Saturday Tribe notes

1) Very exciting win over the Yankees today! The Tribe certainly had enough chances to win the game, but then again so did the Spanks, and the Tribe finally put one home in the 9th, courtesy of Victor Martinez's sweet stroke, for a 4-3 win over the Bronx Retirement Home. This W, the Tribe's 5th straight, puts them just 1 game out of first place in the AL Central, first being the position I still expect them to occupy 138 games from now.

2) I freaked out a little when Grady Sizemore came up lame at second base in the 9th inning, and so did you.

3) I approve of Wedge going out there and getting himself ejected in the 8th after that awful call at second base. I think he's usually wise not to get tossed as a matter of habit, but you have to respect your players enough to get in the blues' faces after they call a force out on a play where the defender never actually, you know, had the ball.

4) Pitching is still the way the Indians do things, and even with Jake Westbrook on the shelf for a while, I still like our starting depth and the reconfigured bullpen. CC appears to have gotten back on track; Carmona is having control issues but still making good starts; Lee is off in some ridiculous bizarro fantasyland, sporting a non-physical 0.28 ERA; Jake has been outstanding; Byrd somehow has been getting people out; and we've now seen some of our vaunted minor league depth with Sowers' effort today. As for the 'pen; Lewis, Kobayashi, Perez, and Betancourt give the Tribe 4 viable late-inning options - a reworked Circle of Trust. Score 4-5 runs a game for these guys and we'll keep winning some ball games.

5) Saw ESPN's Power Rankings today and wondered, among other things, what I was bothering to look at Power Rankings for. The experts at the Worldwide Leader have the D-Backs and Cubs sitting 1-2 despite the inescapable fact that these clubs play in the National League. These are not the AAAA power rankings, friends.

6) The Tribe is languishing in those same rankings at 19th - 19th! - illustrating powerfully how transient and ill-conceived these things often are. Have some vision! Seriously, you've got a Cleveland club that won 96 games and a division series last year with mostly young players and no roster turnover and you think the 11-11 Tampa Bay Devil Rays are a better team? Please. The blurb about our Wahoos chides Fausto Carmona for his (admittedly suspect) 1:2 K:BB ratio, conveniently forgetting that his GB:FB ratio is outstanding and that he's been dominant in three of his five outings. Some day you and I will sit down and chat about small sample sizes, ESPN.