Pronk Needs You!

Well, it’s the final trade deadline of the season (waiver wire version), and once again the Indians are showing some signs of life now that the pressure is off.

The Indians come into an off day today on the heels of a split or a four-game series with the Baltimore Orioles, having won both of those games on Andy Marte home runs.  Yes, I said it – Andy Marte hit two game winning home runs in the last series.

Cleveland’s favorite whipping boy, Andy Marte, is playing well now that he’s playing every day.  He has now played the last 11 straight games. In those 11 games, Marte is hitting .375/.386/.675  with 3 home runs and 12 RBI. Yeah, I know it’s a small sample size, but isn’t this the Andy Marte we were promised? And his reward for coming back was, initially, playing 12 of 18 games and regularly sitting on the bench behind Chris Gimenez. You can’t get into a groove playing 2 of 3 and regularly sitting behind Chris Gimenez. In those 12 games, Marte went.175/.283/.200 with 0 home runs.  The difference?

“The more I’ve been playing, I feel a lot more comfortable now,” Marte said. “It’s good when you know you’re going to play the next day, no matter what happens. It makes me confident.”

Who might have guessed that there would be a correlation between performance and the knowledge that one will be in the lineup even if one makes mistakes?  Who would have suspected that there might be some positive correlation between regular playing time and performance?  Even Eric Wedge has noticed that Andy Marte can play baseball:

“He wants it,” manager Eric Wedge said. “He’s been grinding it out for a while.”

So, because Andy Marte is now putting up results, Eric Wedge has decided that he can give him the ultimate Eric Wedge compliment – he’s a grinder. Is Andy getting results now because he’s grinding (implying that Andy was not grinding in his previous stays in Cleveland [whatever the hell “grinding” is), or is it that now that Andy is getting results it can only be because he’s grinding, since that’s the only way it is possible to get results? I suspect that if Eric Wedge were to really answer that question it would tell us a great deal about whether he should be allowed to continue as Indians manager.

Maybe being sent down to Columbus really made Marte focus. He demolished AAA pitching. Maybe Andy Marte has become a changed player since he was here before. Maybe he’s seeing the ball better? I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that what has changed is that he knows that if he goes 0 for 4 with 3 strikeouts, he’s still going to play tomorrow. The unfortunate thing is that if Andy had received this same assurance beginning in 2006, when he was slaving away in Buffalo and Aaron Boone was stinking up third base, who knows where Andy Marte might be right now. Or in 2007, after he was sent down on rehab and replaced by Casey Blake and exiled to Buffalo yet again. Or in 2008, when he spent the first half of the season starting about a game a week and was regularly lifted for a pinch hitter and asked to bunt with runners in scoring position. Is it any wonder than Marte might have had some confidence issues?

Andy – stay thirsty, my friend. We at PronkNeedsYou! have always believed in you.