Of Asdrubal, Fausto and Cliff

Asdrubal Cabrera turned the 14th unassisted triple play in major league history in game two last night -- and yet, that might not be the most notable thing about yesterday's doubleheader.

If the Indians could have put a single run across in that game -- and they had their chances -- they'd have had complete-game shutouts thrown by their two starting pitchers. Cliff Lee didn't come out for the 10th in the scoreless tie, and Rafael Betancourt laid an egg, leading to a 3-0 win by the Blue Jays. Fausto Carmona tossed a shutout in the first game. Carmona and Lee became the first teammates to throw nine shutout innings in the same doubleheader since 1977. (Don Aase and Reggie Cleveland turned the trick for the Red Sox, against the expansion Blue Jays.) The last unassisted triple play was just last year. So at least in those terms, this was a rarer feat.

Asdrubal also hit his first home run of the season in the first game, making him just the fourth player to go deep on the same day he turned a UTP. So, yeah, that's pretty special, though there's a lot of luck involved in an unassisted triple play. Make no mistake, it took a great play for Asdrubal to turn that triple. He made a diving catch. That was the hard part. Then he touched second and tagged the runner coming from first. That was the easy part, because the runners were off with the pitch. But Cabrera also made some outstanding defensive plays in the first game. If he can hit like he did last year, he'll be a fine major leaguer for a long time.

Incidentally, this makes the Indians the first team to have turned three unassisted triple plays. But it's unlikely anyone who's reading this remembers the first two: Neal Ball turned the first one in major league history in 1909, and Bill Wambsganss got one in the 1920 World Series.

One other thing: After Asdrubal turned that triple, he threw the ball into the stands. What could he have been thinking? Why wouldn't he want to save that ball?

Oh, and by the way, Cliffy's ERA is now 0.67, after seven starts. That gives him the third-lowest ERA in the majors after seven starts in 50 years. And he spent part of last year in the minors. Unbelievable.

Oh, and across the street, the Cavaliers tied the series against the Celtics last night. So that was pretty cool too.