Expect Bradley to feel the heat tonight

I wouldn’t be surprised if an Indians pitcher gave Milton Bradley some heat tonight, or even tomorrow.

CastroTurf’s “Excruciating Minutia of the Day” is rather informative…

“Milton Bradley is not a very popular guy in the Indians’ clubhouse. He stared down Victor Martinez in the dugout after drawing a walk last night and again when he came around to score. And when he hit a homer off Rafael Perez; he made a yawning gesture while crossing the plate.”

By now you know my feelings on ex-players like Milton. I didn’t have nice words toward BP, and I certainly have nothing kind to say towards Milton Bradley, who is the king of all hotheads. He clearly hasn’t matured one ounce since leaving Cleveland, and credit Eric Wedge and Mark Shapiro to give up on him when they did.

Westbrook Elbow Issues Serious?

How serious is Jake Westbrook’s elbow issues?

I’m not sure how much to trust this link, so take it for what it’s worth.

If true, Dr. Yocum isn’t a good sign. Hopefully it isn’t something serious, but if it is, the Indians will certainly miss Westbrook for an extended period of time, especially if Fausto Carmona is out for a month or so.

More info should be available soon, when he does get his MRI.

Mastny, Lewis Optioned: Bauer, Slocum Up

As expected, Tom Mastny and Jensen Lewis have been optioned to Triple A Buffalo.

To take their spots on the roster, the Indians called up Brian Slocum who is on the 40 man roster already.

They also purchased the contract of Rick Bauer, who closed out 15 games for the Bisons this season. Bauer pitched with both Texas and Baltimore in his career. This fills the 40 man roster spot left by Jorge Julio who is still in limbo.

Bauer should be a nice veteran type arm for this pen right now. He should stay for awhile, while Slocum is probably just a warm body unless he does something unexpected.

Mastny Will Be Optioned

Well, CastroTurf delivers again. Beat writer for the Indians Anthony Castrovince’s blog is becoming a great source to hear the news before it actually happens. With that, you can get his link under the Other Indians Blog section on the right hand side now.

AC talked to Mastny and Lewis tonight. Mastny will be optioned of tomorrow, but it is still unknown who will take his spot.

Lewis’ spot is still up in the air, but it’s almost a given he will be called down. He was only called up to give us some innings tonight, he still has work to do in Buffalo.

That leaves a few spots on the roster open. I’ll make a stupid prediction and say one of those spots will be filled by Rick Bauer, who is tearing it up in Buffalo as the closer.

If he gets the call up, I already got a nickname waiting.

The other spot will probably be someone just temporary till Travis returns, or they could call up someone like Barfield and send Mujica down when Hafner is ready.

I think Barfield better get regular at bats though, and if we make a move, Cabrera would have to be sent down. But you never know.

Night of Bullpen Doesn’t Go So Well

You can’t expect to get solid pitching when you start a reliever in your pen.

Bullpen Stars and Struggles: Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Tonight, the Indians had to go at it with a bunch of relievers. Tom Mastny didn’t stick to that 50 pitch plan, and they didn’t quite get the five innings they were hoping out of from Mastny and Lewis.

Lewis did go three solid, but he gave up a couple of runs. Which isn’t bad considering Mastny gave up five.

Ed Mujica gave up two runs in 2.2 innings. Perez came in, got only two outs and gave up 2 runs, and Elarton finished off the 8th.

Offense Doesn’t Bust Through: Typically I can pinpoint several chances the Indians blew and really discuss them.

But tonight, I can’t even remember how many times the Indians had the bases loaded.

I do know that Ryan Garko had three hits.. But none of them came when we needed them the most. He popped up on the infield with no body out and the bases juiced early.

Late, David Dellucci pinch hit with the bases loaded and simply flied out. I know it seems radical, but I would have given Andy Marte a chance. He got a hit and hit the ball hard his other time up. The guy deserves a clutch at bat sooner or later.

There were tons of blown chances. You can’t blame the offense when they score 7 runs.. But the Rangers used more pitchers than the Indians did, and we started the reliever. We had 15 hits to their 16. 26 men were left on base tonight.

Shin-Soo Choo had the most RBI and he pinch hit. He had the double that knocked in two and the home run in the 9th of C.J. Wilson.

Francisco, Garko and Peralta had the other runs knocked in, and the other came via an error.

I’m not too upset about losing this one, we simply didn’t get the pitching we needed. While you would love to see the offense step up when they had the chances, 7 runs is just not a bad outing.

Tomorrow is a must win in my mind though. Cliff Lee takes on Sidney Ponson, who has pitched well this year.

However, not only is he on three days rest(with a pen that has been used a lot in the past two days behind him), he is 0-7 against us in his career.

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