If Alex Rodriguez hits No. 600 in Cleveland, he'll do it with a specially marked baseball. Keeping track of those balls is the job of Jack Efta, who runs the umpires locker room at Progressive Field.
Specially marked baseballs awaited Alex Rodriguez's at-bats as the Yankees slugger bids for his 600th career homer this week at Progressive Field.INDIANS CHATTER
Clubhouse confidential: What’s the Indians’ game plan against Alex Rodriguez, who entered Monday’s game one homer shy of 600?
Challenge him.
“What, am I going to walk A-Rod to get to Robinson Cano?” said closer Chris Perez. “That’s what we talked about in our meeting. Keep the extra guys off base. They’re going to get their hits and do some damage, but we have to keep the extra guys off base.”
Rodriguez has 10 homers in 56 career games at Progressive Field. He hasn’t homered in Cleveland since Aug. 11, 2007.
Changing roles: Yankees bench coach Tony Pena, who caught for the Indians from 1994-96, says his son, Tony Jr., a former starting shortstop for the Royals, is trying to make it as a pitcher with San Francisco.
“He’s in Triple-A [Fresno],” said Pena. “He’s a reliever. He can hit 95 mph, but he’s usually pitches at 92 to 93.”
Pena’s other son, Francisco, is a catcher for the Mets’ Class A St. Lucie club. He’s out with a broken foot.
Stat of the day: Indians relievers entered Monday having allowed only 22 percent (39-for-175) of their inherited runners to score. It was the best percentage in the AL and second to San Diego in the big leagues.
— Paul Hoynes
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- You've heard of bean counters. Well, Jack Efta has become a counter of baseballs for the Yankees-Indians series at Progressive Field.
These aren't just ordinary balls. They will only be put in play when Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez bats. Rodriguez entered the series Monday night with 599 homers. His next one will make him one of only seven players in history to reach 600.
The ball he hits No. 600 with will be valuable. To authenticate it, each ball has been numbered and initialed with an R.
Efta normally runs the umpires locker room at Progressive Field, just as his father did at Municipal Stadium. But for this series he has additional duties.
MLB officials presented him with three dozen baseballs before Monday's game. He gave a certain number to plate umpire Mark Wegner before each of Rodriguez's at-bats. Wegner made sure each new ball that was pitched to Rodriguez was in numerical sequence, so Efta could keep track of the ball's number and where it went out of play.
Seatgeek.com, which forecasts the prices of sports tickets on the secondary market, did a study of Progressive Field and ranked the most probable sections of seats where Rodriguez might hit No. 600. No surprise, they were all in the left-field bleachers.
Here's the breakdown:
• 1. Section 182, left-field bleachers (15.9 percent chance);
• 2. Section 181, left-field bleachers (12.5 percent chance);
• 3. Section 183, left-field bleachers (10.2 percent chance);
• 4. Section 184, left-field bleachers (8.0 percent chance);
• 5. Section 180, left-field bleachers (7.7 percent chance).
What will the ball that turns into homer No. 600 be worth? Estimates suggest about $100,000, the same as Rodriguez's 500th homer.
WHIP is good: In choosing Josh Tomlin to face the Yankees on Tuesday night for his big league debut, the Indians went to the WHIP to make their decision.
WHIP is a stat that calculates the average number of runners a pitcher put on base per inning. It's reached by adding a pitcher's walks and hits and dividing them by the number of innings he's pitched.
Tomlin's WHIP is 1.08, meaning he's allowing just over one runner per inning. That's good.
When asked what prompted the choice, manager Manny Acta said, "WHIP stands for traffic. Traffic stands for disaster. He's done a good job controlling the number of runners he's put on base.
"Those are the stats we've stressed this year."
Tomlin, 8-4 with a 2.68 ERA at Class AAA Columbus, has walked 33 and allowed 83 hits in 107 1/3 innings.
In June, Tomlin was involved in a bar fight in Akron. He and two other Indians minor leaguers, Beau Mills and Jerad Head, were arrested. Acta said that had no bearing on the decision to promote Tomlin.
"I have a lot of reports on this kid's makeup," said Acta. "I have no worries whatsoever."
What happened? Following Sunday's 4-2 loss to the Rays, Acta said Michael Brantley should have gone from first to third in the seventh inning on Asdrubal Cabrera's one-out single to right field.
Said Brantley before Monday's game, "I didn't get a real good read on the ball. We were down in the game and I didn't want to run into an out. When I got to second I shut it down."
Universal game: While MLB awaits Rodriguez's 600th homer, South Korean baseball fans are awaiting the first meeting between Indians right fielder Shin-Soo Choo and Yankees reliever Chan Ho Park.
Park is one victory shy of tying Hideo Nomo for the most big-league victories by an Asian pitcher with 123.
Spiked: Besides having a sore right knee, outfielder Austin Kearns was spiked in the leg on a play at second base Saturday night against the Rays.
"He needed some stitches," said Acta.
Kearns has played one game since July 20, when he left in the fourth inning against the Twins because of soreness in his knee.
Finally: Monday night's matchup between Jake Westbrook and Javier Vazquez was a rematch of their Aug. 31, 2004 meeting at Yankee Stadium. The Indians won the game, 22-0.