CC will be starting tonight on just three days' rest for the fourth straight time even though he's already pitched 253 innings this season

Thomas Boswell writes in the Washington Post:

Like most tales as compelling as this, there's a back story. Sabathia is not just competitive but proud. That pride was mocked last October when, after a Cy Young season, he got nervous and allowed 15 earned runs and 13 walks in 15 1/3 ugly postseason innings.

"I think you'll see a more calmer version of me," Sabathia said. "Last year I went into the playoffs thinking I had to throw no-hitters. That's why you saw me pressing a lot."

Sabathia claims he's not purging the past. He just loves the Brewers like family now. Milwaukee is nuts over the Crew in a way Cleveland wasn't over the Indians. So he wants to bring everybody in Wisconsin a beer and a world title.

I don't live in Cleveland but I think Indians fans were just as nuts over the Indians last year as the Brewer fans have been this year.  Am I wrong?

The bigger question is are the Brewers putting Sabathia's career in jeopardy?

The weather in Washington cooled and the humidity dropped yesterday so my wife and I headed to Woodbridge to watch Kinston play the Potomac Nationals (a Washington National's team) .  I guess because the Tribe's season has been so disappointing I just haven't paid much attention to baseball at any level this season, so I knew fewer of the Kinston players than usual.

Potomac has a pretty good team this year (unlike previous years).  They won their division in the first half of the season.  Kinston finished second, in the other division. Fortunately Kinston won last night's game 7-5 to gain a split of the four game series.

This game happened to feature two 2007 first round draft choices, the National's Ross Detwiler (6th overall) and the Indian's Beau Mills (13th overall).  Detwiler was the P-Nats starting pitcher and Mills started at first base.  Based on year-to-date stats and last night's play the Nat's should have selected Mills.

Detwiler is 5-7 (after last night's game), ERA: 5.44  WHIP: 1.66
Mills is .281/.363/.484 with 15 HRs and 66 RBIs in 374 ABs.

Kinston jumped all over Detwiler early, leading 4-0 by the end of the 2nd inning.  Carlton Smith, Kinston's starting pitcher looked unhittable for the first two innings, but in the third inning came back to earth.  Smith entered the game 7-5 with a WHIP of 1.16 and looked pretty good until the 6th inning.  He had to leave the game when he got something in his eye with runners on first and third, two outs and a 3-1 count on the batter, and holding a slim 7-5 lead.  Neil Wagner (RHP) came on and ended the inning with just one pitch.  He pitched two more perfect innings, striking out three.  He certainly looked better than his stats (2-6, ERA 5.36 in 48 innings).

Ryan Goleski, recently demoted from Akron I believe, played RF and looked lost at the plate and in the field. Nice knowing you, Ryan.

Goedert played 3B.  Early in the game he barehanded a slow hopper and got off a perfect throw that just beat the runner at first.  It was sweet, but in a similar play a few batters later he launched a throw over 1B Mill's head.  The baseball gods are fickle...

John Drennen had a nice game, he went two for five and had a stolen base.

No one else stood out.  However the P-Nat's pitcher who relieved Detwiler - Clint Everts - showed nasty stuff, striking out 8 in 3.1 innings, including 7 straight.

It was a sloppy game with 5 errors (should have been 6).  I hate sloppy games.

Minor league games are always fun.  We sat in the second row, even with third base, and just a few feet from the Indian's dugout to our right.  And the hot dogs were good.

Now that the season is half over, I think we have a pretty good idea what kind of team we have this year.

We are solid contenders.  We're playing smart and winning close games.  MLB.com has a Standings tab and one of the columns is Expected W-L record.  Five of the six division leaders have records higher than expected, but the Tribe has the largest difference, 51-32 vs. expected 47-36.

Some observations:

Borowski. At the beginning of the season I was certain we couldn't win the division with him as our closer.  So far I have to grudgingly admit he's been pretty damn good.  Is he really this good?

Nixon. He's lost more than a step and as a player most of us feel he's a liability.  But does his "Gritty Veteran Leadership" qualities in the clubhouse outweigh his liability on the field? I suspect Wedge thinks so.

Hafner. Are his problems physical or mental? He only played 33 innings in the field last year, he's played 91 innings at 1B already this year (101 TC vs. 22 last year). He also got married in the off-season.  As a veteran married man (twice even!) I know first hand that a wife can make a big difference in one's life - and it's not always positive. Travis was also 29 when he got married, he has 10+ years of bachelorhood to overcome.  Just throwing that out there...

Buck Showalter.  Where is he? How has he affected this team and/or Wedge? Has anyone else noticed that this year's Wedge is not last year's Wedge?  Until this year Eric has had the reputation of being a quiet (i.e., dull), conservative, non-innovative, and predictable manager. This year he's been less conservative, and more willing to take chances. I don't mind that especially early in the season when you're learning your player's capabilities. I can't help but think Showalter has been mentoring Wedge and it's had a positive effect.

Sabathia. I want this guy to be an Indian for the rest of his career. I don't care how much it costs. Raise ticket prices, hold a bake sale, issue bonds, set up a porn site...whatever it takes. CC has really matured into savy pitcher who has learned that you don't have to bear down on every pitch. Base runners and even a few runs are acceptable as long as you know you have the ability to bear down and end any uprising when you have to. CC will always have a lot of complete games and that is a godsend for a bullpen. Unfortunately I think CC would much prefer pitching in the NL where he can hit regularly - probably in SF near his home.  Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to let him take batting practice and pinch hit occasionally if this will make it easier to keep him here. I think he's capable of hitting .260 or better with some pop. Lose 50 pounds and I'm thinking George Herman Ruth.

Blake. How do explain this guy?  He was such a liability at 3B that we signed Aaron Boone to replace him.  Moved back to 3B as an emergency replacement he's playing some of the best 3B of his life now, so good that he's blocking one of our best prospects.  Casey is playing for his career now because he knows his playing time will be severely curtailed if poor play at third results in Marte coming back as the regular.  Casey HATES sitting on the bench. I've always liked Casey.

The White Sux: they seemed to have caught the same disease we had last year.  It's hard on the fans, but I just can't find a shred of sympathy for them. In fact watching Ozzie self-destruct is kinda' entertaining...

What do you think of the 2007 Tribe?

Here is a picture of the Let's Go Tribe contingent at RFK Stadium today.  Despite the "Can't Do" attitude at RFK's Will Call window staff, I finally made it to section 519 and got to finally meet the guys behind the familiar names we've all come to know. Missing from the picture are Mauichuck and homelytourist who dropped by after the picture was taken.

I'm winging it here because I'm not good with names but in the front row is Turkmenbashi (white Indians jersey, blue hat) and his three friends (I'll let him introduce them).

In the second row (L to R) is APV, his brother, Jay (looking pensive), and Jay's wife (looking amused at Jay looking pensive).  If I've botched any names it's Eric Wedge's fault and he should be fired).

While most of you were enjoying the miracle comeback last night, I was at G. Richard Fitzner Stadium in Woodbridge, Virginia, watching Mike Sarbaugh's Kinston Indians clobber the Potomac National's, 9-1.  The key hit was Mike Butia's grand slam in the 4th inning, giving the Indians a huge 4-0 lead.

In 40 games so far Butia was batting .197 w/ 2HRs and 15 RBIs, so he needed the lift. It couldn't have come at a better time because the Nat's pitcher, Jack Spradlin, had pretty much shut down the Indian's to that point and it looked like a nice lefty pitcher's duel was shaping up between Spradlin and the Indian's Ryan Edell, but it turned out to be a one-sided duel.

I had a front row ticket facing third base, hoping to see Jared Goedert play at third, but Chris Giminez plyed third instead.

Michael Aubrey was the DH. He's still hanging in there and looks healthy, hitting .314/.400/.657 in 35 AB.

The most impressive player was our pitcher, Edell (5-2 3.73). He owned the Nats for the first three innings, but from the 4th inning on, the Nats had runners in scoring position, but Edell let only one run in. It seemed like the more runners the Nats had on base, the tougher Edell pitched.  It was a gutsy performance (5.2 IP, 9 hits, 1 ER, 4 SO, 0 BB).  I was not aware of him before last night, but if this is any indication of the kind of pitcher he is, he might have a future.

I got to see Kinston's tall, lanky catcher, Chao Kuan Wu, who was in the Seattle system last year. He's played in 4 games so far.  He was the bullpen catcher last night.  I like catchers.

This Kinston team is nothing like last year's team in terms of talent. No one besides Edell stood out last night.  There are a few names on the roster that we've come to know, Aubrey, Stephen Head, John Drennen, Max Ramirez, Nathan Panther, but none seem to be pounding on Akron's door (though 3B Chris Giminez has an impressive .941 OPS w/ 11 HR).  And yet, Kinston is in 1st place in the Carolina League (32-21 .604) just like last year.  Give Sarbaugh some of the credit.

Rather mundane pictures of the game are posted at: http://picasaweb.google.com/TrakkerToo/KinstonPotomac6107

I drove up to Camden Yards today, about 40 miles from my house, to watch the game.  I took my camera and lucked into some pretty good photos including the pitch that Travis hit for the grand slam.  I uploaded them here http://tinyurl.com/2qhuf2

I've been trying to get the hang of sports photography for a year or so. I'm getting better but what I really need is a 375 pound biker friend with bad teeth and worse hygiene to sit next to me and clear the fans away when there's an exciting play.

Today's game was about as good as it gets. Perfect weather, great seats, great Indians pitching, and our bats finally exploded in the late innings.  I feel some of my antagonism from last year beginning to melt.  I might even go so far as to say Wedge seems to be maturing into a decent manager.  I might.

When I reviewed the Tribe's spring training pitching stats last night, the thing that jumped out at me is Matt Miller's 16 strikeouts in 7.1 innings! He leads the club. I hope he can stay healthy all year.

Betancourt has 15 SOs and only one walk in 10.2 innings, but the rest of his stats are not impressive. But I'm not worried about him.

I'm surprised Tom Mastny has pitched so many innings, more than Betancourt and a lot more than Hernandez and Borowski.

Is anyone else curious about the club's approach to our closer this year?  Borowski has appeared in only 6 games/6.0 innings.  The results are less than reassuring.  Hernandez has appeared in 7 games.  His stats look better, except for the 2 SOs vs 6 BBs. Remember last year and all the attention focused on Wickman?  Yet this year there has been hardly any talk about our closer situation (maybe there has and I've missed it).  I'm worried. What bother's me is that it's not like Shapiro to put so many eggs in a shaky basket. I just don't have that much confidence in Borowski as someone we can win big with. Am I missing something?

Man, the week flew by!

Today was my last day at spring training. I wish I was leaving with a win, but at least they fought back today.

The biggest surprise this week was how much playing time they've given Aubrey. Are they hoping to trade him?  Rouse has also gotten a lot of playing time, but the results have been mixed. Fultz had a good day today. He didn't impress in his previous two outings.  What happened to C.C. today? Wow, two home runs in 4 innings. Victor had three bases stolen on him.  Ouch.

I forgot to mention Jamie Moyer's unusual activity at the Phillies/Tigers game Sunday. Moyer was the Phillie's starting pitcher.  Rod Barajas was the catcher.  In the third or fourth inning, all of a sudden Jamie stopped and just stared at Barajas for about 20 seconds. Finally Barajas ran out to talk to him and I guess they got it straightened out. Not long after that Moyer turned and stared at his left fielder, Dobbs, for about 5-10 seconds. Dobbs didn't move and finally Jamie turned back around and pitched.  Does anyone know if Moyer does this regularly?  It felt to me like a put down of his teammates.

Back to Winter Haven. The minor leaguers here at camp got new uniforms.  They are blue, like the major league uniforms, and they have their names on the back. Great! Now if they would just do the same for the 40-man roster players/invitees who only have numbers on their back.

While I was hanging around the minor league diamonds this morning, I happened to meet the grandparents of Jensen Lewis. They have a winter home in Florida and try to visit him frequently while he's at spring training. I think they were pleased that I knew who Jensen was and had seen him pitch last year. He's a close friend of Jeremy Sowers (both played at Vanderbilt) and is rooming with him here.  They were great fun to talk to. They waved to me as our paths crossed. Later I saw Jensen standing with them.

Evidently a lot of the "fans" I see hanging around the minor league diamonds are actually family members of the players (duh!).  I wish I had known that.  Player's families usually have some interesting stories to tell.

Every year I come down to Winter Haven I get more savy about about how things work here.  I'm not happy with the Indians move to Arizona in 2009.  I can easily drive to Winter Haven in a day and it's affordable, but I'm sure I'll never be able to go to Arizona.

Spring training is a great way to start the baseball season.  Where else can you watch ospreys fly around with snakes hanging from their talons during a baseball game? If anyone else is coming down this month I'll be happy to share information (though tomorrow I'll be driving home).

I have more pictures ready to post at http://picasaweb.google.com/TrakkerToo/07SpringTraining

Another day, another 5-2 loss, but today's loss was not nearly as sloppy as last night's. Cincy had some good pitching. Westbrook looked sharp!  Four strikeouts in three innings.  I was worried that being backed by an infield of Garko, Rivas, Rouse, and Blake, some ground balls might squirt through, but it didn't happen.  Now that I think about it, Blake and Sizemore were the only regulars who played.

It was hot today. I stupidly forgot the sunscreen and got a nice burn (how's your weather?) I arrived about 10:00 but found no ML players on the practice fields.  The minor leaguers were out in full force, but some of the fields were closed to the fans. I may have mentioned that the minor leaguers have gray uniforms. The Indians organization does not put names on their uniforms, just numbers and as many as four players share the same number so it is tough to figure out who you are watching practice.

There are a lot of autograph seekers at spring training. I used to try to get autographs but found they weren't as satisfying as a photograph, so now I go after photographs of the players.

After wandering around the complex and finding few photo opportunities, I went to the stadium. Last night it dawned on me that Chain-O-Lakes stadium is about comparable to an ageing A League stadium. Our facility is probably one of the worst in the majors by now.  It's good that the Indians finally have plans to move to a new facility - the sooner the better.  Winter Haven is a nice city for it's size, but there's not much to do here.  I've noticed a big change in the attitude of the locals towards the Tribe now that we're leaving. There's noticeable resentment.

I sat in the RF bleachers near the so-called bullpen.  The bullpen is a joke, just two shabby mounds with rubbers, right next to the railing.  It's great for photo freaks like me because I can almost reach out and touch the pitcher warming up.  Before the game C.C. threw some pitches. I was maybe 10 feet away from him! In fact I had to back away to get any good pictures.  (When did he start wearing his hat straight?)

Blake looked good at third, though he did bobble a pickup but he still threw to first in time to get the runner. In the 4th inning, Garko had to go high for a bad throw from Rouse, landed somewhat awkwardly off the bag but had the quickness to reach out and tag the runner for a nice play.

I just looked at the box score and it reminded me that Rivas had a good day, a single, a stolen base, and run scored in his two at bats.

Trot Nixon made his debut in RF. Can't say I noticed anything about his play. Brad Snyder replaced him around the 5th inning. Snyder had a nice hit, driving in one of our two runs. Even though we only scored two runs and had only six hits, there were a number of hits close to the fence (the fence is 320 feet to the poles and 420 feet in center so they were well hit).

Aaron Laffey looks very, very young, and pitched like it. He seemed relieved after his inning was over (4 hits, 3 runs, 1.0 ip).  Stanford got roughed up as well.

Probably the best thing about today's game was Westbrook's performance and Nixon's debut.  

I'll be posting more pictures later this evening.

Last night's game was bad all around.  Bryd looked inconsistant - I'm not looking for him to be in the starting lineup by the end of the year.  The starting catcher Wyatt Torregas, was visibly nervous before the game and that might have affected all the pitchers because the pitching for the most part was poor.  There were a lot of balls in the dirt. Only Hernandez and Matt Miller looked good. Fultz was all over the plate.

To make matters worse, the "fans" sitting next to me and in front of me had no interest in the game, don't know why they even came, but I missed a lot of action.  I have the same seat today so I need to have a backup plan.

Hafner played first last night.  I can see why he's a DH.  Stick to hitting, Pronk.  Aubrey relieved him in the later innings and again looked sharp and agile in the field.  It looks like Wedge is going to give him plenty of playing time.

A liner foul went right over my head and hit an older lady in the face hard.  She was hurt pretty bad, they took her to the hospital.  Very sobering.

Torregas had some beautiful throws to first to keep runners honest.  The crowd loved it.  I saw him play for Kinston and his footwork and throwing skills were outstanding.

Franklin Guitierez was fooled badly on a number of pitches in two of his at bats.  Marte had a good night.  His homer and Torregas's throws to first were the only bight spots for the Tribe.

I think the fans are going to like Josh Barfield.  He plays hard, he's nimble, and he's personable. After the game as he walked back to the clubhouse along the third base line, he made eye contact with fans, grinned, and good naturedly waved off those who wanted autographs.  He reminds me of Omar in this respect.

All in all, last night's game was sloppy on the Indian's part.