Tribesman looking good under the microscope

It's been a rough week as far as posting goes.

I have been having serial outages with my Internet, requiring the "cable guy" to come out to the house twice to fix things. Or least to bring the outages down to a minimum.

My Internet provider is a huge cable company headquartered here on the East Coast and owned by a family named Dolan. Same family, different branch. This branch owns the Knicks and the Rangers as well. Need I say more?

They must go after the B-list pole climbers during the free-agent season in the telecom business.

Anyway.

There have been some interesting developments with the Tribe since the last time I have been able to log onto my computer with enough confidence to think I might actually be able to complete a full post before my service goes out.

For now anyway, it seems the Tribe has a new closer.

Compared to what we've seen most of this season and last year as well, Jensen Lewis seems almost "lights out" in the role - thanks mostly to a little more pop on his fastball, and what appears to be a bit of a stomach for the position.

In 4 outings as the closer, Lewis has allowed only 3 hits over four innings, notching 3 saves in 3 save situations.

He got into to some trouble today in the 9th, but that was mostly because he started the inning off by giving up a dunker to right-center that landed between 4 players, none of whom could really have gotten to the ball.

He may be nothing more than the guy who fills the role for the rest of this season, but he seems to be worth a long look out there.

Another trend we've noticed - Ryan Garko apparently doesn't like sitting on the bench. Since being benched for one game and the better part of another for an uncharacteristic lack of hustle, Garko has hit .406 in 32 ABs over 9 games. He's hit safely in 8 of those 9 games and has 2 hits in 5 of the games. He's also driven in 11 runs in the 9-game stretch.

In case it has escaped your notice, Franklin Gutierrez is putting up quite a month so far in August. In 43 ABs , Gutierrez is hitting .349 with an OBP of .391 and a slugging percentage of .605 for an OPS of .996. It would be nice to have a glove and arm like that in the lineup regularly next year but one month does not a season make. Still this little surge gives you a bit of hope for the guy anyway.

With a very hot August, Ben Francisco has his overall numbers up to a respectable level for an MLB outfielder - though they are definitely still too light on the power side. Francisco is hitting .345 for the month, but with only 2 HR and 6 RBI. That brings his season average to .288 with 12 homers and 45 RBI. For the season his OBP is .345 and SLG is .468, for an OPS of .813

And then there's Asdrubal Cabrera, who is hitting .289 since be recalled from Triple-A almost exactly a month ago. His OBP is an even .400, while his SLG is .431 for an .831 OPS.

To me, Cabrera has gone a long way toward showing he can make the adjustments required for success in the big leagues and pretty much erased that question mark hanging next to his name at the All-Star break.

Cabrera, more than the others, has me believing he is the real deal and worthy of a starting role (please God let it be at SS) next year.

One other guy who is clearly making the Tribe's decision for them - but not in a good way - is Andy Marte.

When Casey Blake was traded, Marte was hitting .186. Since the July 26 trade, Marte is hitting .179 with 1 HR and 6 RBI. He's also been caught out of position a few very obvious times at 3B and seems to have to think a bit too long about where he's supposed to be and what he's supposed to do for a guy who wants to play in the major leagues.

I think Marte should be chalked up as a great big swing and a miss and we should just be thankful to have gotten Kelly Shoppach for Coco Crisp. That alone is a winning deal, as it has turned out.

In addition to Lewis on the pitching side, Anthony Reyes has been solid in his two starts since coming over from St. Louis and up from Buffalo. He's allowed only 3 runs and 16 runners in 12 1/3 innings. He's got, probably, 7 more starts to go so let's reserve judgment, but the early signs are good.

Jeremy Sowers has not yet been able to put it all together for a full game, but he did have those back-to-back starts where he was nursing a perfect game into the 6th inning. And, in his last two starts he was able to overcome early troubles to go on to pitch decent games, so he may have something to offer next year as well.

I think that bring us up to date. There have been some good signs since the Tribe began next year's spring training about 8 months early. Let's hope we see more in the final weeks of the season.

Boston is Byrdland now

Well Paul Byrd is off to the Bosox

Good for him!

He'll get another shot at the playoffs, where he just might have been the Tribe's most effective starter last season.

The good news is it won't be the Yankees that Byrd will be helping to get to, and through, the post-season.

Although, quite frankly, there are teams I would rather see him help than the Red Sox.

The Boston blogosphere doesn't seem to have much of an opinion about the deal. Most blogs simply reported the trade and moved on without comment.

The closest thing to commentary I could find was from the Sports of Boston blog:

This isn’t supposed to be a major impact trade like the Bay/Manny deal. The Sox are simply addressing a need in their rotation right now. Tim Wakefield, a consistent innings-eater, hits the DL and Clay Buchholz is having a sophomore slump. Theo knows with the Rays wounded (Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria on the DL), now is the time to gain ground on them. Hopefully a change of scenery won’t affect Byrd’s hot streak.

I wonder a bit about a flyball pitcher like Byrd and how well he's going to do at Fenway with the Green Monster. But, hey, that's for others to worry about now.

It's hard to comment from the Tribe's side beyond saying so long, good luck and thanks for the good work.

I mean how do you comment on a bag of cash in return? Or a player to be named later. Something tells me that if the Tribe is deciding between cash and a player, the player can't be much.

The interesting question will be who replaces Byrd in the rotation.

Will Aaron Laffey be on his way back after just two outings in Buffalo? In his most-recent outing Laffey pitched 8 shutout innings. striking out nine. But his first outing was rather pedestrian.

It could be David Huff, who has been lights out at both Buffalo and Akron this year. I'd like so see him up myself.

Zach Jackson, who has been hot and cold at Buffalo since being the "throw-in" in the CC deal, is the Buffalo pitcher whose turn comes up in what would have been Byrd's next start Friday. Not reason enough in my book to bring him up.

As moves go, this one is a bit of a yawner from the Tribe's side. But it does clear one more spot for one more youngster to make an impression the rest of the way.

Shea Stadium salutations; Or how the Mets tried and failed to steal the heart of one Tribe fan.

Photo credit: Katy Vallo

I'm watching a fun - if sloppily played and pitched - baseball game right now. As I begin writing this, the Tribe is up 10-8 with Brendan Donnelly making his Tribe debut as the 8th inning begins.

It is, in truth, the second fun - if sloppily played and pitched - ballgame I've watched today.

I took a personal day today and headed out, with two of my three kids, to Shea Stadium for the last time (for me anyway) before the wrecking ball comes to visit at the end of this season.

The kids are Yankee fans (I did my best but sometimes a parent can't be held responsible), but they too wanted to make one last trip to the old park - already overshadowed by Citi Field, which will replace it next season.

(Citi Field would be a great name for a ballpark - simple and old fashioned - except the Citi part is named after the huge bank headquartered in NYC.)

After a delayed start due to rain, the Mets lost to Pittsburgh 7-5, with their pen giving up 6 runs over the last 3 innings to kick away a 5-1 lead.

Sound like anyone you know?

Let me tell you the Met faithful were not happy.

Anyway.

After spending my first 27 years in Cleveland, I've spent the last 25 suburban NYC.

It was Shea Stadium in 1984 and '85 where I sought to put a lifetime of frustration as an Indians fan behind me, watching an exciting young club with the likes of Doc Gooden, Ron Darling and Darryl Strawberry taking the NL by storm.

My first year in NY - 1984 - I sped out to Shea as often as possible. By 1985 I had a Friday night plan. It was going to be great. I had not only found a new, exciting team to root for, I could finally put my obsession with the Tribe in the rear view mirror.

But much to my surprise at the time, with no dish available yet, I found myself sliding the radio dial at night from the Mets over to what was then WWWE (or radio-free Cleveland as my wife used to call it) to listen to Herbie - still the lead dog on the radio at the time.

For some reason I found myself more interested in what Curt Wardle, Roman Romero, Pat Tabler and Mike Fischlin were up to than watching Mookie Wilson, Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter and the rest of the Mets battle for the NL East title, only to fall just short.

It was then that I realized you can take the boy out of Cleveland (blah blah blah).

Even today, in my last trip to Shea (unless someone lays a pair of tickets in my lap sometime in the next 6 weeks), there were "Cleveland moments."

Sitting in the mezzanine about even with 3B in my Omar Vizquel Giants T-shirt (which I had to search for at four souvenir stands at AT&T Park in SF last spring), I felt a tapping on my shoulder.

The woman behind me wanted to know where she could get a T-shirt with Vizquel's name on it.

I suggested she "try Cleveland."

That's when I found out the woman was from Cleveland's Old Brooklynn neighborhood, on a visit to Shea.

Then there was the pinch-hit appearance by Jason Michaels. J-Mike hit a seven-hopper to SS and was thrown out at first. Nothing's changed there.

When the parade of Mets pitchers frittered away a 4-run lead in the final three innings, I almost forgot what stadium I was in - thinking for a second I must be at Ontario and Carnegie.

The Mets and Tribe have almost no history with one-another.

There was the Robbie Alomar deal, the Carlos Baerga/Jeff Kent deal and the trade of a fellow named Byrd from the Tribe to the Mets long ago.

But on the field the two have virtually no history. They've never really done battle over anything that matters- unless, of course, you count the short-lived battle for the allegiance of one transplanted Clevelander more than 20 years ago.

I have to say, in that battle the best team won.

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