Oakland Swept, Tribe Roll On

The Indians completed their four-game sweep over the visiting Oakland A's last night, beating the Athletics 9-2 to secure their fourth win in a row. When Oakland came into town on Tuesday I did not expect the series to pan out like it did. I said I'd have been happy with a series split but the Tribe went a step above and decided to take all four games. Here's what I thought:

THAT Home Run Call

Yes, it should have been called a home run, anybody who disagrees is being ignorant or needs to book a trip to the opticians. For those who don't know, Oakland's Adam Rosales hit a towering shot off closer Chris Perez in the 9th inning Wednesday night that looked to have either hit the top of the wall for a double or just cleared it for a home run. Initially Rosales was awarded a double by the officials but Oakland skipper Bob Melvin asked for a replay to ensure the correct call was made. With 2 outs and the score at 4-3 to the Indians, if the home run was given it tied the game and awarded a blown save to Perez.

Luckily for the Tribe, the umpire Angel Hernandez blew the call and apparently never saw that Rosales' shot hit the railing above the outfield wall. It stayed 4-3 to the Tribe, Bob Melvin went ballistic and got ejected and Perez got the final out and his 5th save of the season.

Now obviously if I was an A's fan I'd be very upset about this. It came at a crucial point in the game, at a major turning point in the series. The MLB have since come out and said that it was a mistake but the ruling on the field was a "judgement call" and would not be overturned. There you have it; mistake made, mistake acknowledged, but no action will be taken. A's fans are no doubt still furious but as an Indians fan, with a controversial call going our way for once, well I can't honestly say I'm not still happy we won that game. It's really tough deal for the A's but nothing is going to happen now so everybody has to move on. That's all I'm going to say about the matter, it's been discussed to death already.

Keep It Up Kazmir

Last week's winning streak and this Oakland series have really seen the team performing at their best. We're getting great performances from every part of the team and look to be settling into a successful pattern.

But the rotation in particular have been fantastic these past four days. Ubaldo was up first on Monday night and he pitched a good game, lasting 5 2/3 innings with 4 hits, 2 runs and 8 strikeouts. He owes some credit to Nick Hagadone, who got Ubaldo out of a bases loaded jam in the 6th inning, but overall Jimenez looked solid out there, picking up the 1,000 strikeout of his career and his second win of the year as the Tribe ran out 7-3 winners.

Zach McAllister took the mound Tuesday night and put in a superb shift, shutting out the A's for 7 2/3 innings, allowing 5 hits with 4 strikeouts on his way to his third win in 2013. In a tight game where the only Tribe run came from a Yan Gomes sac-fly, McAllister never looked rattled and pitched extremely well in the 1-0 win. The 25 year-old put in arguably the best performance out of all the starters this week.

Justin Masterson pitched 7 strong innings on Wednesday night, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits, striking out 7. He had his fastball and slider working beautifully, and only ran into trouble in the 4th inning when his pitches were just a bit too high and in the zone for the A's batters. His offense bailed him out of the 3-0 hole and Masterson picked up his fifth win of the season.

Finally, Scott Kazmir continued his comeback tour of 2013 Thursday afternoon, pitching his best game of the season. Kazmir lasted 6 innings, scattering 5 hits and only surrendering 1 run, a solo-homer by Josh Donaldson, in the 9-2 victory. Amazingly he struck out 10 Oakland batters in those 6 innings, a season high by a Cleveland pitcher, and didn't give up a single walk. The veteran left-hander looked untouchable out there, pitching like a number 2 guy, not the number 5 man we all hoped be could be when he was bought in the winter. I said in my last post that if Kazmir can keep up this level of performance then we really got ourselves a bargain. At the moment he just keeps getting better and better every time he goes out there, surpassing every expectation. Good work Kaz, keep this up and you'll take home the Comeback Player of the Year award.

Ah what the hell, I know the offense have been fantastic over this series as well (we lead the league in HRs now... yeah, thought I should mention that) but I'm gonna go ahead and give Kazmir the Player Of The Series award. Yesterday's outing was just so brilliant, I think he deserves it.

Detroit Will Be The Real Test

So the Indians now sit pretty with a 18-14 record, just a single game back from the AL Central leading Tigers, who dropped one last night in Washington and have a 19-13 record. We arrive in Detroit today for a three game series and it will be a true test of where this Tribe team stand at the moment. A series win would surely put us above them in the division standings, which should be a nice incentive for the team. Not that they need any more motivation: Jason Kipnis said after the game yesterday, "We're excited to finally see them this year. We definitely want to go up against them. We know they're the team to beat. We're playing well right now, so we have a bunch of confidence and momentum going in our favor. We're ready to see them." I agree with our second baseman, we couldn't be in better shape going into this Detroit series and momentum is definitely on our side.

It gets even better with the news that speedy centre-fielder Michael Bourn has finally been activated off the disabled list and should be ready for action over the weekend. Hopefully his finger has healed completely by now and he can contribute against the Tigers. We'll need everybody at their best and it starts with Corey Kluber (2-1. 3.06 ERA)  up against Max Scherzer (4-0, 3.43 ERA) tonight at 7.08 pm. Go Tribe!

Thanks for reading.

A Tale Of Two Tribes In Tampa

When the Tribe bats came alive in the 10-8 loss to Toronto on Thursday 4th April, I expected them to continue their hot hitting and come out blazing against the Rays. What happened? The Indians offense were shut out two games in a row, 4-0 on Friday and 6-0 on Saturday. Our bats could not touch the Rays' pitching, going completely silent. However, in the third game of the series today the Tribe woke up and unloaded on the Rays for a 13-0 whoopin'. Here's my thoughts on this series in Tampa Bay:

Our Bats Go Slowly Into The Night... Twice

Game 1 against the Rays saw Matt Moore face off against our young righty Zach McAllister and it didn't go as planned for our boys. McAllister didn't pitch too badly, lasting 6 innings and only giving up 2 earned runs but he had trouble finding the plate at times and ultimately had no support from the offense, giving him the loss. The Tribe could only muster 2 hits all night, both by Michael Bourn. After all the good feelings the Tribe   lineup carried over from that final game in Toronto, they were gone just like that, a 2 hit shut-out. Game 2 didn't go well either. Trevor Bauer, called up to replace the injured Scott Kazmir in a spot-start, made his Indians debut and proceeded to walk the first 4 Tampa batters he faced, giving up a run. From my untrained eye it didn't look as if Bauer was missing by much. Sure he was nibbling the outside of the strike-zone but the umpire was tight all night, giving nothing on the outside edge. He squeezed the strike-zone the entire game and Bauer just couldn't adapt, finishing with 7 walks in 5 innings of work and taking the loss. Just like in McAllister's outing, the offense weren't there to support Bauer, recording only 4 hits against the Rays' Alex Cobb, 5 in total. Another shut-out, this time 6-0 to the Rays. All signs pointed to the Rays sweeping us today in the final game of this 3 game series, since they had reigning AL Cy Young winner David Price, historically very good against the Tribe, up against our Justin Masterson, historically very bad against the Rays. It didn't look good for us going in. But...

BOOM! The Bats Break Out!

I've just finished watching us destroy Tampa Bay 13-0, thanks to 17 hits and 5 home runs from the re-awakened Tribe lineup. What a way to answer back to two straight shut-outs by the Rays. Shut them out right back, but in style! Mark Reynolds had a monster of a game, hitting two enormous home runs and a double. His first was a 3 run bomb off of Price in the third inning to put us ahead 4-0 and it was game over after that really. Speaking of monster games, Carlos Santana went 5-for-5 at the plate this afternoon and couldn't miss, himself hitting a long home run to right field and finishing with 3 RBI. Lonnie Chisenhall and Michael Bourn also joined the homer club, both men hitting their first HRs of the season. Chisenhall's was particularly nice, a lovely 3 RBI effort, netting me some much-needed fantasy points! It was just amazing to see the lineup hit like this, especially against David Price. The star Rays pitcher collected his Cy Young award before the game and maybe the occasion got to him a bit, because we pounded him for 10 hits and 8 earned runs in just 5 innings. Out of all the games in Tampa the past three days, it was expected that today would provide the toughest test since Price is usually so good. But it just wasn't to be, the Indians batters had his number all afternoon. You don't often see an ace get rocked like this very often. Speaking of aces...

Magnificent Masterson

Justin Masterson, starting today 1-0 with a 1.50 ERA coming off his Opening Day win in Toronto, was pretty much perfect and pitched a beauty. He quickly retired the first two Rays batters in the first inning before getting sloppy, giving up a hit and walking two men to load the bases. Thankfully he escaped unharmed and was pretty much untouchable for the rest of the game. Masterson went 7 solid innings, surrendering only 2 hits and struck out 8 batters. He had his sinker working perfectly and attacked the strike-zone mercilessly. It was fantastic to watch, reminiscent of the Masterson of 2011, he flat-out dominated the Rays today. He's now 2-0 on the season and couldn't have started 2013 any better. Keep it up Masterson, you looked like an ace today.

So we're 3-3 after six difficult games on the road, against arguably the top two teams in the AL East. I would have taken that result before the start of the season to be honest. Up next we have the Yankees coming to Cleveland tomorrow for the Tribe's home opener but I expect you won't get a post from me re-capping the Yankees series since I'm going away this week and won't be able to post. Until then...

Thanks for reading.