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...

Motown Misery Continues

Things went from bad to worse on Tuesday night in the Tribe's first game in the post-CC era. Chalk up loss number nine in a row as Jeremy Sowers was rocked again for 6 earned runs on 10 hits in Detroit. The loss is particularly bothersome to me given that the Indians got to Justin Verlander in the first inning with a double and a home run... then followed that up with no hits over the next six innings. This looks to me like a team that has completely given up. I know the Tigers are playing well now and we are obviously in a huge tailspin, but pride needs to kick in at some point. And I'm not sure what happened to Sowers between 2006 and now but he does not look good. His ERA has ballooned to 7.81 to go along with an 0-5 record. Is this the same guy that went 7-4 with a 3.57 ERA in 2006? The Tribe will look to avoid their first double-digit losing streak since 2004 tonight when Paul Byrd takes the mound. Take my advice - don't watch.

Handshakes at the plate seem even more common when Sowers is pitching

CC Update: To add insult to injury, CC Sabathia won his first start in Milwaukee last night. He was shaky (as you'd expect given the enormous expectations, new league, etc.) but still fought through 6 innings giving up 5 hits, 5 walks, and 2 earned runs. He also did go 0-2 at the plate, but I imagine he was a little worked up for this game.

It will be tough to get used to this sight

Cavaliers Update: Onto hopefully some good news... the free agency picture became a little clearer last night as more faces changed teams. Elton Brand decided to stun the Clippers and bolt for Philadelphia, and then Cory Maggette got a huge contract from the Warriors. Of course Cavaliers' GM Danny Ferry is watching this all unfold with his full attention. Maggette would have made a nice addition to the Cavs and they did reportedly offer their full mid-level exception, but that just couldn't compete with the 5 years, $50 million he ended up getting.

So now this leaves and big decision for Twinsburg native James Posey. The Cavs are very interested, but it will be up to Posey to decide which team gives him the best chance to snag another ring. It will also be intriguing to see where Monta Ellis of the Warriors ends up.

Finally, obviously a longshot to be on any NBA roster again, Tractor Traylor is suiting up for the Cavs summer league squad.

A Little Life Left?

Maybe we shouldn't give up on these Indians yet. Bud Shaw certainly thinks it's too early for that. The Tribe didn't get the sweep against the Dodgers yesterday, primarily thanks to Paul Byrd's horrific first inning of work (gotta love hearing Vin Scully's voice in that clip!). But they did gut out two nice extra-inning wins on Friday and Saturday. And I think we've finally found our power-hitting DH to stick in the middle of the order. Now that was a bomb.

Byrd didn't have it in the 1st, but lasted 7 innings in the LA heat

That now makes three out of four series wins for the Indians, but still just a 10-11 record in June. Yes, the sweep in Colorado was awful, but they are still somehow only 6.5 out of first. More concerning to me is the fact that they are now 1.5 games behind the Tigers, who seem to have finally found themselves. The Tribe will enjoy an 0ff-day today and then welcome old friend Omar Vizquel back to Cleveland.

Cavs Update: LeBron hosted his annual bikeathon in Akron over the weekend and raised $150,000 for local charities. And this week, we'll turn our attention towards Thursday night's draft. Here's an overview to get us started. More details to come throughout the week. All I know right now is please, no Kosta Koufos.

I'm pretty sure 330 is not an area code in New York...

Gladiators Update: The Gladiators are in the playoffs after a 47-35 win over Columbus on Saturday night. They will host a wild-card playoff game at the Q next Monday vs. the Orlando Predators. I will likely make my Arena Football fan debut for this one!

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.

Cliff to the Rescue (Again)

Cliff Lee continues to be one of the few good stories in an otherwise disappointing season for the Tribe. He continued his dominance again last night in Detroit, going 5 innings and giving up two runs before being pulled after a rain delay. He is now 10-1 with a sparkling 2.52 ERA and is making a strong case to be the AL All-Star starter. The Indian offense also jumped on Dontrelle Willis (probably the best example of the '08 Tigers foolish overspending) early with 8 runs in the first two innings. The game was also highlighted in the 8th inning by Franklin Gutierrez's (remember him?) leaping catch to rob a home run. The Tribe will again look for consecutive wins for the first time since the end of World War I tonight. They finally return home to the friendly confines of the Prog to face the Twins after going 5-6 on the looooong road trip.

The 'Streak Stopper' was at it again last night in Detroit

Roster Update: Asdrubal Cabrera and his .184 average were finally mercifully sent down to Buffalo yesterday in favor of Josh Barfield, himself only batting .255 in AAA. We'll see how this goes but I'm glad Barfield is getting another shot. Hopefully Cabrera can get himself straightened out down there with less pressure on him. I still have visions of him being our everyday shortstop and moving Jhonny "No Range" Peralta over to third someday...

Cavs Update: Old friend Ira Newble is happy to be in LA, even if the Lakers find themselves down 2-0 in the Finals. And Pat McManamon rightfully thinks the Cavs should be given credit for pushing Boston to the limit. Finally, Brian Windhorst thinks the shakeup in the Central division may make things tougher for the Cavs to make a trade.

Browns Update: Kellen Winslow stuck to his agent's word and arrived in Berea yesterday for the start of Browns minicamp, which begins today. Hopefully the first in a series of good things for our '08 Brownies.

***UPDATE*** LeCharles Bentley was cleared to resume playing and is on the field this morning!!! GREAT NEWS and let's hope he can stay healthy and somehow contribute this year...

K2 is pumped for the season to start

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.

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!

Two Season Finales?

So we know for sure that last night was the Cavaliers' regular season finale. They lost at home to the Detroit Pistons in a purely meaningless game. LeBron and Z didn't even suit up for the wine and gold. I can think of three good things to happen last night: 1) no further injuries going into the postseason, 2) LeBron locked up the first-ever league scoring title by a Cavalier to add to his ever-expanding list of amazing achievements, and 3) Wally Szczerbiak netted 18 points in 43 minutes to hopefully give him some confidence for the playoffs. One particularly bad thing to note from last night: Damon Jones finally got off the bench and started the game - but went just 1-12 from the field in 37 minutes. Yikes.

The other possible season finale from last night happened just next door on the baseball diamond, where the Tribe fell to the Tigers, 13-2. This is not your typical gloom and doom, reverse psychology attempt on my part (well maybe it is), but this team is in serious trouble. CC Sabathia was shelled again last night, further proving team ownership is justified in not giving him a 7-year $120M deal that he will inevitably get in free agency. As my buddy Nicko said, it's time for a players'-only meeting. It's time to shake things up. It's time to rattle some cages. Something needs to be done before this season is lost already. This one dropped the Tribe to 5-10 and a last-place tie in the Central. Wow, and I thought my wisdom teeth extraction would be the lowlight of my Wednesday.

The big man can't even watch Renteria's grand slam in the 5th
... and the feeling is mutual for most Tribe fans when he pitches now

*Update* The Cavs have released their Round 1 schedule vs. the Wizards. Here's the rundown:

Game 1 - vs WAS, Sat. April 19, 12:30 pm, ESPN
Game 2 - vs WAS, Mon. April 21, 7:00 pm, TNT
Game 3 - @ WAS, Thu. April 24, 8:00 pm, TNT
Game 4 - @ WAS, Sun. April 27, 1:00 pm, ABC
*Game 5 - vs WAS, Wed. April 29, TBD
*Game 6 - @ WAS, Fri. May 2, TBD
*Game 7 - vs WAS, Tue. May 4, TBD
(* if necessary)

My prediction: Cavs in 6

Late Tuesday Tribe Wrap

Sorry I'm late on my Tuesday Tribe thoughts - I had my four wisdom teeth removed this morning. Let me tell ya, that was a barrel of monkeys. As I sit here typing I have some sort of elastic contraption with two ice packs wrapped around my head. You could also say it's to dull my early season Tribe headache. Last night's 9th inning was more of the same, with Jensen Lewis giving up a game-winning HR to a pinch-hitting Jason Varitek. The loss puts us now at 5-9, searching for answers 14 games into the year. Will I regret become a Tribe season ticketholder this year? Naaah, I'm a glutton for punishment ;) Speaking of punishment, CC Sabathia is pitching again tonight! Wisdom teeth and CC all in the same day!

More 9th inning fireworks from the wrong team at the Jake has me in a foul mood
*and yes, it is now the Jake again, to try to conjure up some of the old magic

A lesson learned

Games like last night's Tribe game in LA (or is it Anaheim, since the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim play there?) are the reason why I usually opt out of going to bed early in order to watch my teams play late games. You just never know what's going to happen and if you go to bed early, you might miss something good. Of course, after the frustrating loss on Monday night I opted for sleep and missed the ending completely. Travis Hafner hit a huge 2-run HR with two outs in the top of the ninth to give our Tribe a big come-from-behind win. Jake Westbrook also pitched a complete game. Lesson learned: I will stay up for all West coast games the rest of the season. Thankfully the Tribe comes back home after this afternoon's game. I hate these getaway games - we never seem to play well when I'm forced to listen at work on the radio. Let's hope Byrd performs a little better this time around.

Hafner flipped the script on the Angels late Tuesday night

Central update: The Tigers are now 0-7, giving us a 3.5 game lead on them already, even with our mediocre start. I am enjoying this immensely.

It's Tribe time now

Hopes are high for our beloved Tribe this year. And I have to say, attending this year's home opener was a little more fun than last year's. See photo comparison:

2007 Opening Day @ Jacobs Field

2008 Opening Day @ Progressive Field

As you can tell from the 2008 photo, we are now playing at "The Prog" or "The Pro" or whatever-the-hell nickname you wanna give it. Also, our seats this year were outstanding. Big thanks to Razzles bar in Olmsted Township. $59 got us those great seats in Section 117, food, beer, transportation to and from the game, and another game ticket in June to top it all off. They do this Opening Day package annually and I highly recommend it. And I much preferred the 60 degree weather and Indians victory this year over the snow and cold game that was eventually postponed last year.

I'd also prefer to see the CC Sabathia that won the Cy Young last year (pre-playoffs of course). The one we saw on Monday looked pretty rough. Hopefully the warm weather out in Oakland this weekend will help him right himself.

The good news is that the Fausto Carmona we saw last night was the great sinkerballer that we saw burst onto the scene last year. The 2-0 start has been nice to see for this team, and coupled with Detroit's 0-2 start (to lowly Kansas City) means that we are on track for a wire-to-wire lead this season in the AL Central!

Speaking of the Armpit of America (a.k.a. Detroit), I was up there for the NCAA tourney games at Ford Field last Friday. I was very happy to see Davidson slap around Wisconsin and all of their arrogant fans. It's fun to root for the underdog, and they almost managed to pull off the huge upset over Kansas... here was the view from our seats at Ford Field - quite a strange place to take in a basketball game: