Indians Bats Waking Up?

The Tribe and Jays were rained out Sunday, forcing a doubleheader on Monday. It’s the first ‘traditional’ doubleheader in Cleveland since 1997.

The Indians offense roared to life when Toronto pulled into town. As Scott detailed previously, the Tribe backed C.C. Sabathia in a 6-1 win on Friday, then routed the Blue Jays 12-0 on Saturday night. Aaron Laffey (1-2) was superb on the mound, inducing 11 ground ball outs and stranding 9 men on base. But the story of the night was Grady Sizemore and the hitters.

Grady led off the game with a homer run and later added another to give him 5 RBI for the game. That was 5 more than he had all week by the way. He would finish 3 for 5, and is hitting .500 in this series. Victor Martinez, Asdrubal Cabrera and Casey Blake all had 2 hits in the game. Cleveland came through with 2 outs in this one, as 8 of the 12 runs scored when two men were out. Travis Hafner, batting in the 6 spot behind Ben Francisco did not have a hit or a sacrifice in the game. Francisco also was hitless, but did drive in a run with a sac fly. Two games is a nice little run, but the jury is still out on whether or not the Tribe is out of the hitting slump that has infected the clubhouse.

Getting the day off was Jhonny Peralta. Asdrubal Cabrera played short and Jamey Carroll second. Mr. Peralta had better watch his back. Watching Peralta play short and then seeing Asdrubal do it is like watching an black and white television and then going to a buddy’s house to see his new Plasma HD. Cabrera made at least 3 plays by my count that Peralta could NEVER have made. That may not sound like a lot, but in the scope of this game it meant the difference between a shutout and one or two runs scored. In the typical Tribe game, that would certainly be enough to determine the outcome. Now, Asdrubal is hitting as miserably as anyone on the team, but his defense in my opinion is enough to warrant serious consideration to a permanent move to short.

Sent to Buffalo before Sunday’s game was rained out was Tom Mastny. Mastny hardly pitched while he was up this time around, and the Indians decided to call up another bat. This time it’s Jason Tyner, who the Indians signed to a minor league deal during spring training.

“I had a bad April,” he said. “But I was hitting pretty well the last two weeks.”

His improvement caught the attention of the Indians.

“It’s another left-handed bat,” Wedge said. “He gives us speed on the bases. He’s experienced, and he’s experienced in our division.”

Tyner you may remember came from the Minnesota Twins where he spent all of the ’07 season in the big leagues. Can Tyner really help the Indians? Maybe, but don’t get that excited. He’s 31, and has 1 home run in the majors. Incidentally, that home run was hit here in Cleveland last year. IF Tyner can hit, and by hit I mean with some regularity, he could potentially replace Grady in the leadoff spot. That would allow Wedge the opportunity to move Sizemore down in the order to say third, hitting in front of Martinez.