Red Right 88

In Cleveland, hope dies last

Archive for the month “June, 2011”

20 Jun 2011

In praise of the dive

We come here today to praise the art of the dive.

In Sunday’s Gold Cup win, the U.S.’ Jermaine Jones took a dive in the second half that resulted in Jamaica’s Jermaine Taylor being given a red card.

Was it a bad call by the ref? Of course. But that is part of the game.

We were surprised, though, by the criticism leveled at Jones in the aftermath of the game. Complaining about diving is one aspect of soccer that we don’t understand.

In other sports, gaining an edge is applauded. When Derek Jeter fakes being hit by a pitch, he is “doing what it takes.” When Peyton Manning goes down untouched but gets the ref to throw a flag for roughing the passer, he is praised. When Jason Kidd slows down a quick guard with a well placed forearm or hip, he is a “wily veteran.”

But in soccer? Take a dive and people lose their minds. And ESPN mocks you in an ad.

It’s one thing if you are an Italian player falling down every two minutes like A-Rod after being hit by a pitch, but the rest is pure gamesmanship.

At least until the other guy does it, then it’s just plain wrong.

(Photo by Getty Images/mlssoccer.com)

Posted in Gold Cup, Jermaine Jones, United States | Leave a comment
20 Jun 2011

Opportunities abound for Browns defense

Lots of interesting news swirling about some of Red Right 88’s favorite sports teams today.

First off, Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Dick Jauron sat down with the Beacon Journal‘s Nate Ulrich for a Q & A and a few points stood out to us:

  • Jauron wants a physical defense: “We really need a to step up and be a very touch and physical team, not only throughout the whole league, but particularly in our division.”
  • What about the switch to a 4-3? “There are challenges. … The personnel mix is different. The numbers are different. There’s a lot of significant differences. It’ll take some work.
  • The team likes its linebackers – to a certain extent: “We’re really happy with … the starting three, the veteran three with Scott Fujita and Chris Gocong and D’Qwell Jackson. The front three, we’re depending on those guys, really, to play like the veterans they are … and hopefully stay healthy.”

For starters, what’s not to like about a physical defense? We’re so tired of watching the Browns get slapped around by other teams and their defense not being able to dish it back out (and not in the illegal Pittsburgh way).

The Browns need to be able to take a shot and give it back just as good – in the words of Al Swearengen: “Stand it like a man… and give some back” – especially in the division. They showed late in the 2009 season that if you stand up to teams like the Steelers you can get them to quit.

Next, rebuilding the defense is going to take time and patience – no matter how tired Browns fans are of hearing that.

In his book, Take Your Eye off the Ball, Pat Kirwan said it should two years to make the switch from a 3-4 to a 4-3 – if a team is smart about it. Teams generally have three to four players in their front seven with the skills that translate to the new defense. If the front office does its homework, a team can fill out the front seven in two drafts and one free agency period.

The Browns are on their way to rebuilding the front seven after drafting Phil Taylor and Jabaal Sheard to join Ahtyba Rubin on the defensive front. The front four the Browns should be modeling themselves after is Minnesota’s with Kevin Williams and Pat Williams at the tackle spots, and Jared Allen and Ray Edwards at the ends.

Taylor and Rubin can take up a lot of space in the middle, Sheard can hopefully put some pressure on the quarterback and the Ray Edwards role could be filled by … Ray Edwards, who is currently a free agent.

The linebackers do concern us, primarily because there is little depth behind the three players Jauron singled out. We saw what happened last season when Fujita went down with an injury; if any of those three go down again this year there’s not much on the bench to fill the void.

The only quibble we have with Jauron is his use of the word “challenging” – these are opportunities for the Browns, not challenges. The team has the opportunity to finally build a solid defense, one that isn’t an embarrassment against the run and one that can make the opposing offense react to the defense for a change.

And what’s not to like about that?

***

The magic was back at Progressive Field this weekend as the Cleveland Indians swept Pittsburgh.

Cord Phelps sealed the deal on Sunday with a three-run homer in extra innings.

We have to feel bad for Justin Masterson, though. Masterson gave up two runs in the first inning then combined with pretty much the entire bullpen to hold the Pirates scoreless for the next 10 innings. But Masterson walked away with a no decision.

The bullpen has not allowed a run in 22 2/3 innings over seven games.

Masterson, who is now 5-5 with a 3.18 ERA on the season, hasn’t earned a win since April 26. In that 10-start stretch, he is 0-5 with an ERA under 4.00 and has allowed two or fewer earned runs seven times.

He must have done something wrong, because the Tribe has scored all of 20 runs in Masterson’s last 10 starts.

It was nice to see the Indians right the ship, even if it is only temporary and was just against the Pirates. While you can’t count on the Tribe to sweep, they do need to get back into the habit of winning series so that they can start rebuilding their record.

Much like we pondered a few days ago about what the Indians should do with Fausto Carmona, Terry Pluto presented some scary numbers about Carmona in today’s Plain Dealer. According to the article:

  • Carmona’s ERA is the highest of any regular starting pitcher in the American League
  • Carmona allows 40 percent of baserunners to score, also the highest rate among AL starting pitchers
  • Carmona has already given up 14 home runs (in just 91.2 innings pitched) compared to just 17 (in 210.1 innings) last year.

Depressed yet?

The good news is the Tribe has options,with Jeanmar Gomez and Zach McAllister pitching well in the minors. If Carmona or Mitch Talbot continue to struggle, one of them could be moved to the bullpen to make room for Gomez or McAllister.

If the team does have to make a decision between Carmona or Talbot, it will be interesting to see how much salary (Carmona makes $6.2 million vs. $431,000 for Talbot) will play into the decision.

***

The U.S. Men’s National Team finally played a solid game, beating Jamaica 2-0 to advance to Wednesday’s semifinal of the Gold Cup, where they will get a rematch with Panama.

The Americans were aggressive again on offense and were rewarded for their efforts with goals by Jermaine Jones and Clint Dempsey.

The bad news was Jozy Altidore left nine minutes into the game with a hamstring injury and, after the game, U.S. coach Bob Bradley said he didn’t know what Altidore’s status would be for the remainder of the tournament.

But that’s a concern for another day. For now, it’s good to see the team have its best game of the tournament heading into the semis and raise our hopes for a final date with Mexico next Saturday.

***

Oh yeah, the NBA Draft is this week. The Cavs are playing it close to the vest about what they plan to do with the first and fourth picks in the first round.

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, Gold Cup, United States | Leave a comment
18 Jun 2011

Better start updating the rule book

Someone better get Bud Selig on the hotline right now.

The Cleveland Indians placed Matt LaPorta on the disabled list after the first baseman injured his ankle during a rundown between second and third base on Friday night against Pittsburgh.

“He will be out two to three weeks with a mild high ankle sprain,” manager Manny Acta said of LaPorta, who is hitting .242 with eight homers and 32 RBIs in 59 games.

Clearly, the rundown is an inherently dangerous play and must be immediately outlawed.

That’s the new protocol, right? At least that’s what happened when San Francisco catcher Buster Posey was hurt in a play at the plate last month. His agent and Giants general manager Brian Sabean both cried about the injury and how the rules should be changed.

Thankfully the Indians are move level-headed about such things.

Of course, this could have all been avoided if LaPorta, who doesn’t seem to have good baseball instincts, would have not tried to go to third on a groundball to the short stop.

“It is safe to say I didn’t want him to go to third base whether or not he was getting injured,” Acta said in published reports.

(Photo by The Associated Press)

Posted in bad ideas, Cleveland Indians, Matt LaPorta | Leave a comment
18 Jun 2011

Where is our soccer superstar?

In anticipation of Sunday’s Gold Cup game vs. Jamaica, The Wall Street Journal asks an interesting question: Why can’t the U.S. build a soccer star?

The article notes that the U.S. has won more than 1,000 Olympic gold medals. It has produced 26 British Open champions, 14 No. 1 tennis players and two winners of the Tour de France. It’s the birthplace of swimmer Michael Phelps, volleyball legend Karch Kiraly and chess master Bobby Fischer.

But no soccer players that have been superstars on the international level.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Tommy Smyth, the television analyst, in the article. “I go to my local park and there’s 10 games going on all day on a Saturday, and you mean to tell me you can’t find one jewel in there?”

Smyth noted that his native country, Ireland, has produced plenty of top players (Shay Given and Roy Keane among them) even though it has a population of just six million.

Then there are countries like Trinidad (home of Manchester United’s Dwight Yorke), Togo, (Real Madrid’s Emmanuel Adebayor), Cameroon (Samuel Eto’o) and Ivory Coast (Didier Drogba).

With an estimated 15 million kids playing soccer in this country, you’d think someone would have broken through by now.

It’s not that the opportunities aren’t there. Of the 23 players on the roster for the U.S. team at the Gold Cup, 16 play at the club level internationally, at places like Everton, West Ham, Aston Villa, Rangers, Fulham, Blackburn and Wolverhampton.

Sunil Gulati, the president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, said he would have expected a U.S. player to become a stalwart for one of the world’s top clubs by now, but that he’s not “shocked” it hasn’t happened. “There are so few players at that level,” he said. “I believe it’s something that will happen over time.”

In some respects, Gulati is probably correct. When you think that soccer has only been a viable American sport for what, 30 years or so, while it is firmly in the DNA of almost every other country, it’s pretty impressive that the Americans have had the kind of success they’ve enjoyed.

***

Only 57 more days until the start of the Premier League season and what we hope will not be the only football we will be watching this fall.

Liverpool opens at home against Sunderland as the Reds look to continue the momentum they had from last season under manager Kenny Dalglish.

Posted in Gold Cup, Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool, United States | Leave a comment
16 Jun 2011

Quick hits on the second-place Tribe

Some quick thoughts in the aftermath of the Cleveland Indians falling back into second place after losing to Detroit on Thursday by a score of 6-2.

We had the opportunity to work from home today and, by luck, the Indians were playing an afternoon game.

But for some ongoing reason that continues to vex us, SportsTime Ohio decided they were not going to televise the game. Why? Who knows?

This is one of those situations we will never figure out. The announcers and the equipment are already in Detroit – why are you not televising the game?

So we were forced to turn back the clock to 1942 and listen to the Indians on the radio. Which isn’t a bad thing, really, we all know Tom Hamilton in the man and all, but the drawback to listening to a game on the radio are the insipid commercials you have to endure from WTAM.

Promos for Glenn Beck and Mike Trivisonno, First Energy, some kind of hot dogs, we don’t know. It was mind-numbing and an embarrassment, to put it bluntly.

We thought the endofamerica.com guy was bad on Sirius, but he’s got nothing on WTAM.

***

We’ve been feeling sympathy for the Tribe’s starting pitchers as the team has gone through its recent offensive slump – scoring two or fewer runs 10 times in their past 15 games.

It can’t be easy taking the mound knowing if you give up a couple of runs the game is essentially over.

But those sympathetic feelings have been tempered lately as we’ve watched the Indians put up a couple of runs only to see the starter go out the next inning and give those runs right back.

It happened Wednesday with Fausto Carmona – after the Tribe put up four runs in the fourth to come back from a 3-0 hole, Carmona gave a run right back to the Tigers in the bottom of the inning.

Same thing today – the Indians actually scored twice in the top of the first and then Mitch Talbot gave both runs back to the Tigers in the bottom of the inning.

Is it really too much to ask these guys to hold a lead when the Indians actually get one?

***

Cord Phelps (.063 average since being promoted) was never going to turn the slumping Indians around by himself, but having him in Cleveland may be paying dividends nonetheless.

Since Phelps joined the team last week, Orlando Cabrera, the likely candidate to lose playing time to Phelps, has hit .313.

So, if nothing else, Phelps presence has lit a fire under Cabrera’s butt.

Posted in bad pitching, bad radio, Cleveland Indians | Leave a comment
16 Jun 2011

Taking care of business

It wasn’t necessarily pretty, but the U.S. Men’s National Team took care of business against Guadeloupe on Tuesday night and earned a place in the knockout stage of the Gold Cup.

“With group play, you’ve got to deal with each game and find a way to advance,” U.S. coach Bob Bradley said in published reports. “We’re pretty hard on ourselves because we weren’t satisfied with our performance against Panama, but there are things that bring a team together.”

Jozy Altidore put the U.S. up 1-0 in the 9th minute with the kind of goal that makes him such a frustrating player. Altidore’s 25-yard blast showed just how talented he can be and makes one wonder why he can’t bring that same intensity every game.

The Americans had plenty of scoring chances, peppering the Guadeloupe goal, but goalkeeper Franck Grandel denied them repeatedly. Clint Dempsey had an off night, missing two headers, hitting the post and somehow not getting a shot off when he was all alone with the ball two yards in front of the goal.

Throw in uncharacteristic misses from Landon Donovan and Chris Wondolowski and the final score could have been much more impressive.

“We want to be better,” Donovan said in published reports. “This is a game we should have won probably 3- or 4-0, but the reality is that we won. That’s all that matters at this point.”

Donovan’s right – we would have like to have seen the U.S. convert more of those scoring chances, but in tournament play the objective is to advance, and that’s what the team did.

Now we’re left to wonder which team will show up on Sunday to face Jamaica – the Group B winner that has yet to give up a goal.

“Be careful what you wish for, but I actually think that’s the kind of game we need now,” U.S. goalie Tim Howard said in published reports. “We need a game where the tempo is high and teams aren’t sitting in. They’re coming out feeling like we’re a wounded animal and they’re gonna get us, and that’s when we catch them.”

The Americans have yet to play a complete game in the tournament, but they have been able to do just enough to get by. That was OK in group play, but they are going to need to bring a full 90-minute effort from here on out – especially with a date with Mexico looming somewhere on the horizon.

The slate has now been wiped clean. What the U.S. team does now is up to them.

Photo courtesy of si.com

***

Randy Lerner’s Aston Villa have gotten themselves into a twist in their attempts to hire Alex McLeish as their new manager.

According to The Guardian, McLeish held talks with Villa officials at a secret location in London on Wednesday ahead of a proposed defection across the city on a three-year, £2m-a-year contract. At the same time a crowd of Villa supporters gathered in protest outside Villa Park while lawyers acting for Birmingham, McLeish’s former club, drew up plans to pursue their rivals for compensation and to defend the club against an anticipated charge of constructive dismissal from McLeish.

Birmingham claims that Aston Villa struck a deal with McLeish before he resigned from Birmingham on Sunday – a resignation that Birmingham has not yet accepted.

And the fans are less than thrilled, with one spray painting the message “Bluenose scum not welcome” on a wall at Villa’s training ground.

Oh Randy.

***

Liverpool has unveiled its third kit for next season, taking inspiration from the club’s jersey of 120 years ago.

It’s strange seeing blue incorporated into the jersey – kind of like if the Browns brought black-and-gold into their color scheme – but we see the historic nature of the kit.

Posted in Gold Cup, Liverpool, Randy Lerner, United States | Leave a comment
15 Jun 2011

First place no more

Moments before the start of the Indians game Monday night against Detroit, we tweeted this.

A couple of hours later, two hits for the Tribe, 12 strikeouts, no runs and another loss – the Indians’ 15th in their last 20 games – and for the first time since April 7 the Tribe is not in first place in the Central Division.

Balls.

The ship be sinking, folks, and the Indians better come up with a solution in a hurry.

Posted in Cleveland Indians, sinking ship | Leave a comment
13 Jun 2011
3 Comments

Karma is a fickle mistress

We’ve tried our best to stay out of all the hoo-haa surrounding the Miami Heat during the NBA playoffs.

Frankly, with the Indians racing out to the best record in baseball then squandering it away, the Champions League, the U.S. soccer team in the Gold Cup, Kent State’s baseball team just missing a trip to the Super Regionals and the Cavaliers winning the draft lottery, we’ve been occupied with other topics.

But we admit to feeling a sense of relief and schadenfreude after the Dallas Mavericks closed out the Heat with three consecutive wins to take home the NBA title.

The Mavericks proved, at least for another year, that a team can beat a group of individuals, no matter how talented. The Heat, primarily LeBron James and Chris Bosh, learned the hard way there are no shortcuts to success.

And that’s a rare lesson in this age of instant gratification.

Once LeBron decided to leave Cleveland via free agency, we tried to move on – what was done was done. And for the most part we did OK during the season.

But it was hard to quit James when he wouldn’t go away – most notably when he tweeted following a 55-point Cavs loss to the Lakers that, “Crazy. Karma is a bitch. Gets you every time. It’s not good to wish bad on anybody. God sees everything!”

James put out so much negative energy that it was only a matter of time before karma got back at him, and she waited until the finals to exact her revenge on James.

From Brian Windhorst at ESPN:

Just like last season in Cleveland where James’ performance in the clutch was the polar opposite of what his talent and history called for. Just like when the top-seeded Cavs got behind the Celtics, as soon as the Mavs turned the tables on the Heat midway through this series James’ swagger and game left him. When the Heat were beating the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls, series they took control of early, James was a brilliant frontrunner. At his best, really, finishing those teams off.

But as he went through another puzzling game Sunday — dishing repeatedly to Juwan Howard at the rim instead of taking the ball to the basket himself, passing up wide-open shots when the ball came his way, standing and watching on defense like it was a summer camp drill at times — it got more and more clear.

James couldn’t do it.

From Joe Posnanski at Sports Illustrated:

That’s why the sequence with four minutes left will stay with me for a long time. Miami needed a basket of course — being down eight with four minutes left is not life-threatening in the NBA, as we have seen time and again, but it is not ideal, either. Anyway, as much as the points, Miami needed a game-changing moment. LeBron James is breathtakingly good at making such moments.

Here’s what LeBron James did instead: He stood outside the arc, about 25 feet away from the basket. He did not move. And the two times the ball was passed to him, he passed it away instantly … as if playing hot-potato.

There was absolutely no other explanation that made any sense: LeBron James did not want the basketball.

I honestly could not believe what I was seeing. Maybe I should have expected it. Maybe I should have seen it coming. After all, I had seen LeBron James quit during the final minutes of his Cleveland career when the Cavaliers lost to Boston in the playoffs. I had heard him tell Cleveland fans that they expected too much of him. I had seen him take what looked like the easiest road to a championship when he signed on with Wade and Chris Bosh down in Miami. I had seen the disappearing acts he’d been pulling in the fourth quarters of this NBA Finals. Heck, throughout this game he seemed only moderately engaged. Still … I did not see this coming.

And Bill Simmons at Grantland:

Digging deeper: LeBron averaged 3.5 threes and 8.4 FT attempts during the regular season. In Rounds 2 and 3, he averaged 4.1 threes and 8.6 FT attempts. In the Finals, that flipped: 4.7 threes, 3.3 FT attempts. He stopped getting to the rim. You could say Dallas figured out how to defend him (to a degree, true), that the zone screwed him up (I guess), that Shawn Marion got into his head (possible), but really, he was afraid to attack the rim for whatever reason. Which, by the way, is his single greatest skill.

Everyone is looking for a reason why LeBron and the Heat came up short, and the answer is right there: karma.

After the game, James, as is his norm, was left looking for someone to blame. Last year, it was his Cavs teammates. He didn’t have that option this year because he chose his teammates, so he went after Cleveland (see what we mean about him not going away?)

“All the people that were rooting me on to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life they had before,” James said. “They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want with me and my family and be happy with that.”

Even though the Heat lost, this is not a victory for Cleveland, no matter how hard the national media tries to sell that story. It wasn’t a win for Cleveland when the Lakers beat Boston last season, or when they beat Orlando in 2009.

We’re not going to the team shop this weekend to pick up a Cavs 2011 NBA Champions T-shirt; our Sports Illustrated commemorative championship package won’t be arriving in the mail in 6-to-8 weeks.

There is one way Cleveland did win last night, however.

We’ve now made it through an entire season post-LeBron, we’ve gone through the heartbreak of the Decision, lived through the circus of the Heat’s first trip to Cleveland, and cheered (and jeered) our way through an injury-filled season of disappointment that became sweeter when the Cavs grabbed two of the first four picks in the draft.

It is now time for those last few holdouts to turn the page. Let’s cheer for who the Cavs are, rather than for who they are not.

Because you never know when karma is going to grow tired of hanging out in South Beach.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, karma, LeBron James, Miami Heat, NBA
12 Jun 2011

What is there left to say?

The Cleveland Indians lost again on Sunday, falling to the Yankees by the score of 9-1

The Tribe has now lost 14 of its last 18 games.

The offense struggled … again … some more on Sunday against New York.

The past two days the Indians have faced Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia, who are a combined 150 years old and were pulled off the scrap heap by the Yankees.

In 13.1 innings against the duo, the Tribe managed nine hits and one run, while striking out a dozen times.

Sheldon Ocker of The Beacon Journal assures us that the offensive slump will end. He’s covered the Indians for decades, so if you can’t trust the Socker who can you trust?

But it’s hard to see how the team will get this turned around.

Terry Pluto at The Plain Dealer followed our lead in wondering what the Tribe will do about Fausto Carmona, adding this nugget: The batting average against Carmona with no one on base is .212. With runners on base, .343. With the bases loaded, batters are 5-of-7. Yes, it is a matter of controlling emotions and confidence.

Luckily for the Indians, the Tigers also lost on Sunday, so the team’s remain tied for first place in the Central Division.

Worse-case scenario is the Tribe heads for Detroit after Monday night’s game against the Yankees trailing the Tigers by just one game.

With everything that’s gone wrong for the past few weeks with the Indians, that’s really not all that bad.

***

Switching to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Jason Lloyd in The Beacon Journal posits that the team may be looking to trade point guard Ramon Sessions if the Cavs, as expected, draft Kyle Irving with the first pick in the upcoming NBA draft.

Sessions’ agent, Chubby Wells (hey, he may just be big boned) hasn’t requested a trade for his client, but that could change after the draft.

The thinking is that Baron Davis will mentor Irving and keeping Sessions as a third point guard is a luxury that won’t work out.

We see one big problem with that scenario: it is highly unlikely that Davis will make it through a full season without getting hurt.

The 32-year-old Davis has only played a full 82-game season once in the past nine years. On average, he makes it through 62 games a year.

So what happens when Davis goes down to an injury this year and there is no one to share the load with Irving?

Yeah, that’s what we thought.

***

Finally, our latest on the situation the U.S. Men’s National Team finds itself in at the Gold Cup.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, Gold Cup, NBA, United States | Leave a comment
12 Jun 2011

What to do about Fausto?

How do you solve a problem like Fausto Carmona?

As if the Cleveland Indians didn’t have anything else to worry about, with their division lead down to a half-game (pending Detroit’s game Saturday night) and the non-existent offense, now the Tribe has to worry about what to do with their “ace” pitcher.

Friday night against the Yankees, Carmona was, to put it simply, horrible. He threw 14 of his first 18 pitches for balls and walked three in a 40-pitch first inning that saw the Yankees take a 3-0 lead.

“I haven’t seen him so divorced from the strike zone as he was today in the two years I’ve been here,” Indians manager Manny Acta said. “His loading the bases in the first inning did him in.”

In his past six starts, Carmona has allowed 33 earned runs in 35 innings for a 8.49 ERA. He has won since May 3 and, since then, has five losses and two no-decisions.

So what does the Tribe do?

It’s clear the Carmona of 2007 is gone, and he is not coming back. But Carmona’s numbers for this year project out to be not that far off than his average of the past four seasons, although he is on pace to give up 30 homers, almost double what he has given up, on average, over the past four years.

The options for the Indians are limited and none, basically. They could try and trade Carmona, but what would they receive in return? 10 cents on the dollar? 20?

They can’t send him to minors without exposing him to waivers and someone would almost certainly claim him. And they are not going to just release him.

Fausto is always going to battle some inconsistency with his delivery because he flies open a little,” Acta told The Plain Dealer. “It’s more about getting the separation right between his off-speed stuff and the sinker.

“We’re going to look at everything. He’s had some really good starts this year. We have to find a happy medium.”

We’d be happy if Carmona could just find some consistency.

Maybe the best, and only option, is to start skipping his turn in the rotation when the schedule falls correctly. That’s probably more of a band-aid that an actual solution, however. But the team needs to do something.

The Indians have lost 13 of their past 17 games. They were seven games up on the Tigers when the streak started; that lead is now gone.

Saturday, the Tribe was shutout for the fifth time in the past 15 games …

The offense is in shambles (the Indians have scored three runs per game in the 17-game stretch, hitting .227 …

Mitch Talbot was ejected for hitting Alex Rodriguez with a pitch (Rodriguez taking a dive that would have embarrassed an Italian soccer player certainly helped) …

Bartolo Colon worked 6.2 scoreless innings with six strikeouts and only two hits (boy, were we ever wrong about the Tribe having a pitching edge this weekend).

It just doesn’t get worse than that.

The good news is there are still 100 games to go. The division lead may be gone, but that doesn’t mean the division is still not up for grabs.

Having a seven-game lead provided the Indians with a cushion for a slump and while we wish they wouldn’t have cashed in the entire lead, there is still a lot of baseball to be played.

Plus, where would the fun be if the Tribe didn’t give us all a healthy case of agita each summer?

Posted in Cleveland Indians, slumping offense | Leave a comment

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