Talbot gets his seventh win

I've written about Mitch Talbot enough in this space that I'm starting to feel like a broken record. Talbot came into the season with some major-league experience, but zero major-league wins. And now he has seven, after yesterday's 3-1 victory over the White Sox. The Indians are now a game and a half behind those same White Sox for fourth place in the AL Central, which isn't much, but it's something.

Talbot allowed just one run in seven innings of work, on six hits and three walks. He struck out five. For the second time this season, he out-pitched former Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy. He leads all major-league rookies in victories, and his 3.54 ERA puts him 18th in the American League, just one one-hundredth of a run behind teammate Fausto Carmona (about whom I haven't written much this season, but definitely should, because he's quite a comeback kid). It must feel pretty good to be Mitch Talbot these days.

The Indians will go for the three-game sweep this afternoon, as Jake Westbrook faces off against Mark Buehrle -- who, like Peavy, is having a very disappointing season so far. I like our chances.

Balky balk calls? I don't think so

Somebody needs to get Mark Buehrle a pacifier and a blanket, and gently rock him to sleep.

Before I write more about Buehrle and his balks, I do want to say something brief about the way the game ended. The Indians went into the bottom of the ninth with a 5-1 deficit, and were facing White Sox closer Bobby Jenks in a non-save situation. They quickly put three runs on the board and had the bases loaded with just one out. Jenks managed to strike out Austin Kearns and retire Russell Branyan on a lazy fly ball to left to end the threat. It's disappointing that they lost, but at least they managed to make it interesting.

Now then, back to Mark Buehrle. First, a little background. I've never liked Buehrle, especially since he hit Travis Hafner in the head with a pitch a couple of years ago that caused Hafner to miss a few months, and I think he hit him intentionally. His manager, Ozzie Guillen, is a colorful character, but speaks freely enough to prove that he generally has his head up his rear end. So when I heard Buehrle and Guillen had been ejected for arguing balk calls in yesterday's game against the Indians, I couldn't help but feel a perverse pleasure.

It was a noon game, and I have a job, so I didn't see it until I watched the highlights on SportsCenter this morning. They showed both of the pickoff moves that got Buehrle called for balks, and they were clearly both balks. Buehrle made a move toward the plate, then threw the ball to first. That's deceiving the runner, which is the very definition of a balk. Buehrle told reporters afterward that those moves were no different from the ones he'd made on previous throws to first; those other throws were not shown on SportsCenter, so I can't speak to that, but the balk calls that first base umpire Joe West made were 100% correct.

Guillen got ejected for arguing the first one, and Buehrle got thrown out for tossing his glove to the ground after the second one. He then argued vociferously and tried to advance upon West, while his teammates held him back. Buehrle said after the game he was just trying to get his "money's worth," but I can't imagine what he thought was going to happen when he dropped his glove. Did he think West would apologize and send the runner back to first? If he'd given it just a moment's thought, he'd have known it was an ejectable offense.

But Buehrle isn't much of a thinker, I guess. Neither is Guillen, for that matter, who said after the game that West thinks people pay to watch him umpire. But one of Buehrle's comments really rankles me. Taken from the Associated Press report on yesterday's game:

"I think he's too worried about promoting his CD [West is a country music singer and songwriter with his own website] and I think he likes seeing his name in the papers a little bit too much instead of worrying about the rules."

Does he realize what a serious accusation that is? Does he care? He's suggesting that Joe West called two balks on him, not because he actually balked, but because he wants people to see his name in the paper and buy his CD? What kind of sense does that make? That's not a post-game comment, that's a tantrum thrown by a person who always thinks he should get his way.

Would somebody please change his diaper and fix him a bottle? He's cranky and ready for beddy-bye.

Rookie Talbot outduels former Cy

Mitch Talbot entered 2010 with zero major-league victories. Less than two months into the season, he has six, while pitching for a bad team. What do you know about that!

Talbot went six strong innings (and one shaky one that got him lifted) in the Indians' 7-3 victory over the White Sox last night, giving up two runs on six hits over his seven innings. He walked none, struck out four — three in the first three innings — and kept the ball in the yard. He held the Sox scoreless over the first six innings, then gave up two runs on four doubles in the seventh. Mark Kotsay did him a favor by getting thrown out trying to stretch his double into a triple.

In any case, Talbot was lifted after having thrown just 77 pitches, 57 of which were strikes. He stands at 6-3, 3.73. Any team in the bigs would love to have that kind of production, and all he cost us was Kelly Shoppach. It's too soon to truly evaluate that trade, but so far, it looks like quite a fine move by Mark Shapiro. He's been our best starter so far this year, and his six wins tie him for second in the American League (with Boston's Clay Buchholz, behind David Price of the Rays, who has seven). If he keeps this up, I wouldn't be surprised to see him in the All-Star Game.

Another young Indian contributed to this win, as Jason Donald opened the scoring with his first major-league home run off 2007 NL Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy. Peavy's obviously not the pitcher he was a couple of years ago, but that nonetheless had to be a thrill for Donald. Shin-Soo Choo's blast that followed gave the Tribe back-to-backs, and the Indians battered Peavy for six runs on eight hits over six innings.

The Indians and White Sox play the rubber match today at 12:05. Jake Westbrook, who seems to have mostly gotten his stuff back after missing a year and a half, will face off against Mark Buehrle, who's not having a good year at all. I wish I didn't have a job, so I could watch it. (Just kidding. ... Or am I? ... Yes, I am.)

Tribe attendance problems?

We're dipping into the mailbag this morning, courtesy of Of Fair Hooker's second-most faithful reader (after my lovely wife), Jeff Brown:

Yes, the Tribe won their baseball game [yesterday] 3-2 against the ChiSox, however we have a major problem shaping up: this was a Saturday game, traditionally the day of the highest attendance across MLB, and the Tribe drew a grand total of 12,885 fans (barely 1/4 of the capacity of Jacobs Field).

This, Steve, is not a good sign when our hometown heroes draw a measly crowd like that. It's downright embarrassing, humiliating, and cause for starting the argument that the Indians might move out of Cleveland to greener pastures.

I mean, how can you justify continuing to function when you draw that kind of a crowd on a sunny Saturday afternoon, Steve?

I'm not sure if Jeff is employing hyperbole here, but taking his comments at face value, let's examine that attendance figure. Obviously, the Indians would be happier with a number much closer to the capacity of Progressive Field. But first of all, while the sun may have been out, it was cold yesterday. I don't know what the mercury hit in downtown Cleveland, but here in Windham, it never broke out of the 40s.

Second of all, the game started at 4 p.m., in order to accommodate the Fox network; exactly one hour after the Cavaliers started their first-round playoff series against the Chicago Bulls right across the street from the Indians. I don't know that I'd go so far as to say a lot of people who might have gone to the Indians game went to the Cavs game instead, but I will suggest that a number of Tribe fans chose to stay home and watch the Cavs on TV.

Don't misunderstand me: The Indians' attendance figures HAVE been down in recent years, and that IS a problem. But I think to point to one game and say that game's figures are cause for sending the Indians to Portland or Las Vegas is a bit much.

Speaking of yesterday's game, it was the Indians' third straight victory, after Asdrubal Cabrera's homer off Jake Peavy tied it in the eighth, and Shin-Soo Choo's RBI double off Matt Thornton gave the Tribe a 3-2 lead that would be the final score. Chris Perez, who had been so bad his last couple of outings, pitched an uneventful ninth for his third save. (And he might not be getting any more save opportunities for a while, as Kerry Wood appears close to returning.)

It was also the third straight game in which the Indians gave up exactly two runs. Jake Westbrook didn't go the distance like David Huff and Mitch Talbot the previous two days, but he was pretty good for seven innings, and this win was more his doing than the guy who got the win, Jensen Lewis.

At 5-6, the Tribe is now alone in third place, 3 1/2 behind the Twins.

Another big start from a young Indian

Mitch Talbot entered last night's game with zero major league wins. He has one now. Talbot, the Indians' fifth starter, followed fourth starter David Huff's complete-game victory with one of his own. And Huff rewarded him with a shaving-cream pie all over his face. It was the first time Indians starters have won back-to-back complete games since Charles Nagy and Chad Ogea did it in 1996. That's a long time. For a second-year pitcher and a rookie to do it is pretty remarkable.

Talbot gave up two runs (one earned) on six hits and no walks, striking out two. The one earned run scored on Paul Konerko's solo home run in the fourth. The Tribe bats helped him out with six runs on eight hits, including Luis Valbuena's two-run fourth-inning home run off White Sox starter Mark Buehrle.

With the win, the Indians moved ahead of the White Sox in the standings, and are tied with the Royals for third place, at 4-6, 3 1/2 behind the first-place Twins.

The White Sox are staying in the same hotel as the Chicago Bulls, giving me a convenient segue to mention that the Cavs start their march to the title against the Bulls at 3 p.m. today. I predict a Cavaliers sweep. It's possible the Bulls could steal a game, but the Cavs are clearly a far superior team. They almost beat them 10 days or so ago without LeBron James, for criminy's sake.

Fausto starts turnaround?

Fausto Carmona was bad last year, at age 25. He was bad the year before, at age 24. He was one of the best pitchers in baseball the year before that, at age 23. So what kind of year will Fausto have at 26?

Well, he started to answer that question in last night's 5-3 win over the White Sox, which evened the Tribe's record at 1-1. Carmona went six innings and gave up three runs on just one hit — Paul Konerko's second home run of the year. The hit total is encouraging, until you consider that Fausto also walked six guys in those six innings, while striking out just one. I wish I could be more optimistic, but if he keeps that up, he is going to get hammered. That the White Sox only got one hit off him was an extreme fluke. Credit the defense behind him, but if he only gets one batter out without needing the defense's help, they're not going to be able to keep bailing him out. Sorry, but despite the end result, this was not a good outing for Fausto.

The Tribe offense will be fine, however. They banged out 10 hits, led by two each from Asdrubal Cabrera, Shin-Soo Choo and Matt LaPorta, and drew six walks. That's 16 baserunners, and we all know you have to get on base in order to score. It's a wonder they only got five runs out of that.

Commendable Carmona, Masterful Masterson

On Wedge Firing Day, Fausto Carmona and Justin Masterson turned in some fine performances on the mound in yesterday's doubleheader against the White Sox. Masterson's was one of the finest outings by an Indians pitcher this year, even though he lost.

Fausto, making what was no doubt his last appearance in a disappointing season, opened up with a seven-inning, one-run, five-strikeout performance that gives us some hope he can turn it around next year. The guy who won 19 games in 2007 must be in there somewhere. Maybe he'll show up in 2010. He ends 2009 with a 5-12 record and a 6.32 ERA. Not really anywhere to go but up.

Masterson went the full nine in the nightcap, striking out 12 White Sox, walking two, and surrendering four hits. Unfortunately, two of those hits were in the same inning, the sixth, in which Paul Konerko singled home DeWayne Wise, who had doubled. Still, Masterson became the first Indians pitcher to strike out as many as 12 hitters in a game since CC Sabathia fanned 13 two years ago. Masterson's 4-10 record this season is a bit misleading; his 4.52 ERA is a little high, but he sure showed us something last night. He's been very inconsistent since we got him in the Victor Martinez trade, but he's also just finishing his first full season in the bigs. I look forward to seeing him toe the rubber for us in '10 and beyond.

Thome to L.A.

Our old friend Jim Thome has been traded again. The White Sox sent him to the Dodgers to rejoin his former teammate Manny Ramirez. We all remember how devastating those guys were when hitting back-to-back in their 20s. Now they're both in their late 30s, and both can still hit the ball hard, if maybe not quite as often as they used to. It will be bittersweet to see them together again, wearing something other than Tribe unis.

But consider this: Unless Thome is ever hit with steroid allegations, he's a sure-fire Hall of Famer. He spent 12 years in Cleveland, three years in Philadelphia, and now 3 1/2 in Chicago. I don't know how long he'll be in L.A., but it won't be 12 years. He'll have Chief Wahoo on his Hall plaque.

I know, that doesn't change the fact that he left for more money after the 2002 season because the Phillies offered him more money, after saying he wanted to do whatever he could to stay in Cleveland. But as I said at the time (to friends; I didn't have a blog then), you and I would most likely have done the exact same thing.

Thome is currently 12th on the all-time home run list, with 564. Home run totals in this era don't mean as much as they used to, but if he's been clean his whole career, that's a very impressive total. Among those ahead of him are Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez and Rafael Palmeiro, all of whom are known to have taken performance-enhancing drugs. Manny is behind Thome on the career list, but his numbers carry that taint as well. The only other recent player ahead of Thome is Ken Griffey Jr. If both those guys are clean (which we don't know and may never), we probably have seriously undervalued their careers because of the era in which they played.

Regardless, I wish Thome well, and will always remember his time in Cleveland fondly. May he have success in Los Angeles.

Sowers sours again

There's not much to say about Jeremy Sowers' outing last night against the White Sox that I haven't said already about his last few starts, but it's truly amazing how it seems like he flips a switch when the batting order comes up the third time. Sowers sailed right through the first five innings, his only blemish a solo home run by Paul Konerko in the second inning. Then, in the sixth, Scott Podsednik came up for the third time, and Sowers fell apart. Again. He got Podsednik on a ground ball, and that was the last hitter he retired.

Of course, the bullpen fell apart too, as it has so many times. Chris Perez came in and immediately gave up a grand slam to Konerko (the second of his three homers in the game), and Winston Abreu, making his Indians debut, gave up a walk, a single, and two two-run homers while only retiring one hitter. Tomo Ohka came in and retired all five hitters he faced.

The Tribe offense showed signs of life, and it was good to see Grady Sizemore hit two four-baggers. But with pitching like this, this team is going nowhere.

Aaron Laffey, fresh off the disabled list, starts tonight's game, his first big-league action since May 22. I hope he's feeling good. He's had two rehab starts in the minors, both of which went badly, but got called back up to Cleveland anyway. You can tell me what that says about this rotation as well as I can tell you.

Hey, at least we're better than the Nationals

Following this week's three-game sweep at the hands of the Chicago White Sox, the Indians are now on a five-game losing streak, and at 31-49, have the worst record in the American League. They are 13 games behind first-place Detroit, and 3 1/2 games behind fourth-place Kansas City. Many of had hopes as the season dawned that the Tribe would contend for the Central Division crown this year; it's pretty obvious that isn't going to happen. The Indians have been a bit unlucky — they do have a better run differential than the Royals and Orioles — but let's face it, this is not a good team.

With Jeremy Sowers on the mound, last night's game went about as might have been expected. As we've discussed previously, Sowers has lights-out the first two times through the order this year, then run into serious trouble when hitters started coming up the third time. And when White Sox leadoff hitter Scott Podsednik got his third look at Sowers with two out in the top of the fifth, Sowers and the Tribe were hanging onto a 1-0 lead. Podsednik reached on an infield single, setting up a first-and-third situation; and Alexei Ramirez followed with an RBI single, then got thrown out trying for second, ending the inning.

The Indians went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the fifth, and then came the sixth. The top of the sixth went like this: Fly-ball out, single, single, three-run homer, double, RBI single, double-play groundout. And a tie game was now a 5-1 White Sox lead. The third time through the order, the White Sox went 7-for-9 against Sowers, with two runners getting thrown out on the bases. Obviously, Sowers either needs to figure out why he can't get hitters out the third time through the order, or stop pitching to hitters three times in the same game. Because this just can't be allowed to continue.

Our Tribe opens a three-game set at home on Friday night against the 33-44 Oakland A's. Maybe they can take a game or two. But they way they're playing, I'm not holding my breath.

Revised expectations

OK, so the Indians can do no better than 161-1 now. I think we can live with that.

Seriously, Jake Westbrook pitched pretty well today -- just not quite well enough. White Sox starter John Danks and three relievers kept the Tribe bats in check. Danks didn't even allow a hit until the sixth inning, when Casey Blake reached him for a single. I was at work and therefore unable to watch the game very closely, but I saw Blake's hit, and it was no cheapie. And Ryan Garko's RBI double in the seventh was hit pretty hard too. The White Sox outfield gave the Indians the chance to score more runs in that inning too, when Nick Swisher and Jermaine Dye collided going after a fly ball hit by Franklin Gutierrez (as pictured), and the ball dropped, leaving runners on second and third. But the Tribe failed to capitalize. Hey, that's baseball.

So we opened the season taking two of three from the intra-division White Sox. I'll take it.

Next is a three-game series at Oakland, and the A's are probably still suffering from jet lag a little bit, after opening the season a couple of weeks ago in Japan. So that's good timing. At least I hope so.

Still on pace for 162-0!

The Indians are 2-0, so they're still undefeated, one-81st of the way through the season. Fausto Carmona was brilliant tonight, yielding but one run on four hits and four walks in seven innings of work. So that was good to see. You just never know with a young pitcher, whether he'll be as good from year to year. We may be seeing the next C.C. -- though of course, Fausto is not quite the same type of pitcher as C.C. For one thing, Fausto throws with his right hand. Whether he'll be as good in '08 as he was in '07, obviously, we don't know yet, and won't for quite a while. But this was encouraging.

Fausto had his sinker working, as only one fair ball was hit in the air against him -- a fly-ball out off the bat of Jim Thome.

In other news, it seems Victor Martinez isn't hurt quite as badly as we'd feared, which of course is good news. He should be back soon.

162-0! We can do it! Come on!

My good friend Jeff Brown, who is unquestionably among the most faithful readers of Of Fair Hooker, Elmer Flick and World B. Free, had this to say about today's Indians game:

Steve,

I've got some good news for you -- the Cleveland Indians professional baseball team won their first game of the 2008 season, 10-8, over the Jim Thome-led Chicago White Stockings.

The Tribe is on pace to demolish the single season record for runs scored. Averaging 10 runs per game so far this season, this puts them on track to score 1620 runs!

Also, our ol' buddy Jim Thome is on pace to smash 324 homers this season, which by season's end, would put him at 829 career homers, breaking Barry Bonds hallowed record set last season.

On the down side, the Tribe is also on pace to allow 1296 runs, which would also be a single-season record... but who cares when we score 10 per game?!

Warmly, Jeff

It's no doubt an oversight, but Jeff failed to mention that:

• Franklin Gutierrez is on pace to collect 486 hits, which would shame Ichiro back to Japan for thinking his record-breaking total of 262 in 2004 was impressive.
  
• Casey Blake shares with Gutierrez a 486-RBI pace, which would have them both breaking Hack Wilson's 78-year-old record by mid-June.
  
• Rafael Betancourt is on pace to win 162 games, which would make a mockery of the previous record, Old Hoss Radbourn's 60 wins for the Providence Grays in 1884.
  
• C.C. Sabathia, while he may not want to end the season with an 8.44 ERA, is on pace to strike out 1,134 hitters. Nolan who?

If I may be so bold as to guess at the comedic device Jeff is employing, I believe he means to lampoon the rampant optimism (or pessimism) that comes from fans making too much out of one game, or even the first few games of the season. Sure, it's nice that we got off to a win, but let's not forget that this game means exactly as much as the game scheduled for August 23, the game scheduled for June 8, and the game scheduled for September 28 (the last day of the season).

But it sure was great to see Blake hit that three-run double off the wall in the bottom of the eighth. Baseball is back, ladies and gentlemen. And we've got a darned good team here in Cleveland.