Show Stopper

Fausto Carmona Tries To Right The Ship

The Indians needed an ace-worthy performance, and that’s precisely what Fausto Carmona gave them last night, pitching 6.2 innings last night, giving up just one run on 7 hits. More importantly, Carmona only walked one batter last night after walking a stunning 8 batters in his last outing and 17 batters in his first 3 outings combined.

Despite a few early struggles, Fausto was able to work his way out of trouble unscathed, which was key for the Indians as it allowed the bats to wake up in a big way. The Indians managed to score in 4 different innings in this game. They got started by getting to Tigers’ starter Justin Verlanded for 3 runs in the bottom of the 2nd. They had a 5-0 lead going into the 6th inning, and after giving up a run on a sac fly, the Indians offense responded with 5 runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning to put the game away. Every single Indiant player had a hit in this game, and Ryan Garko and Travis Hafner each hit Home Runs. Jason Michaels was the surprise hero, as he had 3 RBIs in this game, while Jamey Carroll went 2 for 4 and added a pair of RBIs of his own.

This explosion couldn’t have come at a better time for the Indians. As mentioned above, the Indians had lost 3 in a row, but even worse, they had lost 6 of their last 7 games and were just 3-10 since starting the year off at 2-0. Now the Indians must travel to the Metrodome to take on the rebuilt Twins in a 3 game weekend series. This series will be huge for the Indians. Will they be able to use last night’s game as a catalyst to get them back to playing the kind of baseball we thought they would this season, or was last night just a one game aberration? This turn of the season will be key to defining the entire year. With tough games coming up at Kansas City to play the much improved Royals, and then home series’ with the Yankees, Mariners, and Royals before playing a road series in New York, the Indians need to use this Minnesota series as a chance to get things turned around and headed in the right direction. If the Indians go limping into that Yankees series, they may find themselves out of division contention by the end of April. The Indians are currently 6-10 and 3.5 games out of first, and with 12 games left in April, they must go at least 8-4 over those games just to be at .500 even by the end of the month. If they go 4-8 in those games, however, they will be 10-18 and likely close to 10 games back at that point.

Tonight Cliff Lee takes the mound against the recovered Francisco Liriano. Liriano has pitched pretty well against the Indians in 2 career starts against them, but he really struggled in his last outing, which was his first game back from Tommy John surgery. Cliff Lee has pitched pretty well against the Twins for his career, and he has a winning record in the Metrodome. It’s imperative that Cliff Lee keeps this trend going, as well as his trend of dominant pitching this season, as the Indians look to bounce back from their shaky start and get this season headed back in the right direction.