Streaking to redemption

Well, the Tribe has found a way to come full circle. I never thought it would happen back on July 10th when they were hitting rock bottom in Detroit. But they have claimed redemption with a ten-game winning streak to erase the memories of that horrible losing streak, and fittingly, they did it in the same city for a little extra emphasis (isn't it always fun to beat Detroit?). Their 9-7 victory over the Tigers last night was the latest in a shocking turnaround that has them sitting just 2 games under .500 with 30 games left to play.

"You have to stay in the moment," said Wedge. "You don't want to get ahead of yourself and you definitely don't want to look back. You just keep trying to get better."

This streak has been immensely enjoyable for me mainly because of the way it seemed to come out of nowhere. But if you look deeper, the team has played great baseball since the trade deadline on July 31st. In that stretch of 25 games they have gone 19-6 (.760). In those 25 games the bats have come alive, with the team averaging 6.08 runs per game, while allowing 4.76 runs per game. And they've done it with the long ball as well - out-homering opponents 35-20 in that same stretch. The Indians are finally getting consistent hitting throughout their line-up and it is translating into wins. As I said yesterday, it is likely too little, too late for this season, but it should make things a lot better for Tribe fans heading into next season.

Last night the Tribe added two more home runs from hot-hitting Kelly Shoppach (6 HR's this month) in the 4th and then Shin-Soo Choo in the 7th. Fausto Carmona didn't have his best stuff again, but he was able to give the team 6 innings of work and the bullpen was able to hold it down (although there were some scary moments between Rafael Betancourt and Jensen Lewis). So now the Indians will enjoy a day off before starting a weekend series with the Mariners. Hopefully the off-day doesn't get anyone out of their rhthym. But the Mariners are 22-42 on the road - by far the worst in the AL. I'm just happy I care again about an Indians/Mariners series this year!

Choo went deep again last night and has showed some real promise over the last month

Other Tribe Notes: Looks like Victor could finally be back this weekend, with Hafner and Barfield soon to follow. And also some good news regarding Matt LaPorta in Akron.

Browns Update: The Browns will look to avoid any major injuries tonight in their preseason finale at Cleveland Browns Stadium against the Bears. Romeo thinks it's time to look 'decent,' and I can't say I disagree. And here's a Browns season preview along with 'expert' picks (those always make me laugh).

Who are these guys?

The Tribe completed an impressive series in Texas by taking all three games over the weekend. And that was on the heels of a sweep of the Royals at home last week. Overall the Tribe has now won 7 straight and is 15-7 in the month of August. They have also swept two consecutive road series, something the team hasn't done since the 2005 season. And they were 20-38 on the road prior to those two sweeps. All of this leads me to a couple of questions: 1) Who are these guys? and 2) Where have they been all season?

"This means a great deal to us," Wedge said. "We want to finish with the best record and as high in the standings as we can. It's about pride. It's about competitiveness."

Friday's 7-5 win featured a strong start by Fausto Carmona to earn his sixth win of the year. And Saturday's 8-7 win included a comeback from a 7-1 deficit. Then last night's 4-3 win had some more clutch hitting from Franklin Gutierrez (.328 BA, .955 OPS, 3 HR, and 12 RBI in August), a great start by Anthony Reyes (7 innings, 1 ER, 4K), and even some nice bullpen work from beleaguered reliever Rafael Betancourt.

A sight for sore eyes - Raffy Righty nailing down a save

So what does all this mean for the Tribe? Who knows. Maybe it's just the ebb and flow of a long season. Maybe it's the fact that all the pressure is off now and they are finally relaxing. But their recent hot streak is impressive when you consider all the changes to the line-up and pitching staff. Who knows how long the good play will last, but they have gotten themselves in position now to finish at least .500 if they can go 19-14 down the stretch. And considering where they were a month ago, any Tribe fan should be happy with where they are now. They move on to Detroit for a three-game series where they will look to leapfrog another team in the Central (only 1.5 behind the Tigers now!). Zach Jackson will get the start for the good guys tonight.

Other Tribe Notes: Sheldon Ocker says the Tribe's recent winning is a group effort. And Kelly Shoppach's play behind the plate is giving the Indians some options for the future.

Cavs Update: Call him 'Le-Bronze' no more. LeBron was able to shed that ridiculous moniker yesterday and now it's time to "witness gold" as he said in his post-game interview. LBJ led Team USA to the gold medal in Beijing with a 118-107 victory over Spain.

The moment he received his medal, James reached down, grabbed it and stared at it. He held it inches from his eyes and just gazed at it, transfixed. And when they handed him a bouquet of red roses, he held them to his nose and inhaled two huge breaths, the sweet smell of victory filling his nostrils and lungs.

And hopefully everyone noticed that the King was the one that started the nice gesture by being the first one to hang his gold medal around Coach K's neck and encouraging his teammates to follow suit. I have a feeling this isn't the first championship that LBJ will be winning, and I think this experience will only help to propel him in his NBA future.

Browns Update: I won't go too much into the Browns' lackluster preseason loss in Detroit on Saturday. In fact, I didn't even see one snap of their "dress rehearsal" for the season since we had a family commitment that day. I know there are a lot of worried Browns fans out there, and I'd be lying if I said I was comfortable with us opening up against the Cowboys in less than two weeks. But the fact remains that the Browns have been very shorthanded the last couple weeks, and the injuries are certainly hurting their preparation for the opener. The good news is that maybe we will be seeing a shorter preseason soon. I know I'm getting tired of shelling out $45/ticket for two games I don't even bother to attend.

Don't forget about Tony Grossi's Monday podcast at noon. You will likely be able to hear a lot of Browns fans being talked off the ledge today.

The sky is falling!!!

Well, not really, but the good folks at ESPN would like to have Cavaliers fans believe that. I can really see no other explanation for why this story was released last night and is still featured prominently on the front of espn.com. I'm already sick and tired of hearing about LeBron leaving and his unrestricted free agency doesn't even begin for almost two years from now. The fact of the matter is that he will not play in an inferior league, even for an outrageous offer like $50 million/year. Marginal talent like Josh Childress (a nice player, but nowhere near a superstar) might signal a beginning of more NBA players heading overseas to chase more money, but I just can't see a star like LeBron ever doing the same. I think the "person close to James" that leaked this story is probably doing this just to hype up the international appeal of LeBron's marketing plan. And what better way to do it than release this information just two days before the start of the Olympics? Now international basketball fans can watch the greatest player in the world and drool over their chances to snag him in 2010. Sounds to me like a great strategy for the making of a "global icon," a goal LeBron has stated many times in the past. But fear not Cavalier fans, he won't be heading to Europe, and he has over a hundred million reasons to stay in a wine and gold uniform.

LeBron to Europe? I don't think so.

Speaking of that, let's take a quick look at the Cavaliers' salary cap numbers. As much as the national media would like you to believe that LeBron is leaving, he has no reason to. Not only can the Cavs offer him more guaranteed money over more years than any other NBA team, but Danny Ferry has also done an excellent job of clearing cap flexibility for the next two off-seasons. The expiring contracts we have this season (Wally Szczerbiak, Damon Jones, and Eric Snow) total over $25 million. You can bet these will be used in a trade at some point to bring in more talent for this season. And Joe Smith and Anderson Varejao (if he opts out of his non-guaranteed year for 2009) will clear another $10 million. Then we will have another $25 million coming off the books in 2010 with Ben Wallace and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. The point I'm trying to make is that the roster you see now will not be the same roster over the next two seasons. It will be more talented and should give Cavs fans everywhere a reason to smile. Just be patient and we will hopefully see LeBron get his 'Pippen' and a few other guys to help bring us the title we crave. And that said, we are already very close even with this far-from-perfect roster. LeBron is that good. The sky is not falling and the future is bright in the short- and long-term for this franchise.

Tribe Update: You knew it had to happen eventually - the Tampa Bay Rays finally figured out a way to beat our Indians (just their fourth win in their last 23 tries against the good guys). All you need to know about this one is that the Tribe could not find a way to drive guys in once they were on base (13 runners stranded!) and Rafael Betancourt continued his downward spiral. Then he decided to make it worse. And then Edward Mujica joined in the home run party. When the dust finally settled the Tribe lost again, 8-4.

Yay, they brought in Betancourt!

Thankfully the Royals lost too, so the Indians are still within shouting distance of finding their way out of the Central cellar. I've given up on my silly dream of .500 baseball this year and am now just hoping to finish ahead of the Royals. Today Jeremy Sowers gets the call for the Tribe in a 12:40 start (the always fun weekday getaway game). This one could get ugly.

Browns Update: Day 13 of training camp brought more details about Josh Cribbs hoping for a new contract. Tony Grossi says that Cribbs is out of line. We also got the news of Gary Baxter's arthroscopic knee surgery, and I was not surprised (let's just hope for no follow-up staph infection). And D'Qwell Jackson expects to have a big year, thanks to the new d-line in front of him.

''My loyalty is to this football team and I'm sure they'll show me the same loyalty in return.'' - Josh Cribbs

No, thank you CC

Before I go into a recap of last night's game, I wanted to touch on something today that I didn't think I'd be talking about - CC Sabathia. In today's Plain Dealer, CC and his wife Amber took out a full page ad (costing $12,870) to take time to thank Cleveland for 10 great years. It's rare these days to see an athlete take the time to thank his community for their support and I think it shows what kind of guy CC is. I completely understand the business side of the Tribe trading him - we had to do it - but I will miss having a guy like him in our clubhouse. Someone that really seemed to like being here. Imagine that.

"Thank you for 10 great years... you've touched our lives with your kindness, love and generosity. We are forever grateful! It's been a privilege and an honor!" - CC and Amber Sabathia & family

Back to the business at hand... counting down the days until Browns football (only 38 days till the season kicks off!) by watching our beloved Tribe struggle through the season. Last night was another example of why we are still stuck in last place. The 8-5 loss at the hands of the Tigers puts the Tribe's division record at 15-27 (compared to 11-6 vs. the East, and 14-14 vs. the West). When you play that poorly in the division, you have no hope of making the postseason. That's seven more division losses than the Royals! So even with their -75 run differential we may be looking up Kansas City for a while (currently 1.5 games behind them). Ugh.

Ginter only lasted 4 innings on Tuesday night

Matt Ginter took the loss last night, going only 4 innings and 77 pitches, and showing why he probably doesn't really belong in a major league rotation. And Rafael Betancourt continued his tailspin in '08 giving up 2 more runs in his inning of work (including yet ANOTHER home run), after the Tribe had fought back a little to make the game interesting. By my own unofficial stats, Betancourt by far leads our struggling bullpen in 'demoralizing hits' this year. His ERA is now at 6.04, compared to 1.48 last year, and to me is as big a reason for the complete collapse this season as any other. Cliff Lee returns to the mound tonight with his outstanding 14-2 record to give us one reason to keep watching.

Other Tribe Notes: Victor Martinez may be back by the middle of August (only two weeks away, where did this summer go?). Terry Pluto shares his current thoughts on the Tribe. And Paul Hoynes talks about the closer role in the AL's worst bullpen. Finally, condolences to Travis Hafner who lost his father on Saturday after battling cancer.

Browns Update: Day 7 of training camp is in the books and Tony Grossi talks about three guys from UNLV hoping to shore up the defense. Also a video update from Tuesday:


Cavs Update: LeBron James has been chosen as the cover boy for the latest issue of Time magazine in their '100 Olympic Athetes to Watch' story. Pretty cool honor and well-deserved from this Cleveland homer's point-of-view.

King of Cleveland and now 'Redeem Team' leader

Detroit Disaster, Walk-Off Style

I thought it couldn't get much worse, but I guess I was wrong. Lucky for me I wasn't a witness to the carnage in Detroit. I knew better than to watch a game featuring Paul Byrd on the mound, against a hot Tigers lineup, all while trying to halt a 9-game losing streak. Too many factors going against us in this one. I did sneak a peak around 8:30 and to my surprise I saw the Tribe was up 6-0. But still, I flipped to a different channel because I knew it could only get worse. But even in this disastrous season for the Tribe, I honestly didn't think it would end as badly as it did. I saw the score flash across the bottom of the screen on ESPN late last night but didn't bother to check out the gory details until this morning.

So if you took my advice yesterday and decided not to watch as well, here's what you missed: The Indians managed to blow that 6-0 lead in a shockingly quick and pathetic fashion. It started in the bottom of the 7th when the wheels started to come off for Paul Byrd (as they usually do in his starts). Then it continued with Rafael Betancourt (what the hell happened to this guy???) letting the Tigers all the way back into the game, with the score tied 6-6 by the time the dust had settled. Then new closer project Jensen Lewis finished things off by allowing a line-drive home run to Miguel Cabrera to extend the losing streak to 10. Hey, only 13 more days till Browns training camp opens!

More dancing at home plate at the expense of a Tribe reliever

Unfortunately for all of us, the season continues tonight when the Tribe returns home to face the once-laughingstock, now first place Tampa Bay Rays (no more 'Devil' in the name now I guess). Aaron Laffey will try to halt the embarrassing losing streak. I'm more interested to see how many people will actually show up at the Prog.

Cavs Update: James Posey is expected to sign a contract soon. Hopefully it's with the wine and gold. I know we will likely have to overpay for him with our full mid-level exception for at least four years, but I think it's worth it to bring him in. And it would hurt the Celtics, while improving our roster. We'll see how this plays out...

Get Well Soon Windy!

Before I delve into anything else today, I wanted to take a moment to wish Brian Windhorst (by far the best Cavs writer in the world) a speedy recovery. I had been wondering about the lack of updates on his blog recently, and yesterday TrueHoop confirmed that he is pretty sick. Then I read this this morning and realized how serious his situation really is. BW, you're in our thoughts and prayers and we're pulling for you!!!

I was really looking forward to seeing what Brian had to say about tomorrow night's draft. There are a lot of different directions the Cavs can take over the next 24 hours or so. I'm sure there will be some trade opportunities out there so it will be interesting to see how everything plays out. Although Danny Ferry says don't expect any major changes. Mary Schmitt-Boyer answers some Cavalier draft day questions. And here's a decent overview of the current Cavaliers as they stand the day before the draft.

Tribe Update: The Indians lost another one last night to old friend Omar Vizquel and the San Francisco Giants, 3-2. More of the same problems for the Tribe - quiet bats and bad bullpen work. I have no statistical evidence to back up this claim (really I'm too lazy to dig for it right now), but I swear our bullpen leads the league in giving up 'insurance' runs late in games. It seems like every time either of the Raffys or Masa Kobayashi come in for the 7th inning or later with a one-run lead it always ends up getting worse. Then our anemic offense really has no chance at a comeback. Truly depressing.

Tribe fans still love #13

The Indians and Giants will be at it again tonight with the ridiculously overpaid Barry Zito (see why I'm advocating a Sabathia trade?) going against Jeremy Sowers. Also, Larry Dolan supports Eric Wedge and Mark Shapiro.

LBJ Speaks, but Tribe Silenced (Again)

The first order of business today: LeBron James gave a fairly lengthy interview and touched on a variety of topics yesterday with the PD. He also appeared later on ESPN850. This is my favorite part:

"I'm dedicated to bringing a championship to this city," James told Mark "Munch" Bishop during an appearance later Wednesday on ESPN 850 WKNR to promote the upcoming King for Kids Bike-A-Thon. "I'm bringing a parade to this city. I love this city. I love Northeast Ohio. ... Right now I can't see myself going anywhere else."

And I'm dedicated to watching the Cavs win a championship so it works out well for me LeBron. I already can't wait for November. I'll be adding some tidbits here shortly in anticipation of the 2008 NBA Draft that takes place a week from today. This is obviously a very important time for the Cavaliers and I'm excited to see what happens over the next week and beyond.

Forget New York, LBJ was deepening his Northeast Ohio roots yesterday at the Q

Tribe Update: Since it is my sworn duty to speak on all Cleveland sports happenings, I must also talk about the disaster that is the 2008 Cleveland Indians. They dropped their second in a row to the lowly Rockies last night, 4-2 in Denver. The loss drops them into sole possession of 4th place in the AL Central, now above only the Royals. The Tigers have finally overtaken us, themselves a complete disaster in 2008. Once again, the bats fell silent and really didn't give Aaron Laffey much of a chance. And Rafael Betancourt continued his bewildering slide, giving up an important insurance run to Colorado in the bottom of the 7th, just after the Tribe had cut it to 3-2. The Indians will look to Jeremy Sowers to avoid the sweep tonight.

The Tribe continues the trend of making bad teams look good in '08

At least Jhonny Peralta and I have something in common - we both share disappointment in his hitting this year. And who knows when Fausto Carmona will be healthy enough to pitch again?

Browns Update: The Browns rookies took their annual tour of the Pro Football Hall of Fame yesterday. Maybe someday one of them will be enshrined there. For now, I'll just take a home playoff game. I'm working on curbing my enthusiasm with baby steps. That way I won't be so disappointed all the time.

Motown Mess

I guess the challenge for me every Monday is coming up with a new headline to describe how bad each previous weekend was for the Tribe. Friday actually was a nice win, but in true '08 Indians fashion they followed it up with two bad losses on Saturday and Sunday to the lowly Tigers. It has now been almost a full month since the team notched consecutive wins. Thankfully I was purchasing a new car on Saturday and didn't really have to be subjected to Rafael Betancourt's latest meltdown, although I did hear it on the radio. And yesterday I was half-watching our sad offense at the gym, trying to stay out of the sauna-like weather outside. It has gotten to the point where even an optimistic homer like me knows there's not much reason to watch this team on a daily basis anymore. Sad considering we were one win away from a likely World Series win over the Rockies just 8 months ago.

Even the Tigers are pumped to face the Tribe now

The Tribe looks to Cliff Lee to end another losing streak tonight. He has obviously been one of the few bright spots this season and will be looking for his 10th win (I'm trying to stay positive here, really). Paul Hoynes sounds about as disgusted as me at this point. Question: How long until Browns training camp? Answer: 48 days or so (not that I'm counting or anything).

We Just Can't Streak

So the Tribe split their four-game series with Texas. It could have been worse (from a hitting perspective, as we've seen all year), and it could have been much better (our pitchers were smacked around all series). I'm not gonna get too high on our hitting in this series, or too low on our pitching. I think a lot of it has to do with the ballpark, the strength of the Rangers hitters, and the abomination that is Texas's pitching staff.

All I know after last night is that Kevin Millwood looks weird without his goatee (I don't think I've really even seen him pitch since his great '05 season with us), Rafael Betancourt can't throw strikes anymore (and when he does they are usually hit a loooooong way), and the Tribe can't string together consecutive wins anymore. The last time the Indians won two straight games was May 13-15. Since then they are 5-14. Yikes.

Old friend Milton Bradley finished the series with 4 HR and 7 RBI

Tonight, we head north to face the Tigers to start a three-game weekend series. It will be Paul Byrd against Justin Verlander in what I expect to be another slugfest featuring two lousy pitchers. I didn't expect going into this season that on June 6th we'd be fighting the Tigers to stay out of the bottom of the Central. Jayson Stark has an interesting take on what's going on in what was thought to be one of baseball's best divisions.

Yesterday was also MLB's annual June draft - here's a rundown of all the Tribe's picks. I don't know anything about any of them but I hope they can help us somewhere down the road. Today's ABJ had some more information on top-pick Lonnie Chisenhall. I especially like the part about him being kicked off the team in South Carolina on burglary and grand larceny charges. Awesome.

Cavs Update:
Brian Windhorst reports that Andy Varejao will not be playing for his native Brazil in this summer's Beijing Olympics. I hope he is serious about rehabbing his ankle - he will either be valuable trade bait this year, or an important piece to the puzzle if he can regain his form of last year.

I'm also proud to report that I didn't watch one single second of Game 1 of the NBA Finals last night. I saw the score this morning and felt sick to my stomach thinking that could easily be the Cavaliers in place of Boston. And I felt the same way about last year's World Series. F the entire city of Boston. I can't stand them.

Happy to have a night off

I'm happy the Tribe played a day game yesterday. I'm even happier they have the night off tonight. My wife and I had to catch up on five episodes of "Lost" we missed during the end of the NBA season and the playoffs. And our DVR has been at about 99% capacity for the last week. So we got in three episodes last night and will probably get the other two tonight. That has to be more entertaining than watching the '08 Indians invent new ways to lose every game.

Yesterday's loss was really a backbreaker in a couple ways. First, the Tribe is now 5.5 games behind the White Sox, instead of 3.5 had they won. But more crushing was how they lost this game. They took an early 2-0 lead in the first, of course still leaving runs on the board when they couldn't score again with no outs and men on first and third (shaking my head as I type this). Then after falling behind 3-2, Jhonny Peralta hit a big HR to put the Tribe back on top 5-3 in the sixth. In comes Rafael Betancourt in the top of the 7th to promptly give up the lead and the game.

More of the same at the Prog on Wednesday afternoon

Betancourt, who was so dependable last year, is now sporting an ERA of 5.56. And Eric Wedge is not happy about his performance yesterday. Even more troubling to me is the fact that the Tribe has now not scored a run in the 7th inning or later in 10 straight games. Just stop and think about that for a second and it becomes clear why they are 2-8 in those ten games. They get back on the horse tomorrow night in Kansas City and it looks like Pronk will give it a go with his bum shoulder, even if he is afraid of needles. Personally, I'd rather see him go on the DL and get himself straightened out. It's not like we'd miss his hitting (or lack thereof).

Cavs Update:
Terry Pluto has put together a fictional conversation between Danny Ferry, Dan Gilbert and Mike Brown that is mildly entertaining. This obviously will be a huge off-season for the wine and gold and the clamoring has already started to put Michael Redd in a Cavalier uniform. It will be interesting to see what Mr. Ferry can pull off this summer with all these expiring contracts (Wally Szczerbiak $13M, Eric Snow $7.3M, Joe Smith $4.8M, Damon Jones $4.4M, not to mention Andy Varejao's one year left with a player option in 09-10, Sasha Pavlovic's non-guaranteed contract after this year, and deciding what to do with Boobie Gibson and Delonte West). It should be an interesting summer.

Browns Update:
I caught an interesting interview with Phil Savage on the drive home from work yesterday. Every time I hear this guy talk I like him more. Check it out if you haven't heard this two-part interview from WKNR: part one & part two.

Game 6 Anticipation

As I sit here and think about Game 6 tonight, there are a lot of thoughts swimming in my head:

• Can we hold serve at home, or will the pressure of 20-1 in the second round for the home teams destroy us?
• Can we survive the loss of Boobie tonight, and possibly the rest of the playoffs?
• Will Mike Brown peel Damon Jones off the bench tonight? And if so, will it play out like I envision (where he is on fire from downtown and torches the Celts)?
• Will the Celtics fold under the immense pressure of winning a road game in a hostile environment?
• How will the Cavs respond to their first elimination game since Game 4 of last year's Finals?
• Will linking to this oldie-but-goodie inspire the Cavaliers to beat the Celtics, a la the '92 playoffs?
  

I guess we will know the answers to all of these questions soon enough. But for what it's worth, I had a dream last night that I was talking to LBJ about Game 6. He reassured me that they Cavs are bringing it tonight and wouldn't let us down at home. It's pathetic that I did actually have that dream, I know, but it actually made me feel better when I woke up. My wife sort of rolled her eyes when I told her about it this morning, as I would expect any female to do when their husband tells them such a thing. TMI coming out in the blog today so let's move onto something else...

Can DJ be more than a cheerleader tonight in Game 6?

Tribe Update:
Aaron Laffey gave the Tribe another superb start yesterday, even if the scoreless streak from the starters was ended. I can't complain about the one unearned run he did allow in the Tribe's 4-2 win. It was concerning to see Rafael Betancourt have to be yanked in favor of Masa Kobayashi to get out of the ninth, but a win's a win's a win as they say. The Tribe is now a full 1.5 games in first and 3 games over .500 for the first time all year. And the Tigers keep sinking deeper into the abyss. As Borat would say: "Niiiiiiiiice!"

Small Browns Update:
With OTA's currently going on for the Browns, we got this small bit of information about Josh Cribbs' more expanded role in the 2008 Browns offense. Any time you can get the ball in this guy's hands, good things are bound to happen. Can't wait for September!

Finally, a walk-off winner

Wow, last night's Tribe game was painful for 11 innings, but ultimately they got the job done. Paul Byrd pitched 7-2/3 strong scoreless innings and left with the Tribe up 1-0. Raffy Lefty (Perez) came in and got out of the 8th with the lead still intact. But Raffy Righty (Betancourt) gave up a leadoff single to Ichiro Suzuki and you could just see that he would somehow score to tie it in the ninth.

I won't go into all the details, but the Indians had many chances to win it in the 9th, 10th, and 11th. They were a staggeringly bad 2-for-10 with the bases loaded in the series. But FINALLY, Asdrubal Cabrera singled home Franklin Gutierrez with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the 11th for the walk-off win. The Tribe is now 7-3 in their last 10 and only 1.5 games out of first. Notable in this game is the shake-up in the batting order - Casey Blake moved up to the 2-hole, David Dellucci to #3, and Travis Hafner was dropped down to 6th. Hafner did respond with two doubles so hopefully he is finally finding his way out of this slump.

Now the dilemma tonight - we have tickets to see the Tribe vs. the Royals. But the Cavaliers face the Wizards in Game 6 at the same time. I guarantee if we end up going to the Tribe game that the Cavaliers will play well and close out the series. And if we don't go, there will surely be a Game 7 on Sunday. So do I opt to watch the game at the Batter's Eye bar in right field? It will kill me, but I may just have to take one for the fans of Cleveland. More later on this difficult decision.

Cabrera finally broke through in the 11th and was mobbed by his teammates

It Ends Tonight

Well, actually I'm hoping two things end tonight:

1) The Tribe's three-game losing skid that has come on the heels of a five-game winning streak
2) The Washington Wizards' season

The Tribe offense was asleep again for most of last night's game. Grady Sizemore made a much-needed appearance after missing the last two games and provided two doubles and scored our only two runs. Fausto looked pretty solid, going 6-2/3 and only giving up one earned run. But our bullpen (Rafael Betancourt in particular) looked terrible in the ninth, surrendering 5 runs to end all doubt in a 2-2 tie. My hopes for a .500 April went up in smoke as well. I'd like to blame the cold weather for the cold start, but it hasn't even been that cold. Here's to hoping that turning the page on the calender will help heat up the bats. Our new stud Cliff Lee takes his Nintendo-like numbers to the mound tonight to end a long April for our Tribe. Keep it going Cliff!

More importantly, the Cavaliers are at the Q tonight to end the Wizards' season. I'll be in attendance and I can't wait. I have a feeling this will be a very rowdy crowd tonight to greet the knuckleheads from the nation's capital. And speaking of knuckleheads, DeShawn Stevenson has now decided that Michael Vick is a solid role model. Honestly, nothing surprises me about this guy anymore. Please, let's just put him out of his misery tonight. And let's keep LeBron healthy in the process.

As if he wasn't public enemy #1 already... now DeShawn is a proud Mike Vick fan

It's Always Fun

I always get a little extra enjoyment out of beating the New York Yankees. Tonight was a great game down at the Prog. I got to experience that old Jacobs Field magic for the first time in the new seats. On this evening Jhonny Peralta was the hero, hitting a two-out, three-run homer off Andy Pettitte to put the Tribe on top for good.

Positive things to take away from this one:

• This was the Tribe's fourth consecutive win and they are now 11-12, only 2 games out of first place.
  
• Paul Byrd did a decent job tonight (other than when facing the greasy steroid monger Jason Giambi). He had great command of the strike zone (59 strikes and only 18 balls).
• The bats banged out another 9 hits and 6 runs. The offense seems to be coming around.
• Franklin Gutierrez added an important insurance home run and the offense manufactured another important 2-out run in the 6th inning as well.
• Finally, and most importantly, the bullpen was solid. Rafael Perez came on in relief and pitched 2-1/3 scoreless innings. And how great was it to see Rafael Betancourt come in and get a 1-2-3 ninth? I can't remember the last time JoeBo accomplished that.

Tomorrow we look to finally get back to .500 as Jeremy Sowers gets the call in place of Jake Westbrook. Let's keep it rolling.

Jhonny did the Yanks in with a huge 2-out, 3-run HR