Indians begin final homestand of the season tonight against Royals.
View full sizeTribe fans have seven more chances to see Indians star Shin-Soo Choo this season. Cleveland opens a seven-game homestand against the Royals tonight.One long national nightmare soon will be over, but cheer up: We still have the winless Browns and the LeBronless Cavs going for us. Oh, and like the Cavaliers, the Lake Erie Monsters start camp next week. All the Monsters did was lose 37 out of 80 games in regulation, then another eight by shootout.
Oh, boy. It's going to be a looooooooooooooong winter.
A little help
Minnesota completed a three-game, AL Central-clinching sweep of the Tribe Wednesday with a 5-1 victory at Target Field in Minneapolis. The win gave the Twins 92 victories on the season, 30 more than Cleveland. But it hasn't been easy, as Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Jim Souhan so eloquently noted:
The 2010 Twins became baseball origami. Folded and twisted by fate, they emerged as something beautiful.That's what this long, trying, injury-filled, slump-interrupted season produced: A baseball version of beauty, whether defined by Joe Mauer's lyrical swing or Target Field's atmospheric lights; Jim Thome's downtown-bound home runs or Michael Cuddyer's unexpectedly necessary jai alai scoops at first base; or merely the inspiration derived from watching men of disparate ages and backgrounds become, however temporarily, one cohesive and resilient organism.
Wow, Starting Blocks went to a newspaper website and a creative writing class broke out.
It's not all bad
Mitch Talbot will take the mound at Progressive Field at 7:05 tonight, trying to get to double digits in wins. At the risk of sounding like a cyber Pollyanna, he could be due for a bit of luck, based on the second-half numbers for the team, if not his own.
Here's how mlb.com tells it:
"The first half was going great," Talbot said. "The second half, I was struggling to get a win, whether I pitched well or not. I just wasn't getting it done. It's about just learning where to be mentally and what to worry about and what not to worry about. I didn't know if I needed to change what I was doing or keep going at them the same way. It's just kind of a learning curve."Perhaps Talbot could piggyback off the recent success of the rest of the Indians' pitching staff.
Through Tuesday, Tribe hurlers sported the seventh-lowest ERA in the Majors since September. And despite giving up five runs to Minnesota on Wednesday, that ERA still stood at 3.39 for the month.
A seasonlong ERA like that would pretty much guarantee at least a division crown. Right now, the Twins' team ERA is at 3.74. San Diego and San Francisco, who are tied for the lead in the NL West, have a Major League-best 3.42 and 3.41, respectively.
From The Plain Dealer
Tribe hasn't been "baseball origami" this year, but there has been some fairly artistic play ... and much of it came from right fielder Shin-Soo Choo, who's hit .292, smashed 20 homers and stolen 20 bases, then backed it up with solid defense and one of the best arms in baseball. So Choo is the Indians' equivalent of those old E.F. Hutton commercials: When he talks, people listen. And what he was talking about to beat writer Paul Hoynes Wednesday was just how good the Twins are.
"They have good starting pitching and a good bullpen," said Shin-Soo Choo of the Twins. "Most of their pitchers can throw strikes with any pitch on any count. They don't walk people and they put pressure on the hitters."They've got a great leadoff hitter in Denard Span and great clean-up hitters. Joe Mauer didn't play in any of these three games, and he's the best hitter in the big leagues. Justin Morneau is hurt, but they have Jim Thome. It's a great lineup."
In his Indians Insider column, Hoynsie notes that the Tribe has called up two final players from the Class AAA champion Clippers, right-handed reliever Vinnie Pestano and catcher Luke Carlin.