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Indians

I Don’t Even Feel Like Winning Two Games In A Row Anyway: Tribe Notes 5/12

May 12, 2015 Ai Leave a comment

Indians suck

— uncle chris (@ChrisCollier28) May 12, 2015

https://twitter.com/cycle_jim/status/597473133487136769

https://twitter.com/Coreyshoemaker7/status/597047885184815105

Side note, I dare you to search “indians suck” on Twitter.

What’s the Damage?

Facepalm.

The Royals are only 5-5 in their last ten and still have a game over the second-place Kitties. Tribe fans can take some solace in the fact that it isn’t just us that Mike Moustakas is crushing this year, it’s everyone (.319/.338/.448). The same goes for pretty much their entire lineup, as the baby blue bullies lead the majors in hitting by a whopping 13 points.

Everyone’s (least) favorite felines are right in the mix per usual, although they’re on a two-game slide after dropping the last two games in KC this past weekend. David Price tripped over a bat like an IDIOT and strained his hammy, so he’ll miss his next start, and catcher Alex Avila has “loose bodies” in his left knee which may require surgery. You just hate to see that. Gotta keep those bodies tight, Al.

The Twins are four games over .500. Who let that happen?

Right. Leave it to us to be assaulted by a 39-year-old and his band of misfits.

I can now accurately type Jeff Samardzija’s name without looking it up, since I own him in fantasy and his season has basically been a start followed by four days of me bitching. Struggling would be an understatement, for him and his new squad (although, go figure, they’re 3 for 5 against us this year). 2014 3rd overall pick Carlos Rodon (LHP) was brilliant in his first career start last week. He was born in 1992. In December. Lol.

In Other News

Kip’s too hot (hot damn). Call the police and the fireman.

Since moving to the leadoff spot on April 26:

.356/.441/.627, 5 2B, 3 HR, 10 RBI, 8 BB, 6 K

In the month of May, he’s third in the majors in average and OBP and leads everyone with a 1.1 offensive WAR. When he made the All-Star team in 2013, his best month was June, in which he hit:

.419/.517/.699, 12 2B, 4 HR, 25 RBI, 20 BB, 22 K

Dance, jump on it.

The past couple weeks have seen two Tribe starters heading in opposite directions. After a sickeningly hot start, Trevor Bauer has posted consecutive clunkers. He was tagged for 6 earned runs in 4.1 innings against Toronto on the 3rd, then another 5 this past weekend by the Twins. For those who watched, even those early starts were plagued by walks and the ever-present threat of the big inning, but Bauer was able to extinguish those threats with strikeouts. He hasn’t been able to do that recently. with a total of 8 strikeouts in his last three starts combined. His pitch mixes are the same-ish, given the fact that those are bound to vary with someone who a) has as many pitches and b) is as big of a “feel” pitcher as Bauer is. I still really like him and am hoping his bout with food poising is to blame for knocking him off track.

Danny Salazar is trending in the opposite direction. Check this stat:

Per our friends at STATS LLC, #Indians Danny Salazar now leading the Majors in swing and miss percentage 33.1%. 275 swings, 91 miss

— Joe Reedy (@joereedy) May 11, 2015

Is that good? Did he break it?

In his five starts this year, he’s struck out 10, 11, 7, 9 and 11 batters. That’s 48 total, which is good for 7th in the majors. He also leads the bigs in K/9 and K%. Relying a lot less on his fastball than he has in the past, he’s mixing in his curve and change a lot more this year and making hitters look silly when he goes from 95 at the nipples to 80 in the dirt.

Just for shits and gigs, I thought I’d look at attendance numbers this season to see what impact the renovations (and, conversely, the product on the field) have had. So far in 2015 we’re averaging 15,928 fans at home games. That’s down from 18,428 last year and 19,661 in 2013. Obviously it’s still early, fans don’t go to 35 degree games in April and we haven’t been through a playoff push yet, so as I’m typing this now I realize this probably isn’t the most insightful paragraph I’ve ever written, but hey. This is Bottlegate folks.

https://twitter.com/TommySullivan24/status/597451933511753728

ps I have no words

https://twitter.com/Coreyshoemaker7/status/597449886301294592

KEEP THE CHIEF

Cavs, Cleveland

Players changing plays: A thing that happens in real life

May 11, 2015 Ai Leave a comment

To everyone freaking out about the greatest athlete on the planet overriding a play call from a first-year NBA head coach, aka all of national media and seemingly 90% of the city of Cleveland:

I’m absolutely flabbergasted by what I’ve been reading and hearing on the radio in the aftermath of a Cleveland sports team winning Game 4 of a best-of-7 playoff series yesterday. I get that over-analyzing is a thing we do around here. Look at the game tape, talk about things that didn’t necessarily go our way and contemplate strategies going forward. That’s all well and good. But there seems to be an alarming number of people out there that have gotten a running start, taken a jump off the pessimist high dive and ripped off a wicked can-opener into the deep end of negativity. And most of these people are aiming their splashes at Coach Blatt.

Before I go any further, let me say this: I completely understand the Blatt criticism…to an extent. He had an abomination of a game yesterday. No doubt about it. His Chris Webber impression very well could have lost the game for us, possibly even the series, if the refs would have caught it. The handful of inbound “plays” that led to the ceremonial burning of our timeouts and ultimately ended with LeBron surrounded by the sideline, halfcourt line, Mike Dunleavy (RIP) and Derrick Rose were questionable at best. Did an injured Kyrie hurt us more than he helped? Hard to say.

So question those decisions. Question the timeout mistake. That’s fair. Even when it comes to the title of this blog, go right ahead and criticize him for drawing up a play in the first place that had the best player in the world inbounding the ball. Like I said, coach had a rough game. But believe it or not, a player changing a play a coach had called or just challenging his tactics period HAS happened before in the history of the world. Probably more often than you’d think. I’d be willing to bet this wasn’t even the first time in the past month LeBron changed a Blatt play call. This shouldn’t be NEARLY the story that it is, but it’s Cleveland, so mentally prep yourself to hear about it until the day you die probably.

To prove I’m not lying, here’s a few other examples of egregious insubordination by athletes toward coaches:

Michael Jordan, 1989, Chicago Bulls vs. Cleveland Cavaliers

So this little diddy…

…never happens if the greatest basketball player of all time doesn’t step WAY out of line and politely suggest that coach Doug Collins give him the ball during the previous timeout. From Sam Smith’s 1992 book The Jordan Rules:

“Collins called time-out, gathered everyone in a tight circle, and began to draw a play for Dave Corzine. “Everyone started to look around,” recalled back-up forward Jack Haley, who would call the moment the most thrilling of his life. “Doug could see everyone sort of frowning, and he started to explain that they wouldn’t be expecting Corzine to get the ball. Michael just slammed his fist down on the clipboard and said, ‘Give me the fuckin’ ball.’ Doug looked at him, drew up the play Jordan wanted…””

Yeah ok Doug Collins may or may not have been fired like a month later but they were completely different circumstances than Blatt is in this year. It was Collins’ third year as a coach and like 6th playoff series. He also went on to have a pretty successful career, making the playoffs in seven of the eleven seasons he coached.

Juan Marichal, 1963, San Francisco Giants vs. Milwaukee Braves

Fun story for baseball fans who grew up in the age of pitch counts and, well, general regard for the human body. On July 2nd, 1963, the Giants and Braves played a 16-inning ballgame. A total of two pitchers were used. Juan Marichal threw 16 innings, allowing 8 hits, 0 runs, 4 walks and recording ten strikeouts. The Braves’ Warren Spahn went 15 and a third, giving up 9 hits, 1 run, 1 walk and two strikeouts. Spahn was 42 years old at the time. They’re both in the Hall of Fame now. Some guy named Willie Mays hit the homer that won it. I think he’s in there, too.

Giants manager Alvin Dark allegedly tried to take Marichal out after the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th innings. Then after the 14th he flat-out told him, “You’re done.” Marichal pointed to Spahn on the mound and said, “Do you see that man on the mound? That man is 42 and I’m 25. I’m not ready for you to take me out.” He stayed in the game and got the win two innings later.

Dark would go on and win nearly 1,000 games as a big league manager, and is one of three managers in Major League history to win both an American League and National League pennant. David Blatt’s career NBA record is 53-29.

Luke Cafferty and Vince Howard, Friday Night Lights season 4 episode 5, East Dillion Lions vs. South Pines Tigers

If there’s one thing all sports fans can agree on, it’s that Coach Eric Taylor is the greatest football coach in the history of planet Earth. That’s just a fact. And even the greatest coach his sport has ever seen has been second-guessed by his players before. In their third game of Season 4, the Lions are struggling to get anything going on offense, particularly due to the fact that Taylor refuses to call anything but inside runs. Eventually, Luke and Vince get fed up and change the play call in the huddle to an option out of the Wildcat formation.

They run the play, Luke pitches the ball to Vince and boom touchdown. Weird.

Long story short, let’s not make a bigger deal out of this Blatt-LeBron thing than it should be. Criticism is warranted, certainly. But not because of what happened in that last huddle. We WON, guys. Can’t we just enjoy it like Austin and Fred?

https://twitter.com/ABennett_10/status/597766931735715840

(h/t @ABennett_10)

Cleveland, ohio

Akron man escapes from prison, does not get caught immediately

May 6, 2015 Ai Leave a comment

From Cleveland.com:

“An Akron man who escaped from a Sandusky work camp more than a half century ago was arrested Monday at his home in Florida.

Frank Freshwaters, 79, was taken into custody in Melbourne, Florida where he lived for years under the name William Harold Cox.

Freshwaters, then of Akron, on July 3, 1957 hit an Akron husband and father while driving more than 50 miles per hour in a 35-zone on South Arlington Road.

He was sentenced April 25, 1958 to five years of probation after pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter.

Freshwaters violated probation and a judge sentenced him to up to 20 years in prison. He began serving his sentence at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, the prison where the movie “The Shawshank Redemption” was filmed.

He was eventually moved to the less restrictive Sandusky Honor Farm after earning the trust of prison officials. He escaped after about seven months at the facility and fled Ohio.”

Frankie Fresh! You were so close my man. What a tremendous kick in the dick that must have been for him to have the fuzz finally knock on his door after 56 years of freedom. So close to the finish line. He’ll still be able to ride off into the sunset, but there won’t be quite as much sun, and I’m guessing he might not be the one doing the riding.

Good to know though, if I ever go to prison and escape, my ass is headed right to West Virginia. Just straight up refused to extradite a guy who apparently killed two people. DGAF at the State level.

Also, I’m no expert in the realm of law enforcement, but you gotta question the allocation of resources to a 79-year-old grandpappy who was originally sentenced to a whopping five years probation. Can’t imagine he posed too much of a threat to anyone. And the Cleveland.com commenters brought their usual fastballs:

PS Apparently Florida Sheriff Maj. Tod Goodyear just does not watch any television or movies, because last time I checked, a trailer at the end of a dead-end and rarely traveled road in a marshy area with no neighbors is most certainly NOT “the perfect place to hide.”