Jason Johnson – YOU’RE FIRED!
I haven’t posted in a long time, but what was there to post about? Nothing different happened over the past 2 weeks. Just this morning I told someone I was getting convinced the Cleveland Indians would never win another game ever.
Then the bomb gets dropped today. Jason Johnson has been fired – FINALLY!!! About a month after the rest of the world figured out he had completely lost all clue on how to pitch, Shapiro and Wedge finally get the message, and JJ has been designated for assignment.
JJ is a nice guy, and I’m not happy he has done so horribly. But we have games to win. And JJ will be fine. I’m sure the Royals will have him under contract in no time (bad as he is, he’s better than anyone they have).
The move I’m scratching my head over is the calling up of Ed Mujica to replace him, as well as the calling up of Joe Inglett to replace the departing Jeremy Guthrie. How about sending Jason Davis down and giving him a chance to figure out the concept of NOT allowing an inherited runner to score (he has yet to accomplish that in ’06)? With our pitching staff in disarray, we need even more offense. Bringing up Andy Marte and letting him play for a while would have been nice. And where is Sowers? The Indians website is saying that Sowers is expected to start Sunday against the Reds. Well, that would require another roster move. Why not go ahead and make it? There is a spot on the 40-man roster available for him, so that’s no problem.
While all this is going on, let’s hope my main man Bulldog can stop the bleeding tonight against the ace of the pitching staff of the All-Social Security team, Greg Maddux……
Perusing the stats
Looking over some stats on mlb.com and finding……….
- Without considering a minimum number of starts or innings, C.C. is 7th in MLB in ERA at 1.71. Jared Weaver is #3 at 1.35.
- The Tribe staff is tied for 9th in MLB with 163 walks issued. We were 7th before issuing 14 over the past 2 games.
- We’re tied with Arizona for second with 6 shutouts, behind Detroit’s 9.
- We’re 21st in strikeouts. Would love to see that go up.
- Not that I live for all the obscure stats sabermatricians spit out with regularity, but I do like the OPS stat as a better barometer of how you are hitting than batting average. We are second in OPS to Toronto. Breaking it down, we are fourth in on-base percentage behind the Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays, and third in slugging percentage behind Toronto and the Evil People. You’re doing well if OBP is above .350 and slugging is above .450 (and thus, OPS over .800). We have 2 guys – Pronk and Blake – over that mark, as well as the 1B combo.
- Speaking of the two-headed 1B monster, check out their stats: .338 average, .398 OBP, .606 slugging percentage, 1.005 OPS, 14 homers, 48 RBI, 16 doubles, 39 runs scored.
Catching up
Crazy week. My office was moved this week, my team hates our new location and boss. Efforts have stepped up for me and a couple others to find a new career. My commute has doubled in length. Absolutely no time to reflect on the Tribe this week.
After Monday, you would think we were headed for another long losing streak. Then we up and take the Evil People 3 in a row. Tuesday and Friday were enough to give you a heart attack. Great comebacks though. How about that Big Jack from Tongue Man to win Thursday’s game? Gotta love it.
Looks like the series with the Los Angeles-Anaheim-California-West Coast-I-5-Pacific Ocian-whatever-they-call-them Angels is going to go the same way. A thorough beat-down in game 1. Now we should have 2 wins to follow that Jared Weaver is going to kill himself with those mechanics. Awful. But hey, it’s working for now.
Our two best pitchers go today and tomorrow. Let’s hope for good things.
Cashing in on a few breaks
I would really be steamed after yesterday’s game if I were a Twinkies fan. Let’s be honest – they totally got hosed on two of the three controversial calls. C.C. never tagged Punto at first (although the Twins announcers were wrong about why – C.C. did transfer the ball to his glove), and the obstruction call against Punto when Grady stole second was bogus. Exactly what was Punto supposed to do, crawl under second base? Ford’s attempt to feign being hit by that pitch in the dirt was equally bogus – if you want people to think you got hit, jump in the air before the ball passes you, express some expression of pain and start limping toward first.
The first blown call against Punto could have changed things drastically. The next two hitters singled. With Punto’s speed, he would have scored on the second one. So instead of 2 on and 2 out, it should have been 2 on, 1 out and a 2-1 game. Of course, the next 14 Twins were retired, and I’m sure C.C. would have limited the damage. But if Twinkies fans are POed, I understand why.
But good heavens, is C.C. smoking or what? Can’t wait until Tuesday to see him destroy the Evil People.
Let’s all collectively say a prayer that Jake hasn’t been inactive for so long he’s forgotten how to pitch when he takes the hill in Motown tomorrow night…..
A frustrating night
I’m glad I missed the end of that. So frustrating.
Now that I’m closing in on a calendar year of having the Tribe as my new favorite team, I have been trying to figure out who my favorite player is (would have been Coco Crisp if he hadn’t been traded). Grady? Pronk? Maybe Jhonny, who’s game-winning home run against KC in that 11-run inning last year drove me away from KC to the Tribe in the first place? Even though he was having some tough tmes, I settled on Cliff Lee. I love that ugly scowl he gets and generally marveled while he mowed down the rest of the league last year. Even though it was a 1-0 loss, that Sunday game in Detroit in April was a beautiful game to watch. I like 1-0 games better than 9-8 games anyway, but that was some serious pitching going on. I hope Cliff rights the ship next week when he pitches against the Evil People.
Hate to look ahead, but I’m looking forward to Cliff and C.C. pitching the first 2 games against those agents of the devil from South Chicago…..
Back to Bonds for a moment
Over at espn.com they have a fabulous article on how many Big Jacks Mr. Bonds would have without being on the juice. They freely admit that their research and findings are just educated guesses. True enough. But since I’m not nearly that educated, their findings seem quite believable. If he had never juiced, they estimate he would be sitting on 616 homers.
So yes, he’s one of the top 5 home run hitters who ever walked the planet. Yes, he has dominated his game like no one else, with the possible exception of Michael Jordan. Yes, he is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. But no, he does not deserve to be considered an equal with Hank Aaron or Babe Ruth.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Tribe programming.
Random thoughts on the players
A few thoughts come to mind about a few of our beloved Tribe guys…..
Thank you, Jason Johnson, for giving evidence in favor of my cry for getting Sowers up here. Just didn’t realize you were trying to replace yourself instead of Cabrera. How about canning Cabrera, moving JJ to long relief and bringing Sowers up to the bigs?
How ’bout that Carmona last night? I hope GM and Skipper are not serious when they marvel at how well he pitched out of the ‘pen and wonder if he should stay there. No, he should NOT! He’s a typical rookie – kills the opposition first time through the order, then they adjust and hit him hard the second time through. He’ll learn to adjust back. Know who he reminds me of? Cliff Lee. Carmona has his same attitude out there – "Excuse you, this is MY mound and MY field." I think he’s going to be a stud.
So what would I do if the other moves I suggested were made? Put JJ in long relief, Carmona in the 5th starter spot, and put Sowers in the ‘pen to start out.
I don’t feel good about the rotation shuffle for the road trip. Putting our #1 and #2 guys out there in Minnesota and using Westbrook on 8 days’ rest and the two worst starters for the Detroit series is not a good formula. I realize Westbrook is terrible in the Glad Bag Dome, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he walks 7 guys on Friday.
It was nice to see Plastic Man pitch well today. He lopped more than half a point off his ERA and he had the Bucs guessing most of the time. Great follow-up to a decent outing against KC last week. And he pitched very good last time he pitched in Motown, albeit with 10 runs behind him. Hopefully he will be getting on a roll here.
Anybody want to lay odds on us setting an MLB record for doubles in a season?
Victtor, Big Ben and Jhonny have certainly cooled off, but Casey Blake is still hitting out of his mind. I can’t imagine he’s going to hit .360 all year, but as long as he stays over .300, great. Bad as he was last year, it’s nice to see him doing so well.
Wickman just can’t do anything easily. We better start grooming a young closer soon, or the city of Cleveland will soon be able to keep the makers of Just for Men hair coloring in business by itself.
Had a great time laughing at Rick Manning last night. Severely white boy that he is, Manning was absolutely fascinated by Belliard’s hair. He should keep it like that. We need a Ben Wallace on our team……..
What will it be – heart attack or stroke?
If you take this stuff as seriously as I do, those are your death options.
I was wrong in the predictions I posted on a couple of Bucs blogs this week that today was going to be an 11-10 game. That’s OK, we nearly had one of those last night.
MLBEI has the feed from FSN Pittsburgh for us today. The most boring announcers alive, easily. Their color guy is going to turn into Hawk Harrelson if he ever gets a play-by-play gig. I was really mad at them when Boone came up with the sacks full and they mention he had not one GIDP all year. Kiss of death. I knew it was coming.
I also had a feeling that Grady was going to redeem himself. How many times have we all seen that in our lives? Dude has a rotten day, doesn’t do jack at the plate, gets one last hack and becomes the hero. Hollywood scripting at its finest.
If you had come to me 10 days ago and said we were going to go 5-4 on the homestand, I would have said, "OK, I’ll take that." I would have expected us to lose 2 to the Tigers and take 2 each from the Royals and Pirates. As it was, we had one sweep each way and 2 wins over the Bucs, and we did take 5 of 6 from the worst and third-worst teams, including an emotional win today.
Short road trip now – 5 games in 7 days, 2 in the Glad Bag Dome and 3 more in Motown. To be really honest, we need to win 4 of them, 2 in each place. I will happily take 3 if it can be guaranteed that 2 are in Detroit.
714, unfortunately
Of course, we all knew it was coming, just a matter of when……
I hate Barry Bonds. I hate him with a fire-filled, burning passion. And it’s not just because of the juice. I have hated him since at least 1990. In the late ’80s, when the Pirates were coming of age and the Mets were still on top with that arrogant team they had, the Pirates were the underdog, but not as easy to root for. I used to root for them over the Mets because they were a little less hateable than the Mets. With Bonds and Bobby Bonilla on the same team, that’s a team that’s not easy to like.
From the first time you ever saw him step on a baseball field, didn’t you get the feeling that Barry always felt he was a superior human being to the rest of us? And it wasn’t even because he was sick, he was so good. It was because "I am Barry Bonds. Therefore, you must bow to me."
So I have always hated him. He is the one athlete at whom I have genuinely cheered when he got hurt. Hearing him say "my life is in shambles" this winter was music to my ears. I genuinely wish nothing good for him. I hope he never passes Hank Aaron. I hope he ends up in jail for the illegal juicing. I hope his cellmate Bubba has his way with him. I hope he never knows a peaceful day as long as he lives on this Earth. And I hope his soul rots in Hades one day.
Evaluating the talking heads
Now that the season has reached the quarter pole and we are back to .500, I thought I would evaluate the broadcasters (or what little I get to see and hear them).
Since I’m paying the $1,047, 278.00 fee for MLB Extra Innings, I’m not paying for MLB.TV or GameDay Audio. So all I get to see and hear are the game broadcasts on SportsTime Ohio with the occasional studio cut-in. No exposure to the radio guys yet, although I have read online reviews and they are all favorable. So here’s what I think of who I have been getting acquainted with:
Jim Donnovan – One word – Zoloft. Please keep this man FAR away from anything caffinated or sugar-laden. Chill, dude!
John Sanders – business-like, to the point of being boring at times. Knows the game well. I’ll give him 3.5 stars out of 5.
Mike Hegan – I have noticed that when he does get jacked up, his voice cracks. Kind of funny. Much more passionate than Sanders. Loved his calls of the 9th inning homers on Tuesday. 4 stars.
Rick Manning – knows the game well, which you would expect from a former player. Voice reminds me a lot of Tim McCarver. Has a tendency to talk on top of the play-by-play guys. Must have been going on for years; they seem to be used to it. I liked the point he made last night when C.C. pulled his glove back on that comebacker so it could get to Jhonny to turn the double play. 3.5 stars.
I wish I could get STO in Charlotte so I could watch all the other programming and get a better feel for these guys. But I’m enjoying them for the most part.
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