Thursday, May 03, 2007

16-8?!!

Nobody can say the 2007 Indians aren't resilient.

Most years, having an entire four-game home series rain/snowed out, playing a subsequent "home" series in Milwaukee, and getting swept in New York in a game in which our closer melted down and surrendered six runs in the ninth, would be a recipe for another disasterous April.

But something strange happened this year. The Indians did the exact opposite what they would have done every other season.

Rather than shrinking in the face of adversity, they have thrived. Rather than allowing our divisional rivals to take advantage and bury us early, they have gone 6-2 against the A.L. Central so far. Instead of getting pummeled every fifth day when injured Cliff Lee's spot in the rotation came up, they plugged in an inspiring Fausto Carmona, who promptly proved he is major league-ready.

I'm not going to make any prophetic statements about this year's Tribe. I'm not going to say things are different. We still have a lot of issues on this club.

1. Despite having Fernando Cabrera and Rafael Betancourt in the bullpen, they are using a washed up, PAINFUL to watch Roberto Hernandez in the setup role.

2. Josh Barfield, the man they dealt hot prospect Kevin Kousmanoff for, has not shown much of anything at the plate, failing to hit his body weight most of the season.

3. Andy Marte has been a complete disaster at third base, swinging for the fences at each plate appearance a la Russell Branyan. He made up for it by booting balls all over the infield (four errors already) before mercifully taking a trip to the disabled list.

a few months from now, we could easily be saying things like, "The Indians are just 30-45 since their 16-8 start."

But for now, I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

If the Larry Dolan era has taught us anything, its not to take anything for granted. Teams built on cheap budgets need a lot of breaks over the course of the season to make a serious playoff run. The Tigers, Twins and White Sox are all going to win an awful lot of baseball games this year.

I guess what I'm saying is, don't be surprised if this Indians team goes the way of countless Cleveland teams before it and the wheels come flying off the wagon at some point. But another month of baseball like they played in April and things might start to get really exciting around this town for a reason other than LeBron James.

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