Cavs 88, Celtics 120: Season on the Brink
May 12, 2010Cavaliers vs Celtics: Round Two, Game 5 Numbers and Words
May 12, 2010Quick, name me the Cleveland sports franchise that has won two straight games most recently? I’ll give you a hint, their colors aren’t Wine and Gold. Say what you want about the Wahoo Warriors; they don’t have a ton of talent, they are young, their payroll seems to be 25% of what the Yankees and Red Sox are, but at least THEY DONT QUIT.
While we were all watching the Cavs completely disgusting and indefensible performance at The Q, the Indians were taking apart their brother in the AL Central basement, the Kansas City Royals 8-2. As Mike Brown was getting completely worked by noted X’s and O’s man Doc Rivers (ha ha), Manny Acta was managing circles around Royals skipper Trey Hillman, who by all accounts in KC is the MLB version of Brown – a dead man walking.
Two old friends decided to make a grand re-appearance under the Kaufmann Stadium lights. To quote the great Hall of Famer Joe Tait “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he hails from” Warner Robins, Georgia. Russell Branyan, my favorite Tribe punching bag, hit not one, but two titanic blasts in a three hit, three RBI night. They were Branyan’s first two home runs of the season.
“It’s like the old saying, ‘Home runs are accidents,'” Branyan said. “You work on your approach and hitting the ball hard. When you hit the ball slightly underneath, it’s a home run. You continue to work on your approach. When you’re not squaring the ball up, you start to worry. I’m a little behind these guys because of the fact that I missed Spring Training and opened on the DL. But I continue to work hard. Sooner or later, I’ll catch up.”
That long looping swing that has produced almost nothing thus far, looked pretty good last night. It was reminiscent of Mo Williams outburst in Game One of the Celtics series. Its something we were happy to see and needed, but can’t expect to see regularly. Branyan’s big night led an eight run, 10 hit attack that was more than enough for starter Jake Westbrook to earn his first win of the season.
Westbrook went six innings, allowing a season low one run on five hits, striking out two and walking two. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I saw Jake’s outing and that he was great. I didn’t. I was mostly watching Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo run circles around Mo and Anthony Parker. So I will let the quotes speak for me.
“It’s nice to get that first one and pitch well doing it,” Westbrook said. “It wasn’t real pretty, but I put up some zeroes and only gave up one run. I had baserunners all night, but I was able to make pitches when I needed to.”
“As long as he’s healthy and feeling good and we don’t see a dropoff in velocity from outing to outing, [we’re satisfied],” Acta said. “We already knew the last thing to come from him is his command. He’s going to have to pitch through it.”
A couple of interesting tidbits from last night.
- Mark Grudzielanek took over for Luis Valbuena at second base and is expected to see more and more of the playing time there. Anyone who has seen Sour Luis play this season knows that a change was needed. Gruzie was 1-2 with two walks and a run scored. He is hitting .345 (17-59) in the month of May.
- Austin Kearns went 2-4, drove in a run, and scored three times. People, Austin Freaking Kearns would be the Indians lone All Star if the game were played next week. He is hitting a team high .346 with 16 RBIs in 78 AB’s. By contrast, the man who is supposed to be playing left, Matt LaPorta, has one RBI in in 74 AB’s. Scary thought.
- Hector Ambriz, the rule 5 draftee, pitched a scoreless ninth to close out the win. Its only been five appearances, but Ambriz has struck out six in six innings, and allowed just one earned run. The brass is intrigued with his power arm and he will continue to get more and more looks in the pen.
The Red, White, and Blue go for three in a row tonight in KC. Fausto Carmona (3-1, 3.86) takes the mound against right-hander Kyle Davies (2-1, 5.45 ERA). There’s nothing like seeing the Royals on the schedule, they are always the perfect tonic.
photo via Ed Zurga/AP
5 Comments
Never would’ve thought Grud and Kearns would be the top performers on this team.
Have we given a nickname yet for for Russel “Ballerina” Branyon?
Need more Cavs bitterness.
WHO CARES ABOUT BASEBALL WHEN WE’RE LOSING LeBRON!!!
I’d like to point out that the Tribe win in one of their best all-around games this year has now netted 5 posts on this site while the Ledebacle has generated approximately 12,782 posts.