliever in their pen, plus Jon Lester. By the time Papelbon left with the game still tied, it really was a new game.

The Tribe was on the verge of lighting up Gagne until Francona replaced him with Javier Lopez. Wedge replaced Barfield (who pinch-ran for Hafner) with Trot Nixon.

Trot Nixon?

Nixon and I have had a love-hate relationship this season, for obvious reasons, but I had a good feeling about this at-bat. I think a lot of Tribe fans knew something was going to happen when Trot came up to bat though; the setup was just too perfect. Nixon's first postseason appearance in Fenway without a Boston uniform on? I guess that got the Baseball Gods' attention. Nixon smacked a hanging junker into centerfield, scoring Grady on a close play at the plate. His single opened the floodgates as the Tribe scored 7 runs that inning, breaking the postseason record for most runs in a non-regulation inning.

Nixon was in need of some serious redemption after making an error on a routine ball in Game 3 of the ALDS. He more than made up for that performance tonight, so thanks Trot.

It was almost as if the Tribe was letting off some pent-up frustration left over from an embarrasing Game 1. The hapless Boston relievers were just the unfortunate recipients at that point.


Random Notes

Wedgie seemed to be managing with the off-day on Sunday in mind, allowing Lewis and Betancourt to go over two innings each. Their extended outings were actually out of necessity, since Perez got roughed up (.1 IP, 2 HR) and was unable to contribute. Wedge was smart to pull Perez tonight, but I think this was just one of those isolated incidents where he didn't have his best stuff and got rattled. Perez's performance against New York is cause enough for me not to worry about him.

Another agressive move by Wedge was pinch-running for Hafner in the 9th with 2 outs. Granted, Barfield was able to steal secondbase with Victor at the plate, but if Nixon doesn't succeed in his pinch-hit appearance later on, you can bet Wedge would have been raked over the coals for removing Hafner. I think the timing of Barfield coming in (2 outs, Papelbon pitching) was off, but I agree with Nixon coming in with a man on second (not in lieu of Hafner, but in that situation). Boston's reliever, Javier Lopez, posted an .805 OPS against lefties (.565 vs. righties) in 2007, so Wedge made a smart move in countering Francona with Trot. (Ed: Nixon has a career .629 OPS against LHP. So maybe it was a coin flip here, but I still like the move.)

If the Tribe hadn't come up big in Game 2, they would have been in serious trouble for the remainder of the series. After splitting at Fenway, against Boston's top two starters, Cleveland has placed itself in a great position to put a stranglehold on the ALCS at home. All of this went down while the Tribe's top two starters pitched horribly. Cleveland is a very dangerous team, but Boston may not realize until it's too late.

Jake Westbrook faces off against Daisuke Matsuzaka in Cleveland on Monday. It will be intersting to see how the Tribe handles a change of pace in Matsuzaka's pitching style. Cleveland has a reputation of crushing fastball pitchers, but whiffing on guys strong with the breaking ball. Matsuzaka has a 4.26 ERA in 2 career starts against Cleveland and a 4.02 road ERA on the season.

The Elephant in the Dugout

What's up with Cleveland's aces? The hype around Sabathia and Carmona was certainly justified coming into the playoffs. Many analysts picked Cleveland to go deep in the playoffs based on the performance of their top-flight starters. Here's what the Tribe has gotten out of Sabathia and Carmona this postseason:

Game	Player	IP	H	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pitches- Strikes	GB-FB
ALDS Game 1	Sabathia	5	4	3	6	5	2	114-62	1-8
ALCS Game 1		4.1	7	8	5	3	0	85-44	4-3
Game	Player	IP	H	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pitches- Strikes	GB-FB
ALDS Game 3	Carmona	9	3	1	2	5	1	113-77	16-4
ALCS Game 2		4	4	4	5	5	2	100-51	4-2

The glaring line for Sabathia is his BB-SO ratio. Sabathia came in with a dominant 5.65 K/BB ratio, but has a 1.37 ratio in two games this postseason. That speaks to his lack of control and the ineffectiveness of his strikeout pitches, the changeup and slider. Sabathia seems to have the same issue as Carmona had in the ALCS; he's overthrowing the ball and his control is suffering because of it.

I almost never saw Sabathia fire away in the 95-97 MPH range on a regular basis during the season. He has not mixed in his off-speed and breaking pitches effectively and has had a hard time putting away batters. Sabathia will go up two strikes on a batter, but often struggle after that.

I'm still sticking with my earlier assertion that C.C.'s breakdown is mostly mental. There's no other explanation for such a drastic divergence from his regular season and career numbers in just two starts. Maybe he's still rattled from pitching in October? My hope is Sabathia has a long talk with whoever he turns to for help, be it Carl Willis or another pitcher, and then locks himself in the film room to fix it. It's as if everything he learned about pitching the last two seasons has left him. Simply put, he needs to get it back, and fast.

Carmona is an odd case. The kid was lights out against New York, but couldn't find the strikezone against Boston. Go figure. I broke down Fausto's overthrowing issue earlier and like I said, his issues appear to be similar to C.C.. It's possible the Fenway crowd or all those horror stories he's heard about Ortiz and Ramirez got to him, but Fausto has never been one to shy away from a challenge. A more logical antagonist is what happened to Fausto the last time he pitched in Fenway. Saturday was Fausto's first appearance in Fenway since his stint as closer ended in dramatic fashion during the 2006 season. I may be grasping at straws here, but it's something to think about.

Fun with Rosters

David Dellucci injured his knee running to first on a groundball in the bottom of the fourth inning against the Phillies Tuesday. A little more than halfway to the bag, Dellucci’s knee gave out, forcing him to slide head-first to reach base. While Dellucci’s hustle on the play was commendable, the damage was done; he had to be helped off the field by two trainers.

As bad as Dellucci has been this season, you never want to see a player get hurt and I hope the injury is not as serious as it looked. However, the injury did appear to be quite serious, which likely means a trip to the DL for Dellucci and a call up from Buffalo to take his place. Wedge has options at several positions, but it will be interesting to see how he adapts to losing an outfield platoon member with 173 at-bats this season. Here are the positions affected by Dellucci’s injury, with the available players:

LF: Michaels / Blake
RF: Nixon / Blake / Gutierrez
3B: Blake / Rouse

Michaels is a near lock to collect the majority of starts formerly assigned to Dellucci, given his success this season. Blake has never started in LF, but plays a solid outfield and can handle the occasional appearance in left.

Nixon and Gutierrez will likely continue to platoon, but I would still like to see Gutz get the majority of starts as the team heads into the All-Star break. I’m a big Nixon fan and while I was frustrated with his epic slump at the plate, I figured he would have at least stabilized by now. Instead, his OPS has continued to sink, due in part to an ugly .332 SLG. Trot has a career .470 SLG and slugged .394 in 2006 and .446 in 2007. The last time he hit more than 10 homeruns in a season was 2005 (13).

As far as I know, Nixon is healthy in 2007, so his stats are in all likelihood the best we will see out of him. What’s worse, Nixon’s range in right field has deteriorated to the point of being a liability on defense. As I’ve said before, Nixon is arguably canceling out the benefit of his batting against rightys with his all-around poor play. The lineup would also get a major speed boost with Nixon and Dellucci benched. I don’t know how much longer Wedge can justify starting Nixon with Gutierrez and Blake available.

Gutz has only seen 20 major league at-bats in 2007, so a sub-par offensive line is difficult to project (he was hitting .341 with an .872 OPS in AAA, so his bat is more likely to come around than Nixon’s), but he has shown great range in the outfield. Under the current platoon regimen, the Tribe’s best defensive outfield of Michaels, Sizemore, and Gutierrez only appears against left-handed pitching. Dellucci’s injury may allow the superior corner defenders to solidify a regular presence in the lineup.

In the event Gutz is not ready for a full time gig, Blake would have to take the majority of starts in right, with Andy Marte getting called up from Buffalo to start at 3b (Rouse is strictly a utility fielder). This is the least likely scenario in my opinion, given the team’s handling of Marte this season. Marte has turned up his offense in June (.302 AVG, .970 OPS), but is in Buffalo because of his offensive struggles in Cleveland. He will need to show a consistent improvement at the plate and Gutz will need to struggle for Marte to get the call.

More Roster Madness

I was simultaneously shocked and thrilled to see Josh Barfield bat second in the lineup against the Phillies on Monday and Tuesday. Barfield has been knocking on the door for a promotion, batting .355/.354/.387 in June so far. His power may not have caught up yet, but it's nice to see him hitting consistently right now.

Batting Sizemore and Barfield at the top of the lineup is wicked smart and a huge departure from Wedgie's usual lineup (Dellucci in the two-hole!?!). Once J-Barf's bat locks in for good (I'm extremely confident it will), can you imagine the chaos that much speed would do at the top of the lineup? Pitchers are going to have a hard time focusing on Victor or Pronk at the plate with that much speed on the basepaths. (ed. note: Casey Blake resumed batting second today, so it looks like Barfield was just getting a cup of coffee while Blake and Hafner rested those two days. I know I got a little carried away about Barfield batting second, but Blake is definitely the better choice, at least this season.)

Finally, Kelly Shoppach is now batting .391/.458/.656 in 64 ABs this season. His batting line is even more impressive, given his irregular appearances.

Did anyone else wonder if Shoppach catching Lee on Monday was for more than just lineup purposes? Lee and Victor were definitely unhappy with each other during Lee's last outing and he looked much more comfortable on the mound in his most recent start. Probably nothing, but something to keep an eye on.

Fish Fry

I know a win's a win, but this was an ugly game from start to finish. Cliff Lee got the mediocrity rolling by allowing the first four batters he faced to reach base safely. The Marlins took advantage of Lee's lack of control, plating three. In a cruel twist of fate (for Florida), Lee got his act together after that, keeping the Fish scoreless, striking out six and walking only two over his last 4 IP.

It was looking like yet another long night for the Tribe, with B.H. Kim striking out 8 over 5.1 innings and basically making one of the league's best lineups look foolish. The Marlins should have left the 6th inning with at least a 3-1 advantage, but managed to rack up 3 errors (there were a few in this game that didn't get scored, but they were definitely errors). Peralta mixed in a double among the chaos, while two more errors and a sharp Garko groundout tied it up.

Now, I almost feel sorry for what happened to the
Marlins next, but I'm in a rather spiteful mood tonight (blame the Cavs), so I think I'll just enjoy the moment. Tankersly had come in to relieve Kim and lost control of a 2-0 pitch, which plunked Grady on the back. Everyone watching knew it was just a wild pitch, but the young, hot-shot ump (who had issued a warning earlier in the game) decided to make a name for himself and tossed the pitcher and the manager and Aaron bleepin' Boone (yeah, he was definitely bleeping, but he was the only one who deserved to be tossed).

The very next at-bat, the replacement pitcher gives up a 3-run bomb to Dellucci to blow the game open and seal the win for the Tribe. Hey, I'll take it.

I was hoping the Tribe could get their bats going on their own tonight, but I will give them credit for taking full advantage of terrible defense from the Fish. In their last 10 (before tonight), Cleveland had gone 3-7, averaging only 3.7 runs per game. The team needs to carry over their aggression from tonight and string together a few good offensive performances to snap out of this "funk," as Wedgie likes to call it.

The Player of the Game tonight, was Victor Martinez, going 2-4 with an RBI and taking more abuse than a catcher should in one game. Poor Vic got trucked by the Marlins' catcher after blocking the plate, collecting a great relay throw from Rouse, and holding on to end the inning and the Marlins' last legit threat to take the lead back. You know when the head trainer spends an entire inning monitoring the catcher in the dugout, he got hit pretty hard.

On Cliff and Vic

In the midst of a near Cliff Lee meltdown, there was some serious animosity visible between Victor and Cliffy. After the second Marlins run scored, Carl Willis (the pitching coach) met with the battery on the mound. Victor wanted nothing to do with it, ignoring the meeting and staring off into the distance with a supremely pissed expression on his face. It was pretty apparent that the communication between the battery mates was poor that night, with Vic getting crossed up multiple times and Lee failing to hit his targets consistently.

While no where near as bad, I immediately thought of Zambrano and Barrett smacking each other around in the Cubs dugout last week. Victor is usually a model catcher in the way he communicates with and encourages his pitching staff; I'm guessing the tension of the team's losing streak was showing through a bit tonight. A good working relationship between a pitcher and catcher are crucial to the team's success, but neither seems to be of the personality that would lead to any grudges. Besides, I doubt Lee would be able to pitch again this season if Vic stuffed him in a water cooler.

On the Platoon

I know I'm not alone in my disappointment with the corner outfielders this year. Nixon started off the year on fire, but has since settled into a bad stretch. Dellucci has been next to useless in key at-bats and his defense has been nothing to write home about. I find myself cringing whenever these two guys come up to bat now, it's really been that ugly at times (as I type this, Dellucci hits a 3 run homer....awesome, but he still isn't off the hook). I really can't complain about Michaels, but he seems to get a lot fewer at bats compared to Dellucci. The table below shows the splits for all three platoon outfielders for the 2007 season, up to June 13.

Pitcher	Bats	Player	AB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BA w/ RISP
Lefty	Left	Dellucci	23	0.174	0.208	0.261	0.469	0.163
Righty			140	0.250	0.308	0.407	0.715
Lefty	Left	Nixon	45	0.222	0.275	0.289	0.563	0.226
Righty			131	0.260	0.355	0.366	0.722
Lefty	Right	Michaels	59	0.288	0.377	0.492	0.868	0.346
Righty			52	0.250	0.264	0.385	0.649

As a platoon, each player's at-bats obviously correlate with the type of pitcher they've historically had the most success against. Dellucci and Nixon have seen about the same number of at-bats and neither has been much better than the other offensively. The only standout stat is Nixon's .226 BA with runners in scoring position compared to Dellucci's miserable .163.

Meanwhile, Michaels is sitting with a .868 OPS and a .346 BA with RISP. J-Mike also sports better range in left field, making several game altering catches this season.

It's unfortunate that both left-handed platoon bats have failed to make a significant impact so far, since there is no easy alternative for Wedge other than to give them playing time. First, Wedge is notoriously stubborn and will likely stick with the pure platoon all season, even though the two lefties lack of production arguably cancels out any benefits of matching up a righty bat in the lineup against a lefty pitcher. Second, benching Dellucci/Nixon for an extended period of time would likely create some dissent in the clubhouse. Taking scheduled at-bats from the team's veteran leadership is not the message Wedge wants to send to the rest of the team.

To add another layer to the issue, Casey Blake has been playing some of the best baseball of his career with solid defense in right and third (a 22 game hit streak doesn't hurt either). At the beginning of the year Michaels had to split time with three other players, but now that Blake has moved to third base full time and Dellucci and Nixon are struggling, you would think Michaels would see more time right? Nope, still a benchwarmer more often than not.

Given how upset Michaels gets with himself for so much as striking out, his confidence is probably suffering as he watches Dellucci misread flyballs in left and flail away at the plate. Dellucci has done nothing to deserve 32% more at-bats than Michaels this season. Dellucci (.208 OBP) batting second in the lineup instead of J-Mike (.377 OBP) only exacerbates the issue. The biggest strength of a platoon is its flexibility, whether that means matching up against a pitcher or playing the hot hand to maximize production.

Sowers Struggles, Bullpen Demands Vacation

Game 27 at Baltimore

Jeremy Sower's smoke and mirrors weren't fooling the Orioles on Saturday, as they chased him after two innings while scoring six earned runs. Sowers didn't have his usual focus and had trouble finding the strike zone. The pitches that did make it in got crushed by the Oriole's lineup as their consistent attack plated six runs on six hits.

Sowers usually pitches with ice water in his veins, but was visibly rattled on the mound and in the dugout as he watched his handiwork fly around the ballpark. The main problem was a lack of control, resulting in a lot of flat balls that were easily hit. So far this year, Sowers has put up four quality starts with two clunkers sandwiched in between. The New York game is a difficult one to criticize, since the defense was a prime contributor to the loss, but the Baltimore game was all on Sowers. Hopefully Jeremy was just having an off-day and gets his command back by the next start.

The highlight of Saturday's game was the season debut of Rafael Perez, who had a nice 1-2-3 5th inning in relief. Perez was called up from Buffalo to relieve pressure on the tired bullpen staff and will probably be sent back down once Marte is ready to return. Perez's breaking pitches looked filthy as he pitched the last three innings of the game.

Game 28 at Baltimore

It took two games, but the Cleveland offense finally showed up to play on Sunday, as they backed up C.C. Sabathia in a 9-6 win at Camden Yards. The Orioles threatened to blow the game wide open in the sixth inning, but Grady Sizemore made a ridiculous, two-out, full-extension catch to rob Corey Patterson and strand three Orioles.

Sizemore's catch quite possibly saved the game, as the bullpen gave up three runs in the 8th and 9th innings to make the final score 9-6. The only thing bigger than Sizemore's awesomeness was Trot Nixon dropping the Grit Bomb on Baltimore's pitching today. Trot had a career high 5 hits, with 4 RBI and 2 runs, showing the kids how it's done. I'm still in the party that everyone on the team should sport Trot's fu-manchu look, how scary would that be? Alright, not that scary, but team-wide facial hair would automatically raise the team's GORP (grit above replacement player) to a 1.8.

The bullpen is definitely feeling the effects of pitching so many innings the last two series. Between the multiple extra inning games, Cliff Lee's inability to go 7 innings, and Sower's 2 inning breakdown, the pen has been working overtime. Cabrera and Betancourt looked gassed today as they gave up three runs, forcing Wedge to bring Borowski in to finish off the last batter in the ninth.

Managing the bullpen at a time like this is very difficult. While the relief corp has been one of the team's greatest strengths this season, it is going to need to see a reduction in appearances to get back on track and stay strong over the long haul. Quality outings from the starters are a must, but that's easier said than done. I was very happy to see Wedge go with Davis and Perez in long relief on Saturday, essentially conceding the game (which the flailing offense finished off anyway), but giving the late inning guys a break.

Things should settle down though, as the number of extra inning games will recede to the mean and Sowers and Westbrook start churning out quality starts like they did all last year.