The week that was in our sports world
Even with the end of their eight-game winning streak, the Indians West Coast trip was a major success for the team.
Sweeping the Mariners helped the Tribe go 4-2 on the trip, even with two losses to the Angels.
Even in the losses the starting pitching was superb.
Fausto Carmona had another solid outing, going seven-and-two-thirds innings, giving up four hits and two runs in the streak-breaking loss. After the Opening Day abomination against the White Sox, Carmona has given up two runs and only six hits in his last two starts, covering 14 and two-thirds innings. That’s a 1.23 ERA.
Of course Carmona has received zero run support (literally) in his past two starts; if that trend continues he could turn into this year’s Kevin Millwood.
Carlos Carrasco was almost as good the next night, giving up just three earned runs in seven innings of work. Just like Carmona, Carrasco has rebounded from a poor first start to post a 2.77 ERA over his last two starts, covering 13 innings.
The Tribe will need that kind of starting pitching, especially with so much of the offense currently struggling. The team has scored just three runs in its last 28 innings, and Carlos Santana (0-for-20), Matt LaPorta (0-for-10), Jack Hannahan (0-for-8), Travis Hafner (0-for-9), Orlando Cabrera (0-for-11), Asdrubal Cabrera (1-for-10) and Travis Buck (0-for-7) are all currently lost at the plate.
While it’s unlikely the Indians will put together another long winning streak, their pitching and defense should keep them in most games. The important thing is that they don’t now go on a five- or six-game losing streak, negating all the good they have done so far.
If they can take two-out-of-three from Baltimore this weekend (weather permitting), they will head to Kansas City for an early-season showdown for first place.
Wait, did we really just write that?
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The Cavs ended the season this week by winning four of their final six games.
Shockingly, the team didn’t finish with the worst record in the NBA, the Timberwolves somehow managed to beat them out for that “honor.”
So the Cavs probably weren’t as bad as their 19-63 record would indicate, even with a 26-game losing streak and a stretch where they lost 36 of 37 games. If injuries hadn’t taken Anderson Varajeo and Antawn Jamison away from them, those two combined with Baron Davis and J.J. Hickson would have certainly resulted in more wins.
But that’s OK. This team needed to bottom out before it could get better, and another 10 wins or so this season wouldn’t have meant anything in the grand plan.
Now the Cavs enter a summer that should bring many changes to the team.
With two lottery picks and two second-round choices, the team should have a new look next season.
“I haven’t really thought about that,” coach Byron Scott told The Plain Dealer. “I’m just trying to relax a little bit now. (General manager Chris Grant) and I will talk. Obviously, we’re going to sit down and start talking about the future of this basketball team from a player standpoint. But we haven’t talked as of yet. We’ll probably start talking some time early next week.”
Just as important, the team is now a year removed from the departure of LeBron James, which means they should be able to focus solely on rebuilding the team and not worry about parking spaces, which players are being too friendly, or any of the other subplots that dominated this season.
Just like last summer, it will be an interesting and important off-season for the team – but this time it will be for the betterment of the team.
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The end of the Cavs season also meant the end of Joe Tait’s 39 years as team broadcaster.
There’s no possible way to do justice to how good Tait was at his job and how much he meant to Cavs fans everywhere. We’ll just add our one Tait story to the growing list of tributes:
While in college we worked in the Sports Department at The Beacon Journal as a part-time agate clerk. One night, while waiting for the West Coast scores to come in, the phone rang. We answered and the voice on the other end asked for the score of that day’s Mount Union football game.
He didn’t identify himself, but there was no mistaking that voice, it was Joe Tait calling in – the Cavs were on the road, if we remember correctly – looking for the score. (In the pre-Internet days, people called the local paper looking for information).
We gave him the score and he said thank you.
And that was our one brush with greatness.
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With less than two weeks to go until the NFL Draft, the Browns reportedly have their draft board set.
“[Our draft board] is pretty much set,” General manager Tom Heckert said on a conference call with season-ticket holders. “There are obviously some tweaks. We’re not exactly sure exactly who we’re going to take with the first pick. It all depends on what happens in front of us. Right now, we’re just going through different scenarios. If we trade up, who do we trade up for? If we trade back, who can we still get? Those are the things we’re pretty much thinking of.”
We have some thoughts on who we would like the Browns to pick which we’ll save for later. For now, as long as they don’t draft a quarterback with their first pick – whenever that may be – we’re fine. Based on last year’s draft, we trust the front office to make the right selections on draft day and will continue to do so until they prove otherwise.
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The Champions League semifinals are now set: Manchester United will face Schalke and Barcelona will take on Real Madrid.
Man U should go throw to the final comfortably, although Schalke did take out last year’s winner, Inter Milan.
Apparently Barcelona-Real Madrid is some kind of big rivalry? We kid!
Anyway, should be a fun round of games.
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Finally, today is the anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster, when 96 innocent football fans tragically died when many of them were crushed to death at a FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at the Hillsborough ground in Sheffield, England.
We don’t really feel comfortable talking about the tragedy as we have only been Liverpool fans for a few years, so if anyone is interested, EPL Talk is the place to go.
Red Right 88 