There Are No Excuses in Baseball, All That Matters Are Wins
It was a cold day for baseball. The Cleveland Indians had to play a home game with the temperature in the 30s. The wind speed was in the 20s. There were swirling flurries.
It was a day where if you don’t hit a ball right on the button, you’re going to feel it for three or four innings.
Victor Martinez was glad he didn’t feel it.
Martinez watched it come true for the other side, as Cliff Lee overwhelmed the A’s for eight outstanding innings in the Tribe’s 7-1 victory before a sparse crowd at Progressive Field.
The win snapped the Indians’ three-game losing streak, giving them momentum heading into Monday’s meeting with the Red Sox, their first since the 2007 American League Championship Series.
Cliff Lee offers consistency to the rotation. He allowed only one run on two hits while striking out eight over eight innings.
The only hits that were given up in the game were Travis Buck’s triple that just got by first baseman Ryan Garko’s glove and an infield single by Mark Ellis. Otherwise Lee was perfect. He retired all 23 other hitters he faced.
Cliff almost pitched a perfect game. Almost isn’t good enough.
For the slumping Indians, it was good enough.
This was one day Indians fans won’t debate about a “good enough” win, as they sat wearing Cleveland Indians Gear.
The winless start is over, but the Tigers are still falling.
The visual symbol of the Tigers’ season came Sunday afternoon, when third baseman Miguel Cabrera ran into third-base umpire Doug Eddings on Jim Thome’s pop fly. Kenny Rogers had jammed the power-hitting Thome, but when the ball dropped beside third base in fair territory as Cabrera struggled to get up, it became another White Sox single.
It was Rogers’ last pitch of the game, but the Tigers’ long afternoon was far from over. Joe Crede’s grand slam off Zach Miner five batters later, on top of Paul Konerko’s grand slam two innings earlier, sent the Tigers home with an 11-0 loss.
The Tigers returned to Detroit as baseball’s first team to double-digit losses this season. That is just one damaging statistic.
Like Cabrera, the Tigers are still struggling to get up from their 0-7 start. Only six Tigers teams have scored fewer runs over their first 12 games than this one, and only six others have allowed more runs in that same span. A Tigers lineup expected to score runs in bundles was shut out Sunday for the fourth time this season, one more than the Tigers were blanked for all of last year.
Rogers fell to 0-3 for only the second time in his 20-year career as his control woes continued. The bulk of his runs came in the third, when an infield single in between two walks set up Konerko to take an off-speed pitch over the plate and drive it to center field for a grand slam.
Rogers allowed seven runs on seven hits in four-plus innings, but his four walks were the more telling stat, as he struggled to put the ball where catcher Brandon Inge was spotting for it. There was a lot of Detroit Tigers Gear bought over the course of the offseason because everyone thought they would be an elite team this year. Now some of the Tigers fans are ready to abandon the team because of the huge disappointment.Minnesota really hurt themselves by trading Johan Santana to the Mets. He was the franchise player who really put that franchise on the map. Also, Torii Hunter, now a member of the Angels, will be a hardworking player to replace.
Boof Bonser wanted to lose some weight because that would help him pitch deeper into outings.
Bonser certainly accomplished it. He shed nearly 30 pounds by the start of the regular season. His second mission was to have quality starts. The second part of Bonser’s mission has also been a successful one.
For the third straight outing, Bonser delivered a quality start, holding the Royals scoreless on just three hits over six innings Saturday in the Twins’ 2-0 victory at Kauffman Stadium.
"I think his hard work is showing early," closer Joe Nathan said. "He’s feeling better late in games and making pitches to get us into the seventh and eighth inning. It’s nice to see that, and hopefully it’s giving him some confidence. This has been a good start for him to get things rolling."
The right-hander certainly looked to be rolling Saturday, as he did not give up his first hit until the fifth inning. After Royals catcher Miguel Olivo struck out to start the inning, Ross Gload singled to left field to break up the no-hit attempt.
Bonser issued two walks and struck out four while throwing 89 pitches.
Bonser feels a quality start is making it past the fifth inning.
Saturday’s win was the Twins’ second straight shutout against the Royals. The Twins had a few fans at the game In Kansas City with their Minnesota Twins Gear on.
The Chicago White Sox beat their division rival Tigers 11-0 on Chicago’s South Side. That good offensive performance by the Sox and the lackluster performance by the Tigers were typical of what has been happening all season. This game was played before about 30,000 fans that braved the cold Sunday afternoon.
In six games played between the White Sox and the Tigers, the White Sox have won five.
Ozzie Guillen’s crew has outscored Detroit by a 46-15 margin.
On Sunday, Paul Konerko and Joe Crede launched grand slams in the third and fifth innings, respectively, marking the third time in franchise history the White Sox have hit two grand slams in the same game and first at home. On Sunday, the pathetic Detroit offense had just three more hits in total than the South Siders had long balls with the bases loaded.
One more thing: The White Sox had more curtain calls (2) requested by their fans than the Tigers scored runs (0) over the final two games of this series. The White Sox move into a two-game home set against Oakland on Monday, sitting atop the American League Central.
The White Sox look like the same team who won it all just three years ago. The White Sox fans, who normally wear Chicago White Sox Gear, were about 15,000 fans shy of filling their stadium up completely.
The Royals have played through rain and through cold. It was a cold when the Royals began their game Sunday. It was 29 degrees. With the wind chill, the weather felt much colder.
The Royals’ bats had been as frigid as the temperatures before the Royals scored against the Twins when Billy Butler’s two-out single in the first scored Joey Gathright.
In the first five games at Kauffman Stadium, the Royals had a poor slugging percentage with only nine extra-base hits.
The Royals can’t blame the weather on their poor offensive start. They have to play through adversity. The Royals manager Trey Hillman agreed. He said that it wasn’t the weather; it was his team was just having bad at-bats. He tried to explain further. He said that there is a different sensation on how your body feels playing in the cold weather. He also said that it is a mental battle when it’s cold outside.
The Royals are not known for having many faithful fans wearing Kansas City Royals Gear as many of the premier teams have plenty of dedicated of fans who often wear their team’s gear. The Royals feel like they can compete with anybody, even MLB teams who are famous in other countries.
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