Swept!

I'm going to just use headlines that look like they came out of a 1940's newsreel. After taking two of three from the White Sox, this Indians fan thought, maybe this team isn't as bad as they could be. Well after dropping all three games to the Tigers in tragic fashion I suspect the Indians of this series are not this bad either. Maybe this Indians team is somewhere in between, but today's loss hurt, a lot.

What can you say about Friday's Tigers home opener? Well, for one, Johnny Peralta's three-run error pretty much destroyed a good game for David Huff. And by pretty much I mean actually totally did. I might be the biggest Peralta fan in all the world, well amongst people who actually pay attention to and understand the Indians. That being said Jhonny's going to occasionally have a game like Friday's - it's just too bad it was so costly an error. Tribe (2-2) lose 5-2.

Saturday's game was kind of better actually. The Indians were out of it quickly and so I didn't have to get mad later. Jhonny actually had a good game defensively. The probable highlight for your Indians writer was that I was visiting my parents and so I got to watch this loss live on STO. I loved how Matt Underwood and Rick Manning were baffled by the fact that manager Manny Acta and pitching coach Tim Belcher didn't have anyone in the bullpen warming up after Talbot had thrown 70 pitches in 2.0 innings of work. However, Talbot actually went on to retire like seven or eight in a row (the fact-checking department has yet to get back to me) after the Indians were already down 4-0. Fangraphs informs me offensively that only Choo with his one run on one walk had a positive WPA, which isn't good folks. The team struck out nine times (Ed Rooney voice: "nine times") with our man Grady Sizemore accounting for three of those; thankfully Grady's fourth at bat resulted in a HBP. These are the kind of games I expected from these Indians and games I can kind of stomach. Indians (2-3) lose 4-2.

I didn't see a pitch of today's game and in total probably only listened to maybe ten minutes of it. If my editor Andy wants to chime in here or the comments he is welcome (Andy's comment: that game sucked) but before we get to my box score-based comments lets look at the fangraphs chart for this game.


Not exactly the kind of game you would want to invest a couple hours in, would you? Remember last post how I lauded Chris Perez? Well I don't believe in jinxes so I guess he was getting lucky and decided to royally just blow this game. Chris was award a -.858 WPA for this effort and which stands as the high (low?) for this early season. Tribe (2-4) lose 9-8.

Obviously getting swept is never a good thing and I'm hoping at the least the offense remains on track after today's game. However, it would seem the bullpen was doing OK up until today's game too. So I'm not sure what to expect from this team yet. Realistically I should expect inconsistency all around, but I can still hope otherwise.

Game 1: Rich Harden, RHP (0-0, 2.45) vs. Fausto Carmona, RHP (1-0, 4.50)
Game 2: C.J. Wilson, LHP (0-0, 0.00) vs. Justin Masterson, RHP (0-0, 1.80)
Game 3: Colby Lewis, RHP (1-0, 1.29) vs. David Huff, LHP (0-1, 1.50)

Just looking at these pitching matchups I still have surprising faith in this rotation. That and playing at home in good weather shouldn't hurt either.

Go Tribe!


(AP Photo/Duane Burleson)