Pronk Needs You!

After mailing it in over the weekend against the Royals, the Indians showed some interest in baseball again to start the week, sweeping the contending Twinkies.

Series summary:

• Scott Lewis is good.  Or major league batters have not seen enough of the soft-tossing lefty to figure him out.  Or a combination of both.  He pitched the Indians to a 3-1 victory in game 1 of this series, extending his scoreless inning streak to start his career to 14.  Shoppach and Choo went deep to provide the offense.  We’ll see more of Lewis down the stretch, as Anthony Reyes has been shut down for the season.
• Zachson is not so good.  After being spotted to an 8-1 lead in game 2 when the Indians busted out the whuppin’ sticks on Francisco Liriano, Zachson promptly gave most of it back, giving up a total of 7 runs in 5.1 innings.  Betancourt came on to pour more gasoline on the fire, giving up 2 runs in 0.2 innings which put the Twinkies ahead 9-8 in the top of the eighth.  Grady Sizemore hit a mighty clout halfway up the right-field foul pole to tie the game at 9 in the bottom of the eighth.  That’s where things stood when Joe Nathan came in the bottom of the 11th.  After Gutierrez opened the inning with a bloop single, Francisco bunted him to second and Jhonny dhrew a whalk.  With two on, Victor Martinez hit a walk-off shot to right centerfield for the 12-9 victory.  It was Martinez’ first walk-off homer in his entire baseball playing lifetime, and the Indians’ first walk-off homer of the year.  In other news, there was a full moon and Ryan Garko hit a home run.  Those two facts may or may not be related.
• Cliff Lee went for #23 in game 3, and just missed it.  He had a 4-2 lead in the 7th, but Jamey Carroll (grr – don’t get me started) muffed an easy grounder at third base, and then a Mauer double put runners at second and third.  Morneau grounded out, scoring the guy at third base who should have been out, and then Delmon Young hit a game-tying single.  The Twins failed to take advantage of the Indians’ sporting attempt to give them the game by bringing in Eddie Moo, who closed out the inning.  The Indians wen on to get the game-winning runs in the bottom of the seventh after a bizarre sequence of events.  Grady Sizemore beat out an infield single.  Jamey Carroll (grr – don’t get me started) sacrifice-bunted directly to the pitcher who threw Sizemore out at second.  Carroll barely beat the throw to first.  Carroll then attempted to steal second.  The throw was into centerfield.  Carroll, meanwhile, was totally deked and stood on second base while Joel Skinner nearly blew out a rotator cuff windmilling him to third.  The ball then got by centerfielder Carlos Gomez.  Eventually, Carroll looked around, saw that the ball was in deep centerfield and got to third base.  Had Carroll looked for the ball sooner, he most likely would have scored.  However, the point became moot when Jhonny Peralta and Victor Martinez hit back-to-back doubles to create the final 6-4 margin.  Perez tight-roped through the 8th and J-Lew closed it out with his 10th save.  In other news, Pronk hit his first home run since returning from the DL, a 430-foot-no-doubter that sounded like a mighty clout off the bat.  I like this Pronk. 

In other news,

• The Rays demolished Tim Wakefield last night to drop the FEDBU-Lite to two games back in the AL East, 7 games ahead of the Twinkies in the Wild Card race.  The FEDBU-Lite would really have to crash hard to screw up the Wild Card.  The good news is that the Indians have 4 games against them next week and can help make that happen.  If the Twinkies want to get into the playoffs, they’ll most likely have to beat the Whine Sox to get there. 
• The Indians new Spring Training facility in Goodyear, Arizona has opened for the Arizona Fall League.
• The Indians schedule for 2009 has been released.  They’ll open in Texas, back home for 3 against Toronto, and then go on the road for a week, opening New FEDBU Stadium in the process.  They play 10 of their first 13 games on the road.  I suppose that’s better than being at home a lot in early April, but it still seems like a bit of a raw deal.
• The Tribe has signed Taiwanese pitcher Chen-Chang Lee to a minor league contract. 
• A 6-4 finish against the Motor City Kitties, FEDBU-Lite and Whine Sox would leave the Indians at .500 to end the season.  The Indians have a prime chance to continue to be spoilers the last week of the season in both the AL East and AL Central.

Chez Woodsmeister?  Power restored Tuesday night.  We’re one of the lucky ones – much of Central Ohio is still without power.