Tribe Watch '13 (Week 23)

Record: 76 - 66

Standing: Second in AL Central (5.5 games behind Detroit; 2 games out of Wild Card)

Because of the holiday weekend, I never did a Tribe Watch post last week. However, given the way the Indians had played against Atlanta and Detroit, I really wasn't in the mood to talk about baseball. This week definitely saw some improvement. We managed to take two out of three against Baltimore (of course, the only game we lost was the one I attended) and the New York Mets. Taking two out of three against Baltimore was important because we are battling with them for that second Wild Card spot. I really would have liked to sweep the Mets, but could not managed to get a victory today. While it is just one loss, it was a particularly frustrating one because it featured three themes that when present usually equal to a Tribe loss. #1, when Yan Gomes and Ryan Raburn are not in the lineup, our offense is non-existent. #2, if we have men on base in a clutch situation, it always seems as if Asdrubal Cabrera is up to bat and he will inevitably not come through in the clutch. #3, Chris Perez will give up runs when he is in a non-save situation. Hopefully Terry Francona is picking up on these themes as well and will do something to rectify them as we head into the home stretch. Every game now becomes really important if we want to make the postseason. Our schedule is weak which means we can win a lot of these games. However, there are still a lot of teams capable of making the playoffs so we have to be careful not to lose ground to any of them. That push to the postseason continues this week with a three game series at home with the Kansas City Royals and then onto Chicago this week for a 3 game set with the White Sox. Kansas City won't go away, so beating them will be important to quash their hopes of making the playoffs. The White Sox are horrible and its essential that we sweep them, even if it is in Chicago. It's fun to be able to still be talking Indians baseball in September and have it mean sometime. It can also be nerve racking, but that's part of the fun. Let's root this team on to victory (especially since the Browns seem like they will be awful once again this year). Go Tribe!

Tribe Watch '13 (Week 12)

Record: 38 - 36

Standing: Second in AL Central (4 games behind Detroit)

A rather ho hum week for the Tribe. They managed to take two out of thee from both Kansas City and Minnesota. I certainly can't complain about that. Winning series is the name of the game and if we can keep that up, we'll be in good shape. Right now though, there's not a lot of energy or excitement behind the wins. We're not hitting as well as we could. We're not pitching as well as we could. We're doing just enough to eke out wins. For now that's ok, especially against divisional opponents. The wins against KC certainly helped put some separation between us and them for now. But I'd certainly like to see some more of that magic that we had during our really good stretch a month ago. Right now, I think a few key injuries are preventing that. Those won't last, so hopefully that means we can get that spark back sooner rather than later. In the meantime, let's just keep winnings and you'll find I'll have very little to complain about. Looking ahead to this week, we begin a lengthy road trip that involves playing a pair of 4-game series; first against Baltimore and then against the White Sox. Baltimore is showing that their postseason appearance last year wasn't a fluke. The Indians have not played well thus far against AL East teams, so it would be nice if that would begin to change. As for Chicago, they may have plummeted to the bottom of our division, but that doesn't mean we should take them lightly. I'd love to see us take advantage of their poor play and really beat up on them. If they do, you'll be looking at one very happy Indians fan come next week. Go Tribe!

Tribe Watch (Week 7)

Record: 26-21

Standing: First in AL Central

This week shows you how difficult it can be to a baseball fan. The Indians begin the week on top of the world by sweeping our rivals, the Detroit Tigers in close, exciting, and competitive games. The fact that the sweep culminated in beating Justin Verlander, who may be the best pitcher in baseball today was about as awesome it gets. And then we get to the weekend where everything that could go wrong, did. Frankly I could use one of those Men in Black neuralizers to forget it even existed. We ended up getting swept by those classless, vile (and many other words I can't use here) Chicago White Sox. Our pitching looked pathetic in all three games. To show you the disparity between the two series, our pitching staff gave up 6 runs total against Detroit and 31 to Chicago. And what's even more troubling is the number of Indians who are now currently hurt. Asdrubal Cabrera, Carlos Santana, Travis Hafner, Jack Hanahan, and Lou Marson are just some of the names who had to sit out games because of injuries. Let's keep our fingers crossed that most of the injuries are minor and they can return to the lineup sooner rather than later. Otherwise, we may be seeing a complete repeat of next year. The Indians first opportunity to erase the nightmare of this weekend comes tomorrow when they begin a three game set against the Royals. We'll then wrap up the week with a series against Minnesota this weekend. Both of these teams are bringing up the rear of the AL Central, so let's hope they remain our whipping boys and we can start extending our lead in the AL Central again. If we can get back to the way we played against Detroit, it should be a fun season. If we continue to play like we did against Chicago, well...let's not even think about that. Go Tribe!

Tribe Watch (Week 2)

Record: 8-6 Standing: 3rd in AL Central Despite ending on a loss today, the Indians first road trip of the season turned out to be pretty successful as they managed to go 7-2 after taking two out of three from both Oakland and Seattle. While the season is still young, there's already some trends that have been developing, both positive and negative. In the past week, with the exception of Tomlin going toe-to-toe with Seattle's Felix Hernandez, our starting pitching was not great, but typically did enough to keep the Indians in the ball game. Certainly though their performances could be better to give the offense some breathing room. Most importantly is getting Justin Masterson on track. In his past few starts, he's begun the game strong but falls apart typically when seeing batters for the second turn. If he's to be our ace, we need him to remain in the game longer and be dominant in doing so. Offensively, while the Tribe was not as mighty as they were against Kansas City, there was a lot of timely hitting, which I love to see. We frequently got some clutch hits when we needed them. And for the most part the effort is being distributed evenly. There are a couple of weak spots (most notably Casey Kotchman), but they haven't been too detrimental thus far. The good news is that we were able to produce offensively this past week without Asdrubal Cabrera, who was gone on the bereavement list. He'll be back in the lineup when the Indians play again on Tuesday. Tuesday will start a six-game homestand where the Indians will once again play the Royals followed by a weekend series with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. We already stuck it to KC once this year, so let's hope we can do it again and the Angels, a team many figured would be a World Series contender, have been scuffling thus far to begin the season, so we might be facing them at an opportune time. Even if the Indians come home to some cold weather (as is forecasted) let's hope they continue to remain red hot. Go Tribe!