Indians bask in the glow of a four-game winning streak.
View full sizeJeanmar Gomez gets the traditional pie in the face for doing well. The Tribe rookie, now already back with his Columbus Clippers teammates, shut down the Detroit Tigers in his first (and thus far only) Major League start with the Indians.Cleveland, Ohio -- Since the All-Star break ended, three of the six AL Central teams have lost three games or more; and only one team has won more than three games. The biggest surprise: The Indians are not in the former category and ARE the latter one.
It took a four-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers, featuring a gem by pitcher Jeanmar Gomez on what Plain Dealer beat writer Paul Hoynes called "a day pass from the Columbus Clippers" and an inside-the-park home run by Jhonny Peralta, to do it.
The 7-2 win meant the Indians started the second half of the season 4-0 for the first time since 1995.
And yet, Commissioner Bud Selig has not yet granted permission for the Tribe to print World Series tickets yet. What's up with that?
Steve Kornacki, writing for mlive.com, put it this way:
"They outplayed us and outmanaged us," Detroit manager Jim Leyland said of Manny Acta's club. "It was a hell of a sweep for them, and shame on us. A lot of credit goes to them. But if you are not playing well, you get beat.
"It's a manager's responsibility to get the team ready to play, and we weren't ready to play. So, I take full responsibility. It fooled me. I'm shocked, really."
Really? Jimbo, if you think it was a shock for the 48-42 Tigers, think how much of a shock it must have been for the 38-54 Tribe . . . and their fans.
Gho, Jhonny! Gho!Now this is stuff too funny to make up. Peralta's inside-the-park could become the stuff of legend. Peralta is not exactly the swiftest Indian. He probably runs a legitimate 4.2 40. That would be four months, two weeks. And 40 feet.
But Pat Lackey of mlb.com, quoting another blogger, put it perfectly:
With just one stolen base since the beginning of the 2005 season, Peralta's hardly a speed demon. In fact, Larry Granillo of WezenBall.com, who's been tracking the speed with which batters round the bases for every home run hit in 2010 on his Tater Tot Tracker, said that Peralta's inside-the parker was actually slower than five home run trots on balls that left the park.
Personally, Starting Blocks has to identify – and appreciate – someone who is timed with a calendar instead of a stopwatch.
Oh, and here's a youtube version of the video:
Another good thing
Peralta was in the lineup for the first time in the series on Sunday because he'd been out for the previous three games with a fever. Bad for Jhonny, but good for Andy Marte. Witness this passage from waitingfornextyear.com:
From The Plain Dealer. . . Marte started the first three games of the series. His defense Saturday afternoon as we said earlier saved the game for (Fausto) Carmona. With two on and nobody out in the third and the Indians trailing 3-0, Marte started a spectacular double play. "Andy saved the game for us with that double play," (manager Manny) Acta said. "It could have been 5-0 with (Justin) Verlander on the mound, which is not a good situation."
Beat writer Paul Hoynes tackled Peralta's inside-the-parker, too.
Peralta, who missed the first three games of the series because of a fever, drove a pitch off the center-field wall in front of the Indians bullpen. The ball bounced into left-center field, but Ryan Raburn couldn't give chase because he was stuck on the bullpen door. Left fielder Brennan Boesch was slow to react as Nix and Santana scored and Peralta gained speed.
Before Peralta even reached third, third base coach Steve Smith was waving him home.
"I wasn't expecting that," said a smiling Peralta.
He slid home as the relay throw came in high. It was Peralta's first inside-the-park homer, the Indians' sixth at Progressive Field and 271st in franchise history.
Peralta had to sprint again in the seventh when he scored from first on Matt LaPorta's double.
"We told Jhonny he sweated that fever out of him with all the running he did," Acta said.
If the Indians are serious about increasing the attendance numbers, maybe they should install a turnstile in the clubhouse. In Hoynesie's Indians Insider column, he covers the comings and goings of players from the bigs to the minors. Shoot, the Indians alone could justify the expense of that oft-dreamed-of rail corridor between Cleveland and Columbus.
And finally, columnist Terry Pluto talks Tribe . . . AND NOT LEBRON JAMES! Terry turned his column into a LFZ (LeBron-Free Zone) today and instead focused on Peralta (trade him) and rookie sensation Carlos Santana (praise him).