For the second straight day I am eating Trevor Crowe and biting my own
tongue as the Indians managed to get the sweep on the Tigers and defeat
Mr. A.L MVP Justin Verlander, with a 2-1 victory!
In all fairness, I did say going into this game that for the Indians to
win, we needed to see the real Justin Masterson, the Masterson that is
clearly our #1 pitcher, and not the guy who showed up in Boston. Well,
we got him. 7 innings of only 1 run baseball. Key moment for his
season may be with runners on base, and Miguel Cabrera due up in the
7th, while up 2-1, Manny Acta walked to the mound, and stuck with
Masterson. Acta does this from time to time, but that vote of
confidence in Masterson, and then to see him get Cabrera out on a one
pitch pop up, and then snag a Prince Fielder grounder to end the
inning(without allowing a run), might very well fuel Masterson for the
rest of the season. We are in first with both Masterson and Jimenez
kinda shaky. Masterson got a win over Verlander, his manager stuck with
him thru trouble, and then he got out of trouble against 2 of the best
hitters in baseball. This is the type of moment that you could see
Masterson kick it into high gear over the next few starts.
Let me take this moment to discuss Mr. Verlander. I am a huge Indians
homer(not as bad as Hawk Harrelson tho), but let me just take the time
to say that Justin Verlander is in my mind the best pitcher in baseball.
I don't think he gets a lot of media publicity because he is in Detroit,
but he has unbelievable stuff, and even better control. He threw 122
pitches, they never warmed up the bullpen, and in the 9th he threw only
fastballs to the first two hitters (Choo and Kipnis), and he topped 100
easily against them, going as high as 102. He struck both of them out,
like they weren't even there. Then A-Cab comes up. He saw 4 pitches
during his strikeout. 101mph-fastball, 82mph curve, 100mph fastball,
and then 82mph curve(strikeout looking). What do you do against that?
His fastball started at like 94mph, and gets faster as the game goes on.
An almost 20mph difference between his heat and off-speed, and he can
control all of his pitches. In my mind, because he is a power ace, he
is basically the closest thing you will find to Nolan Ryan pitching in
this decade.
However, as good as Verlander is he is close to human early in games.
Choo took the third pitch he saw(a changeup) and crushed it to the upper
deck in right field to lead-off the hitting for the Indians. 1-0 TRIBE!
The Tigers were able to manufacture their own run, but in the bottom of
the 5th, Michael Brantley decided he would self manufacture some runs.
With two outs he got a single up the middle, and then stole second.
Following that Jose Lopez extended his hitting streak with a bloop
single to RF, and that scored Brantley to give the Indians a 2-1 lead.
Overall Brantley actually had really good at-bats vs. Verlander going 2
for 3, and his out was a line drive to CF that their guy made a great
catch using his speed to track it down.
Thoughts from my beard:
- The Tigers are going to be just fine, and will not be 6 games back in
the standings all year. They just ran into a hotter team right now, and
they clearly are just frustrated. Getting ejected, yelling at umps,
weak swings after bad calls, etc. It's good to be passionate, but when
things aren't going well, their passion isn't helping them win games.
- Lou Marson stole a base the day after Shelley Duncan tried and got
caught. The element of surprise is in full force on the basepaths.
- Whoever produced the STO intro video for the game probably thought
they were really clever with the whole "Western Duel" theme going, but
it went on a bit too long and was just goofy.
- Chris Perez had 3 saves in this series. Like any athlete he is
allowed to speak up if something bothers him, but as he should he went
out and backed up his talk all series. Very nice performance, and maybe
he did fire up some fans.
- Tomlin had good results from his simulated game, so expect him active
in the near future.
- Shelley Duncan isn't playing well. He doesn't get regular starts, but
he is clearly out of rhythm and they still sub for him late in games for
defensive purposes. When Grady returns, I don't see Duncan staying on
the roster. This is a big change for me from earlier in the season, but
Cunningham can sub at all 3 OF spots, and Duncan can really only
pinch-hit, and Damon will be spot starting with Sizemore.
- The Manahan is ready to return, but Jose Lopez has an 11-game hit
streak and two game deciding RBIs in this series, can you take him out
of the lineup? Keep the hot hand going, and he hits right handed, so
it's a good bat to have.
Indians are going to Chicago to face the good guys yet again. I believe
this is our last series of the year against them, or maybe we got one
more. Let's end this series on a good note and put 2 wins on the
BOOOAAARRRRDDDD. YYYYYEESSS!!!
Hitters AB R H RBI BB SO #P AVG OBP SLG
S Choo RF 3 1 1 1 1 1 19 .268 .385 .408
J Kipnis 2B 4 0 0 0 0 1 19 .260 .321 .418
A Cabrera SS 4 0 0 0 0 3 18 .300 .397 .493
C Santana DH 3 0 0 0 0 1 13 .252 .368 .397
M Brantley CF 3 1 2 0 0 0 8 .269 .306 .374
J Lopez 3B 3 0 1 1 0 0 9 .286 .333 .482
C Kotchman 1B 3 0 1 0 0 0 7 .222 .298 .341
S Duncan LF 3 0 0 0 0 0 10 .196 .309 .326
A Cunningham LF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .208 .309 .250
L Marson C 3 0 1 0 0 1 14 .100 .250 .167
Totals 29 2 6 2 1 7 117
BATTING
2B: C Kotchman (7, J Verlander)
HR: S Choo (3, 1st inning off J Verlander 0 on, 0 Out)
RBI: S Choo (16), J Lopez (10)
2-out RBI: J Lopez
GIDP: J Kipnis
Indians RISP: 1-4 (J Lopez 1-1, L Marson 0-1, S Duncan 0-1, J Kipnis
0-1)
Team LOB: 4
BASERUNNING
SB: M Brantley (7, 2nd base off J Verlander/A Avila); L Marson (2, 2nd
base off J Verlander/A Avila)
FIELDING
E: J Masterson (1, throw)
DP: 1 (A Cabrera-J Kipnis-C Kotchman).
Cleveland Indians
Pitchers IP H R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
J Masterson
(W, 2-3) 7.0 5 1 1 5 4 0 100-64 4.62
V Pestano
(H, 12) 1.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 13-8 2.29
C Perez
(S, 16) 1.0 1 0 0 0 1 0 16-11 2.79
Totals 9.0 6 1 1 5 5 0 129-83
PITCHING
First-pitch strikes/Batters faced: J Masterson 21/31; V Pestano 2/3; C
Perez 3/4
Called strikes-Swinging strikes-Foul balls-In Play strikes: J Masterson
14-5-24-21; V Pestano 2-1-2-3; C Perez 3-2-3-3
Ground Balls-Fly Balls: J Masterson 11-6; V Pestano 1-2; C Perez 1-1
Game Scores: J Masterson 62
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