Julio to be Designated; Westbrook Activated

Well, Edwin Mujica will not be sent down as originally thought.

It’s Jorge Julio on his way out the door quicker than I expected.

Julio will be designated for assignment to make room for Jake Westbrook on the active roster.

This means Mujica will stick around a little bit longer, he pitched today in the pen and gave up a few hits.

Obviously the experiment worked for a bit, but the low-risk move is now a write off.

Boy, we did some run scoring!

Sure did, and it was right from the get-go.

Frankie Busts Out: And it came just when you thought, well another opportunity squandered.

Buehrle wasn’t gonna let the Indians screw it up though. With two outs he just kept walking people and giving the Tribe a shot to knock him out.

Guits had the big slam in the first and there really wasn’t much looking back.

See, in previous nights, when we don’t score, I highlight a player or two that did good.

Now… I can just run down the lineup and all the contributions.

Gutierrez obviously knocked in half the runs with the slammage. Garko went 1-3 with a nice RBI double that he took the other way. That was a Shark Double we are used to seeing, so it’s a real good sign.

Francisco had the other official RBI with the sac fly in the first.

The other runs were scored in the sixth in some more unorthodox methods.

The first was a error by Paul Konerko, where Jamey Carroll seemingly grounded out to end the inning. A run scored on the play and it was more of that taking advantage of the chances the White Sox gave them.

The next run came on a TRIPLE STEAL.

Yes.. You’ve heard double steal before, but never Triple. In an oddity of a play, Chicago funky-armer Ehren Wassermann got ready to throw to Francisco with 2 out and a 3-2 count.

Then all of a sudden he threw to first. It very well could have been a balk, that is a sort of cheap move on his part. Just throw to home, you know they are off and running with the pitch.

The White Sox would pay for getting cute. Konerko instead of chasing down Carroll and letting Dellucci score on the play threw to home to get Dellucci as a dead duck, but catcher Toby Hall dropped the ball, and everybody was safe.

Yes, stolen bases all around, Dellucci steals home and Ehern Wasserman looks real dumb.

Side Note.. Andy Marte hit a double and got a standing ovation. I too stood up and clapped. It almost went out, but I’ll settle for big double off the wall.

Hitting is contagious.

Laffey the Magician: He wasn’t the joker tonight, but rather a worker of magic.

He caught a break with one unearned run early. A error by Cabrera(but not his fault, Garko got blinded by the sun), let the White Sox get a few hits together to score some runs.

Laffey had a lot of defensive let downs though, but he managed to pick his teammates up. He did walk 2 and give up 7 hits, so he had guys on base a lot. He did a great job of getting out of jams with the pop up though.

That ERA keeps getting prettier. It’s now down to 1.59 and Laffey is putting together one hell of a fill in campaign. He exactly been Fausto like… But he is doing the same thing Carmona did last year.

Tomorrow Jake Westbrook returns from the DL to face one of the breakout youngsters for the White Sox, Gavin Floyd.

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News and Notes: Miller on DL; Two Signed

So the Indians made a few moves today..

• Jorge Velandia and Todd Linden signed to minor league deals.

Velandia got a call up with the Blue Jays this year after they lost John McDonald and David Eckstein to injuries. He pretty much sucks with the bat.

Linden was with the A’s this year in Triple A. He has a little better bat than Velandia.

Both are on their way to Buffalo.

• Adam Miller is back on the DL…

Not good.. More finger trouble on his pitching hand. This is sort of Josh Beckett like blisters the fire baller is getting. We are gonna have to keep waiting and waiting to see if this kid can put together a healthy stretch of baseball.

Also Wedge is having trouble filling in the 2 and 5 spots on his roster. That’s been the two most prominent spots that he is having issues finding some consistency in. The 5th spot is one of the worst in the leagues in terms of production.

• Hafner was held out of the lineup on Monday because of shoulder soreness..

He is also getting a little angry, heres a quote from a story yesterday int he Plain Dealer.

“Anger? Yeah, there is some anger with ourselves,” said Hafner, whose offensive struggles (.217) have been well-chronicled. “Today was one we had to win, the way C.C. [Sabathia] and the bullpen pitched.

“You have to make your own breaks. The bottom line is we have to put up more consistent at-bats. Then you don’t have to look at one or two plays.” (Plain Dealer)

Let’s see if that anger starts to show.

Here We Go Again

Yeah that was interesting.

Two Straight Extra Innings Losses: Finding new ways to lose is always the name of the game.

The Pirates call themselves the Buccos.. Sometimes they say Yucko Baseball..

Well the Indians are playing Yucko Baseball.

So, another decent pitching performance thrown away by lack of run support.

The Indians found more ways to leave guys on base.. 26 this time..

The biggest at-bat to me was in the bottom of 8th… Asdrubal Cabrera up with guys on 2nd and 3rd with one out.

Strikeout.

Asdrubal is getting really hard to watch up there. He made another spectacular defensive play. But he is hitting .182 and not doing a good job of situational hitting. Just striking out, not putting the ball in play, taking good pitches to hit.

Just awful baseball… He needs to be sent down. I know the defense is great, but Barfield is no stiff and the hitting is just too unbearable to suffer through.

Also..

Michael Aubrey.. I love the guy and his potential, but he still needs AAA Seasoning.. The three starts in a row over Garko is unacceptable. Maybe it will get Garko going, but you need to get him back in there.

Credit to the back end of the pen for stretching it out as long as they did.

Discredit Scott Elarton for sucking.. So much for that “hot hand” thing…

Jhonny Peralta might be heating up a little bit with the home runs. I’ll take any offense, but just about all but 2 or 3 of his jacks have been solo shots. He only has 7 more RBI than he has homers.

Today… Another rematch, between Aaron Laffey and Mark Buehrle.

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Indians Fool Us Again

We’ve been dupped again by the Indians offense.

Doug Mathis is a magician: No he’s not, but the Tribe offense made him look like one. You can’t complain about 9 hits by no means. But when you leave 23 freaking runners on base, you have issues.

9 hits, 6 walks.. Plenty of base runners.

But double plays and just some really stupid at bats gave away run chances.

Then C.C. pitches as well as you can ask, makes one single mistake against Kinsler, and it’s a tie game and you get that stupid awful feeling again.

Surprisingly though.. The defense was the big screw job in this one. Ben Francisco tried to field a hit by Ramon freaking Vazquez that got by him and allowed Saltalamafaimnotspellingthisagain score from first.

Hafner Sucks: No he doesn’t.. But I hate saying that type of stuff.

He’s just starting to get on my nerves though. The awful at bats. I’ve tried my best to defend him, but it’s getting awfully hard to.

More changes could be coming… I wouldn’t be surprised if Choo was on his way quicker than previously though. This offense cannot continue to sputter around in different facets of the game on select nights.

Vic almost had his first homer of the year today. Just missed and it went for a double. Oh well, keep slugging guy.

Tomorrow.. Byrd and Vazquez with the White Sox in town for Memorial Day..

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Quotes from Eric Wedge

I talked yesterday in the recap about some things Wedge was saying.. Here are some quotes via Anthony Castrovince at Indians.com

“They need to get out of their own heads and get out there and play,” Wedge said of his players. “Quit talking about it and just go out and do it.”

“We’re giving away way too many at-bats,” Wedge said. “I am sick and tired of us giving away at-bats.”

“Paralysis by analysis,” Wedge said. “Come on, let’s go. You’ve got to be smart enough to kick yourself out of it. Hey, if they’ve got to get mad at me to do it, then so be it. I know they’re capable of doing better. I’m tired of seeing the same thing with the at-bats from day to day. They need to be better than this. It’s the big leagues.”

“They’re up there hacking, they’re up there hitting,” Wedge said. “Like these [other] guys did when they first came up.”

“I hate talking like this,” he said, “but we’ve got to do better.”

Eric Wedge just doesn’t talk like that. He made it clear he is tired about talking the hitting. You can see it too. He just hates it, and he doesn’t like calling out his players. He called Travis by “Mr. Hafner”! Not only does Wedge not do that, but no manager does that.

These guys need to pick it up quickly.. I’m surprised they haven’t already the way Wedge is talking. You figure that type of stuff would make them irate and want to hit.

Who knows.. But this is the most emotion Wedge has ever shown in his entire time as the manager of the Indians. It’s also the most critical he’s ever been. I think we’ve seen what it takes to push Wedge to the edge, and we know that point exists. I know a lot of fans questioned him and his emotion.

My question is, do any us really want to see this emotion again?

I don’t, because that means the club is going pretty bad. Yikes.

Changes Happened: Lewis Down, Fausto DL

So, some changes happened as we expected them to. They are very surprising though.

Nothing new on Fausto, but they know enough to place him on the 15 Day DL.

That solves that “Aaron Laffey Problem” for a few more weeks. That is baseball for you, always working itself out.

To take his place on the roster, they called up Edward Mujica, who will probably be the guy that goes back down when Westbrook is ready to start next Wednesday. Mujica is no stranger to that though.

They also called down Jensen Lewis, which is a surprise to most people, but once you hear the explanation, it makes a lot of sense.

They aren’t please with Lewis and the way he’s started the year. They think there are some things that he needs to work out, and that they can get corrected faster in Buffalo.

The idea is, Jorge Julio isn’t gonna last.. But, you’d rather fix Jensen Lewis than screw around with Julio any longer. So, Lewis will take some time in Buffalo(a place he didn’t really pitch long at anyway), fix what is wrong and then return. The corresponding move would be to release Julio. That is some time down the road though, could be a few weeks, could be a month, it all depends on how quickly Lewis does what they want him to do.

Elarton has been on fire in Buffalo, he’s given up one run in his last 9 appearances, and is sort of a new guy. He is now in the bullpen, and has been there since the Indians picked him back up in August.

He could be a nice little option out there, he can give us those 2 innings if we need it, or whatever. Wedge was trying to use Julio as a guy who could come in early(like in the Fausto game on Friday), and try and hold a little lead for a couple innings. Plus this sort of gives them that long relief guy(the game with Fausto getting hurt is pretty much the only time they needed it though) that the bullpen lacks.

Elarton takes Breslows’ vacated 40 man roster spot.

Just a lot of moves right now.. This also keeps Andy Marte in tact. When Shin-Soo Choo returns, it will be Michael Aubrey that gets sent down, keeping Andy Marte for even longer.

It’s finally over….

It is.. And while I didn’t get my Golden Grady Bobblehead(Rain check, jerks), I got my moneys worth at the ballpark tonight with an Indians win. Here’s what I got.

Lee Settles In: He started off a little shaky with the runs in the first two innings. But his first five outs were all via the strikeout, he started getting the ball down, and he just had it working from the third inning on.

THAT is the Cliff Lee we want to see.. We’ve seen him dominant, and that’s fine.. But I wanted to see the Cliff Lee that struggles, and then puts it all behind him.. That has been the death of Cliff Lee’s games, the fact that he can’t put his struggles behind him.

He did that tonight, and now I think we’ve seen Cliff come full circle. This is what you can expect night in and night out from Big Red. It’s the 2-3 runs, 6 solid innings.. He works his magic, gets the job done.

For the record, 6.2 innings, 2 runs off 7 hits, 4 walks and of course the 8 punch outs. After the 2nd inning, no runner made it past first base. Which is just awesome.. He is also one away from his career total in strikeouts.

JUMPIN’ JOE!: Heeeeee’s back, and he was far from jumping tonight. Topped out at 86, which is a tad low from his high, but still not the 80 mph beach balls he was serving up.

He looked good though. Got the three outs relatively quickly and we all went home.

Thank god for Joe! I think Tom Hamilton put it best tonight when he said, “Order has been restored in the 9th inning.”

Shocking to say though.

Francisco: God can this kid hit or what?

A double to set up the first run, and then the rocket he hit to the left field home run porch.. This kid is on fire and he deserves to hit in the cleanup spot or close to it.

Aubrey had the phantom RBI early.. They ruled not only his hit an error, but the RBI as an error(debatable, but Byrd’s toss was awful.. And what I’m not calling it, the Raggin’ Right Field, let him know just how awful it was).

Then it was Peralta, who had a great night. He had two hits, one the moon shot home run to give the Tribe a three run lead, and then his other two at bats he really hit the ball hard. So, Jhonny put it together, he needs to keep it up.

Wedge: I’m writing a lot on this one cause I managed to hear Eric Wedge’s ask the manager show before the game.

He was not happy. It was the most vocal I’ve heard Wedge ever. He was laying into tons of people, and Hafner I think got the worst of it.

He didn’t even say Travis, he called him “Mr. Hafner”. That tells me he is not happy with the way Hafner is swinging the bat and he is actually getting sick of it. Not good…

He was very vocal, and he showed a lot of emotion. Something I’m not used to seeing from Wedge when he talks about his players. He doesn’t like calling them out, but he is starting to because I think he is done just about anything he can to try and help them, but none of it’s working.

Tomorrow, we need a series win!!! C.C. Sabathia will play ace against some kid named Doug Mathis. OH you NEED to win this.. You need to play the games though.

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Indians Show Fight, But Drop 7th Straight

It was a game were you think, wow I’m turning this one off.

But… The way Gabbard was pitching, and the promise the offense showed, better stick around.

Fausto Exits Early; Julio Blows: Fausto didn’t have his control tonight, no pitcher really did. Gabbard struggled too. But Fausto gave up 4 early and then put a few on base before having to leave the game in the third inning.

It looked like he hurt his hip getting off the mound to cover first. Initial word is strained hip, but he will probably get an MRI tomorrow and we should know more. Hopefully he doesn’t need a DL trip.

The guy who entered early to relieve him was awful. Julio came in with two men on and no one out. Let’s just say he couldn’t really minimize the damage, which is all he needed to do. He walked two straight, including one that knocked in a run, and then let up a grand slam to, ready for it? Jarrod Saltalamacchia(I copy pasted that one there). Kinsler would follow with a double and Gameboy himself Milton Bradley hit a sac fly to make it 11-3.

By the By.. Nice to see Milton is up to his usual antics with getting tossed and screaming profanities after a foul ball. Grow Up Milton.

Jensen Lewis for the most part held the fort down, that darn Ramon Vazquez got a sac fly for a run in the 6th. Betancourt really needed to hold the fort down in the 8th, but that man again, that son of a B Ramon Vazquez doubled for the third time.

What is it with Ramon Vazquez? Wasn’t he an awful utility player for us? How did he turn into a double machine against us?

Offense Gets Kicking: I think a bad pitching performance was just what the Indians offense needed.

The Texas Rangers really helped them out there.

As mentioned, Gabbard was walking a lot of people early, and the Tribe was talking advantage.

Francisco doubled in a run in the first, then Hafner scored on a wild pitch. The next inning Hafner jolted one to right field for a sac fly, that could have very well been a grandslam if it didn’t get knocked down by the wind.

Grady would put some life into the offense with a three run jack in the third inning, that kept them close and gave them hope that the game wasn’t out of reach.

Scoring died down till the sixth… And what could have been a huge turning point, was a huge letdown. Ben Francisco clobbered a pitch to left field bleachers. The ball bounced off the railing and onto the yellow line of the wall and back onto the field. The initial ruling was a double, and the final ruling was a double. The Umps CLEARLY blew the call and it could have been a 3 run game.

Wedge got fired up about it and did the right thing to get ejected.

It could have been a 1 run game… But no.. Jamey Carroll doubled to bring in two runs to make it 12-9.. The no home run call kind of put a damper on the team. It would have been a big time momentum swing for the Indians.

Hopefully this was the a jolt that the Indians needed.. Tomorrow, I’ll be in attendance for Gold Glove Grady Bobblehead Night.. Scott Feldman opposes Cliff Lee.

[BOXSCORE]

Updated: Carmona Leaves Game in 3rd

Fausto Carmona left the game with an undisclosed injury in the 3rd inning of tonights game. He didn’t look real comfortable throwing a pitch after he got off the mound funky trying to cover first. He got beat at the bag by David Murphy and you can tell he was limping on the way there.

More on his injury later, hopefully it’s just something that knocks him out for this game alone.

He gave up four runs in the first. And is still responsible for two on base now.

UPDATE: Strained Hip is the early word on El Diablo