Four days to Opening Day

For the Indians, that is. The A's and Red Sox only have 160 games to go. Incidentally, am I the only one who didn't know Keith Foulke was making a comeback with Oakland? Didn't he say he was retiring last year when the Indians were expecting him to be their closer? Not that I'm dissatisfied with how the season went overall, but still, I was surprised to see him take the mound in Tokyo. He pitched in both of those games, in fact. If he'd made his comeback with the Red Sox, I'd have taken it a little harder, but since it's the small-market A's, I forgive him.

This has nothing to do with the Indians, but I saw it on SportsCenter, and I just have to mention it. During a spring-training game yesterday between the Twins and Braves, Atlanta's Elliott Johnson tried to bunt for a hit, and he laid down a beaut that dribbled down the first-base line. Twins pitcher Livan Hernandez knew he didn't have a play if he picked it up and threw it -- so he KICKED IT to first base. He must have some soccer experience somewhere along the way, because he kicked it right into the first baseman's glove, and got the out. Absolutely brilliant.

Here's an interesting column about the prospects of C.C. Sabathia eventually getting to 300 wins. The prognosis? Don't put money on it. Of course, he's probably not going to be with the Indians a whole lot longer, but who knows. Maybe he'll surprise us on both counts and win 300 games as an Indian.

And if you follow this link, you'll see that our old friend Charlie Manuel believes his Phillies can score 1,000 runs this year. Charlie's deeply, deeply wrong about this, of course. I think he overestimates the prospects of any team scoring 1,000 runs in a season, simply because he was the hitting coach for a team that did it -- the 1999 Indians, led by Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, David Justice, Roberto Alomar and Kenny Lofton. Charlie may or may not know that those Indians are the only team that's scored 1,000 runs since 1950. And for a National League team to do it, with pitchers taking up one-ninth of the batting order? Virtually impossible. But I suspect Charlie won't care much if they only score 850 runs and win the NL East.

Tim Kurkjian just said on "Mike and Mike in the Morning" that he changed his mind a few days ago about who's going to win the AL Central. He now believes it will be the Indians because the Tigers have too many problems in their bullpen. But of course, it makes no difference what Tim Kurkjian or anyone else thinks. It'll be settled on the field. And I don't know about you, but I'm sure looking forward to it.