Monday, September 10, 2007

Showing Some Love For the REAL Team in C-Town


I blew up the Browns earlier in the day, but I glossed right over a huge win for the Indians last night. After losing two straight in Anaheim, the Tribe took the last two, including last night's 6-2 win. With Rookie Aaron Laffey giving up two runs in five innings, fellow rookies Jenson Lewis and Rafael Perez took over the three innings before turning it over to Joe Borowski to preserve the win. That's four scoreless from the bullpen if you are counting at home and eight innings of two run ball by rookies who didn't make the club out of Spring Training.

Did anyone have more fun this weekend than Ryan Garko? "It was fun," Garko said. "I don't get a chance to play in front of my parents very much." The man they call Fred Flintstone came home for the first time as a major league regular and had a blast. Two of them actually. Last night's three-run pizza off of the very overrated Jered Weaver gave the Tribe the lead for good. All of his family and friends from Diamond Bar, California were there cheering him on. That was all well and good, but the highlight of the weekend, maybe of the year, for Garko was his in-studio appearance on the Jim Rome show last Friday. Garko, a self proclaimed "Jungle legend" was joined by C.C. Sabathia, Jobo, and Garko's former high school teammate and current Indians teammate and Rome fan Ben Francisco. They were so good, they were in studio for an hour and 15 minutes. It was a joy for every Indians fan to listen to, and brutal to the rest of the Rome-listening nation.

SIDE NOTE - How amazing is it that Garko and Francisco were high school teammates now playing in the majors together?

SIDE NOTE #2 - Someone needs to tell Jered Weaver to cut that hair. It makes him look like his equally over-hyped brother Jeff, who has been stealing money in the majors for the last 10 years on agent Scott Boras's hype machine. As my brother said to me last night, "we will get to this guy, remember, he's a Weaver."

Last night's game may have given the Tribe nation a reason to exhale. With 19 games to go, The Indians hold a six game lead over Detroit. A 12-7 record gets them to 95 wins. The schedule is advantageous with three against the sad-sack White Sox in Chicago, before coming back home for the final homestand of the year; a nine-gamer which sees Kansas City, Detroit, and Oakland coming to the Jake. They close on the road with four at Seattle and three at Kansas City.

Can you smell that? It's not the stench coming from 76 Lou Groza Drive in Berea, it's October baseball in C-Town.

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