Four Times a Johan

I know that the Tribe didn't just beat the best pitcher in baseball for a fourth time, did they? That's right peeps, with tonight's loss, Johan Santana is now 14-10, and four of those losses are at the hands of your Cleveland Indians. If you missed the first inning (I watched it over a homemade Turkey Taco Salad which was the whup), than you missed all of the Tribe offense. Grady Sizemore lead off with a single and the phenom that is Asdrubal Cabrera, facing Santana for the first time in his career, treated Johan as if he was Jason Johnson and drilled a two run pizza to the left field bleachers. Just like that, its was 2-0. Two batter later, Vic Martinez crushed a solo pizza of his own. With two down, Franky G hit the first of his two doubles and was singled home by Kenny Lofton. Those for runs were all C.C. Sabathia and three relievers needed (or scored for that matter) to hold off the Twins 4-3 for a three game sweep.

Numbers and Notes to Consider:

• The Tribe has won five straight and 10 of 13



• Thanks to the Tigers mini-meltdown and if the Royals can hold a 5-0 7th inning lead (this was written before the game ended), the Indians could enjoying their largest lead of the season at 4.5 games.



• Joe Borowski didn't give up a run tonight with a one run lead to notch his AL leading 39th save. If you would have told me in April that Borowski would be carrying a 5.53 ERA in late August, I would have said he'd be the long man.



• Speaking of Jobo, per our stat guru Matt G: JoBo has 9 saves when he has given up a run. The reason is because Rafael Betancourt and Rafael Perez have handed him over two or three run leads by being lights out.



• After over-using Raffy Perez, Eric Wedge was forced to go a different way for his 7th inning reliever as C.C. just didn't have his "A" stuff. Jenson Lewis responded with a 1-2-3 inning. Very encouraging.



• AC played shortstop tonight giving Jhonny Peralta the night off. he made a play going to his right to start a 6-4-3 DP that was Omar-esque. This kid is something special. How many more days do I stroke this guy? Oh yeah, he went 2-4 again.



• We are halfway done with my most important work week of my career. So far, so good. Tomorrow is the big meeting so I won't see any of the makeup game between the Tribe and Mariners. Aaron Laffey takes on Horacio Ramirez in a huge game for Seattle.



• Vintage ESPN - Baseball Tonight led with a good 15 minutes on Yankees/Red Sox again. Such an old bit. The Mariners and Angels are in the middle of a huge series as well. I know, not sexy enough for the East Coast.