Posts Tagged ‘masa kobayashi’
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Weekend Recap: not good.May 19th, 2008
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It wasn’t a good weekend to be a Cleveland fan.
The matchup Friday night was a first-place Indians team on an 8-2 tear, facing a last-place Cincinnati team that was just starting to show some signs of life after winning three straight and six of nine. The most telling part of that night: down one run in the top of the ninth, Cincinnati closer Francisco Cordero not only struck out the side, but got both Casey Blake and Jamie Carroll to strike out looking.
Now I know the offense is bad, but down one run - I repeat, one run - they were too afraid to swing? Were they scared they might actually put the ball in play? I’m pretty sure, and someone should probably look this up, but if you don’t swing, your chance of getting a hit is 0, right? Besides, isn’t there some sort of rule that you should never get called out on a third strike in the ninth inning? Then again, at least the Cavs won that night, so it wasn’t all bad.
Saturday was all bad. After Fausto Carmona pitched another brilliant outing for the Indians, this time allowing one run on four hits with no walks, Masa Kobayashi came in and allowed a three-run walkoff homer to Adam Dunn. And, to top it off, Dunn tried to sac bunt earlier in the at bat.
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I Blame: Everyone.May 2nd, 2008
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Well, almost everyone.
It’s not often I’ll talk this much about a single game, but last night’s Indians 3-2 win against the Mariners in 11 innings had me pretty riled up. It was a classic game of who-wanted-it-less, where everyone tried their hardest to give the game away.
First, there was the listless Mariners offense against Paul Byrd. I know he’s pitching well of late, but: he’s Paul Byrd. The guy is almost as old as his fastball’s mph reading. He has so little stuff, he resorts to a double-windup to help throw guys off. He’s like a starting pitcher version of Joe Borowski. I mean, Wedge trusts Paul Byrd about as much as the public trusts Roger Clemens. Case in point: yesterday marked the second time Wedge pulled Byrd out of the game so far this year, while Byrd was throwing a shutout. You might say, what was his pitch count? I say: it was 78 pitches the first time, in an outing against the Red Sox on April 15th, and 92 pitches, which so far is his season high, last night against the Mariners. Byrd doesn’t have any injury concerns, the Tribe isn’t worried about fatigue, and Wedge isn’t worried about slowly building his arm strength up. Last year, in his first six starts, Byrd averaged 93 pitches per outing. This year, in his first six starts, he’s averaging 76 per outing. When a manager doesn’t believe in his pitcher even if he’s throwing well, that’s a bad sign; when an offense can’t produce against said pitcher, that’s even worse.