Series Preview #11: Oakland A’s (18-14) at Cleveland Indians (14-14)

Major League Baseball’s top scoring team brings its offensive show on the road to Cleveland, as the Oakland Athletics take on the upstart Indians in a four-game series this week.

The A’s (18-14) have cooled off after starting the season 12-4. While Oakland has dominated their AL West rivals, winning 13 of 16 matchups so far, they have struggled against the rest of the league. Their offense has remained productive throughout, as the team continues to be among the American League leaders this season in runs, walks, and runs batted in. They enter their series with Cleveland leading the MLB in runs scored with 171 through their first 32 games.

The Indians (14-14) saw their six-game winning streak end Sunday at the expense of Mike Pelfrey. During their winning streak, they outscored the opposition, 53-14, and had two shutouts. They were able to earn a split against Kansas City and to claim both series against Philadelphia and Minnesota during the week.

Read More

A New Day, A New Hero

It seems like with each win, the Cleveland Indians have a new hero to celebrate.

Saturday’s win went to Scott Kazmir. He won his first game of the season and his first start since September 19th, 2010, with six impressive innings on the afternoon. After working out of a jam in the second inning, he faced just one over the minimum the rest of his day, allowing two hits and a run. He struck out four straight batters at one point and struck out seven on the day. He was able to settle in because his offense continued to do something it had struggled to do earlier in the season – consistently get runners on base and drive them in.

During the Indians’ winning streak, a new hero has emerged almost every night.

Read More

Six Strong From Kazmir Wins Tribe Sixth Straight; Indians 7, Twins 3

Scott Kazmir won his first start since September 19th, 2010 with six strong innings and the Indians offense continued to slug away, as Cleveland defeated the Minnesota Twins, 7-3.

The Indians have now won six straight games and have moved above the .500 mark at 14-13 on the season. They improved to 6-6 at home. It marks the longest winning streak for Cleveland since winning seven straight from April 26th to May 3rd, 2011. They have now scored six runs or more in six straight games, the first time the team has accomplished this feat since September 18th to 24th, 2005 (when the team won seven straight).

They have scored 53 runs now in their current six game winning streak.

Read More

Clutch Hit by Stubbs Walks Cleveland Off in Extras; Indians 7, Twins 6

It took ten innings, but Cleveland walked off a winner on Friday night thanks to a one-out double off of the wall in left field by Drew Stubbs, as the Indians defeated the Minnesota Twins, 7-6.

Mike Aviles led off the bottom of the tenth with a single to right field. Ezequiel Carrera, just added to the club, dropped down a sacrifice bunt pinch-hitting for pitcher Chris Perez. Stubbs took the second pitch he saw from Twins reliever Casey Fien (1-2) and lined it high off the wall in left to score Aviles with the winning run.

Read More

Seven Homers Pace Tribe Past Halladay; Indians 14, Phillies 2

If the Indians scored any more runs two at a time, they would have needed an ark on Tuesday night.

The Indians touched up Roy Halladay for three home runs and eight runs on their way to hanging seven home runs on the Phillies in a decidingly 14-2 victory at Progressive Field. Zach McAllister controlled the Phillies bats for seven strong innings, carding the Tribe’s third straight quality start.

Cleveland struck in the first inning for the third straight game. With one out in the inning, Jason Kipnis singled to center field and promptly stole second base. Asdrubal Cabrera grounded out to first base, moving Kipnis to third before Carlos Santana hit a mammoth home run that just hooked around the right field foul pole. The two run blast was Santana’s fifth homer of the young season, making the score 2-0 Tribe.

Read More

Not-So-Timely Hitting Dooms Tribe in Matinee; White Sox 3, Indians 2

For 13 innings, White Sox starter Jose Quintana was an enigma the Indians batters could not figure out. When the two teams played on Apr. 12, Quintana shut the Tribe out for eight innings before his bullpen allowed a 1-0 defeat.

Quintana was again masterful through the first five frames of Wednesday afternoon’s game.  Cleveland finally got to him for a pair of runs in the sixth. However, this time, the Indians could not figure out Chicago’s relievers. The Sox bullpen shout out the Tribe for four innings as Cleveland fell at U.S. Cellular Field, 3-2. The AL Central Division rivals split the rain-shortened, two-game series.

The Indians, who dropped to 8-11, fell behind early and never could quite catch up despite having several scoring opportunities.

Read More

Two Out Hits Push Tribe Past Sox; Indians 3, White Sox 2

This game was a game of patience. Both teams seemed poised and collected at the plate, waiting for their pitches and making the pitchers work but it was the Indians who took advantage of their opportunities the best and earned a 3-2 victory.

It seemed clear coming into this game that both teams were willing to give the starting pitchers a chance to work themselves into trouble with walks and then try to take advantage. Both starting pitchers, Justin Masterson and Dylan Axelrod, struggled to find the strike zone consistently producing heavy pitch counts and walks that led to runs.

Read More

Series Preview #7: Cleveland Indians (7-10) at Chicago White Sox (7-11)

The Chicago White Sox continue their ten-game home stand as they welcome the Cleveland Indians into town for a three-game series.

The Indians are on a lengthy road trip of their own, as they are in the middle series of three straight road pairings. Cleveland’s bats woke up in the middle game against the Houston Astros over the weekend, ending a five game losing skid that saw the offense score just eleven runs.

Chicago has won just three of their last ten games and is in the midst of a three game losing streak of their own. They are 4-4 at home on the season but have dropped two straight games at U.S. Cellular Field.

Read More

Tribe Survives Late to Win Series; Indians 5, Astros 4

The Indians climbed a little closer to .500 with a white-knuckler of a game that the Indians emerged victorious 5-4, thanks to a plethora of long balls and a nerve wracking ninth inning.

For the Indians, Ubaldo Jimenez took the mound in perhaps his most important start in recent memory with his job in the balance. He was be opposed by lefty, Erik Bedard for the Astros. The Indians put in an early threat against Bedard with runners on first and third with two outs in the first inning after Jason Kipnis and Nick Swisher singled but Bedard was able to strike out Mark Reynolds to end the threat.

Read More

Battered, Ejected and Embarrassed by New York; Yankees 14, Indians 1

In Monday’s home opener against the New York Yankees, Ubaldo Jimenez was asked by Tribe manager Terry Francona to leave the mound early, in the fifth inning. That was mostly due to ineffectiveness and the fact the visitors were lighting up the Progressive Field score board.

On Tuesday night, starter Carlos Carrasco (0-1) was equally ineffective against those same Yankees as the Indians were soundly defeated 14-1. He, however, was asked to exit the ball game early by home plate umpire Jordan Baker before the New York half of the the fourth was complete. Read More