Morning Update: We got Matt Ginter, Not Keith Ginter

What the french..toast…

That commercial has always confused me.

Lead off with CastroTurf stuff.. AC had some great stats.. or awful depending on how you look at it, on some of the struggling Tribe players..

Also..Matt Ginter will start on Saturday.. That will be fun.. I never thought I’d see the day when the RAYS would be out there with a legit starter and the Indians were throwing out…… MATT GINTER! Let’s not confuse MATT Ginter with KEITH Ginter.. Keither is the Ginter with 140 career RBI.. Matt is the Ginter with a career ERA of 5.46. Also, you can buy Matt’s Baseball-Reference page for ten bucks.. To my knowledge.. They are not related, and Matt isn’t the one that was with Morgan Ensberg and Aaron Miles when they wrestled those robbers to the ground.

Now that is probably the longest paragraph I’ve written on this site.. and it was about the Not-Ginter Brothers. What has become of this team?!

The next Bobby Howry success story could be happening here if you ask me.

Juan Rincon was one of that studs out of the Minnesota Bullpen a few years ago.. The last two years he’s been.. well not good.

“My last time out [Monday], I was able to throw all my pitches for strikes,” he said. “That’s a huge comeback. The last time I pitched in a big league game was a month ago, and when you don’t pitch for a week to 10 days [before signing with the Tribe], it’s tough. So I’m pleased to be back.”

This is a no risk shot and if it works, we have a quality set-up guy.. Its worked in the past with guys like Howry, but not with guys like Danny Graves. You never know and it doesn’t hurt to take a chance with this season being a lost one.

Can we re-sign Casey in the off-season as the team jester?

“There’s no steroids on this team,” Blake told Rincon with a laugh. “We’re a steroid-free team over here.” (Plain Dealer)

Blake was joking with his old pal Rincon when he arrived in Detroit for the game yesterday. Juan and Casey were friends from their time with an Edmonton team.

“I know I’m ruthless, but we’re good-enough friends where I can say that,” said Blake. “When I played right field for the Indians, Rincon would be sitting in the Twins’ dugout giving it to me. When he tested positive, or whatever, I had some ammunition to get back at him.”

From the same article, the Indians signed FOUR international players to contracts.

Shortstop Jose Ozoria and right-hander Edward Pinales from the Dominican Republic, third baseman Giovanny Urshella from Colombia and catcher Alex Monsalve from Venezuela. (Plain Dealer)

All are 16 years old and will play for the Domincan Summer League next year.

We aren’t sure yet if Cliff Lee is the starter for the AL yet. There was a dry run done at Yankee Stadium for announcing the starters, with the leading vote getters, and the Times ran with the fact that they used Cliff Lee. Terry Francona won’t pick his pitcher until Monday.. Hopefully Cliff puts out one more good outting this weekend and keeps that honor.

Morning Update: Heres to our All-Stars

The All-Star Edition of the Morning Update.

I’ve been saying it in my head for a few days now.

The Indians deserve two All-Stars and two All-Stars is just what they are going to get.

Cliff Lee and Grady Sizemore were not going to get left off the team, and there shouldn’t be any other Indian to join them. For once I’m pretty much in agreement in what the Indians got in terms of All-Stars.

It seems Pronk has been snubbed the past few years, Bob Wickman went.. We deserved more, someone went instead of someone else.. This is the first year I really think they got our selections right.

Not only that, we get to see Cliff Lee start the game. That is a real special thing and he deserves this.

“I just wanted to do my job,” Lee said. “Making the All-Star team is kind of icing on the cake. I’ve been pretty fortunate this year, and things have gone my way quite a bit.” (Indians.com)

Also, we may get to see an Indian in the home run derby since the days of Thome and Man-Ram.. The guy leads the league in home runs, it would be stupid not to ask him to do it.

“I’d be happy to do it,” Sizemore said of that possibility. “I’m not sure, I’m not leaning one way or the other right now. I haven’t made up my mind. I’ll just wait for them to ask me and then go from there.” (Indians.com)

So a few Sizemore milestones we have to note.

He reached 20/20 status for the 4th year in a row now. I never thought it was possible for Grady, but could he reach the 40/40 club? He’s on a legit pace to just pass 40 home runs, but honestly I don’t know if he can get 40 steals. Grady doesn’t run like crazy, he is a smart base-stealer that picks his spots. I’m not sure if he will run ENOUGH to reach it, but he has the speed to.

Who knows, ,we’ll see. If anything this is his best chance to reach that if he is ever going to reach it.

He also hit his 100th home run for his career. It isn’t Albert Pujols like pace, but he is still 25 years old. He isn’t even in his prime yet but I think it will be fun to see if he reaches 300 by the time he’s 30. You never know..

That’s it for now.. I’ll have more on the Sabathia trade when it becomes official. There is some doubt coming out here as of late on who the last prospect is in the trade, and it can effect my opinion on the deal.