Well it hasn’t been pretty but it still is positive Indians fans. For a change, the offense has not been offensive and causing us to lose. The Indians are competitive and were in all of the games on the homestand. Now the team takes their game on the road again out to San Francisco to begin a three city, 9 game road trip in the National League.

The bad news about this is that Travis Hafner will not be allowed to use Travis Hafner in the lineup except for the role of a pinch hitter. Last night Manny called this fact “sad.” I agree. After all Indians fans know this glaring fact in 2011. With Travis in the starting  lineup, the Indians are 22-13. Without him starting, they are 18-20. For the next 9 games he will not be starting. The team will have to find a way to win without him in the starting lineup.

I had a fan tweet me asking why he could not play the field. As Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer pointed out, the operation he had on his shoulder won’t allow it. He had trouble swinging a bat from it and throwing is too risky for the shoulder on top of swinging the bat.

This is why the Indians are expected to call up Shelley Duncan once again since Travis Buck was sent down to AAA Columbus once again yesterday, to add “umph” to the lineup with Hafner out. I look forward to seeing how Acta uses match-ups creatively to help score more runs against these Giants. Also I think more will be expected from Choo and A. Cabrera to move the runners and drive in runs starting tomorrow night.

The Giants come into the series 26-29 vs. righties and  5-4 in Interleague play so far in 2011 while the Indians are 11-9 vs. lefties  and 7-2 in Interleague play in 2011. It will be this type of matchup when the Indians face the Giants tonight. The Giants just took 2 out of 3 against the Twins and the Indians just lost 2 out of 3 to the Rockies. Interestingly, the Indians are 14-10 in 1-run games and the Giants are 20-11.

I just hope I see a smart well-played, fundamentally sound game where the Indians can play with a lot of heart and a never give-up attitude offensively and a sound job pitching trying to keep us in the ballgame in attempting to shut them down ourselves. Carrasco is the right pitcher to help advance Cleveland’s effort to pull out a win as he has shut down the opposition to 1 run in 22 2/3 innings in his last 3 starts. Let’s hope this effort continues in San Francisco.

Since I last wrote a blog, I traveled to New York to see the Indians lose 3 out of 4 in the Bronx, return home to see the Indians lose 2 out of 3 to rival Detroit and then sweep Pittsburgh at home, all while losing a beloved hitting coach yesterday while remaining in first place by 1 game over Detroit. It has been quite an adventure in the last 10 days. Now Colorado awaits.

A Bronx tale

My family arrived in Queens on Thursday. I was excited to be able to finally see Cleveland in NYC. At the time I planned the trip, it was April and the Indians were 18-8. The night of the trip, the Indians were coming off a very disappointing Minnesota series where they lost 2 out of 3 games. The Yankees were next.

Day 1 Friday New York: Indians lose 11-7.

This game was never close. In Spring Training, the Indians’s Manny Acta wanted his pitchers to throw strikes. This was not how Fausto started the game. The walks killed him. This team cannot afford to fall behind especially to the Yankees, especially with a struggling offense but this is exactly what they did.

There were Indians fans there. The ones I met had nothing that said they were Indians fans though. However, they came up to let me know how they felt that night and how proud they were of the team’s progress this year. I had a Yankees fan tell me “At least you are not wearing a Red Sox jersey.”

When I left after the bottom of the 8th inning, the Indians were down 11-3. It was wonderful when we got to the car when we turned on John Sterling that the Indians were still batting and scored their 7th run with a hit by LaPorta off Mariano Rivera. It gave me hope that perhaps the Indians were headed out of their funk.

Day 2 Saturday New York: Indians lose 4-0

The day in New York was filled with a cold constant rain. My family spent the morning going to a tour of Citi Field. Very nice. I met some people from Korea who were Shin-Soo Choo fans and really hope that Choo stay with the Indians. There are very nice people in NY that come out of the shadows to tell you how much they like Cleveland but would never admit it publically. By the end of the tour, the Indians were starting game 2 vs. Bartolo Colon.

The weather reminded me of “Dracula weather” as Acta likes to describe it. However, the Indians did not show up to haunt the Yankees. The emphasis from the Yankees point of view was that the Indians were targeting their hitters on purpose. Without warning Talbot, after hitting A-Rod , was ejected. What, no warning? It was crazy. I was on the subway when it occurred. No matter, because without an offense, we still would lose. Where was the fight? Where was the run support to help Talbot salvage this very good performance?

Day 3 Sunday New York: Indians lose 9-1

This game was over before it began. Garcia was beatable. However, I was starting to see the pressure that the Indians pitchers were putting on themselves. With no run support, they were trying to be too perfect. However against the Yankees, finding yourself down 1-0 every game was a great possibility. The Yankees like to pile on especially when they see that you are not trying to score yourself. I was wondering if the Indians were going to freefall their way down to their 4th place prognostication. At this point, it sure looked that way. Luckily Clevelanders enjoyed seeing the Mavs beat the Heat and Lebron James.

Day 4 Monday New York: Indians win 1-0

I was home. Back to work. I caught bits and pieces and score updates throughout the night for this game. The Indians’ last win happened in the same fashion. Carlos Carrasco pitched a shutout vs. the Twins, days earlier, and now was doing it again vs. the Yankees. It was very nice. Still I did not like the run support. 1 run for us in both of the Indians last two wins. This was crazy. And Detroit was next.

Day 5 Game 1 Tuesday Detroit: Indians lose 4-0

I understand I must be arguably watching the next AL Cy Young Award winner. Still, I have seen us do much better against Verlander than the 2 hits we managed late in the game. The man was piching a no-hitter against us for 7 1/3 innings. After the game I vented my frustration in a constructive way to Manny Acta that basically said that the team needs to support our pitchers more by scoring more runs. I could understand losing but I wanted the team to try harder to compete and possibly win.

Day 6 Game 2 Detroit: Indians win 6-4

My tweets worked. At least this is what my ego said. I was very leased that the Indians were not going to sit back and let a 3-0 deficit be their downfall. They came back to take a 4-3 lead. Although it became 4-4, I realized the team did not let the Tigers retake the lead. This was very important for Fausto and the team to help them regain their confidence. Also it gave the Tigers and Indians a tie for first place, again.

Day 7 Game 3 Detroit: Indians lose 6-2

The Indians started out the way you wish they did every game, with the lead 2-0. Yet to see them give right back up and let the Tigers tie it at two was discouraging. This loss was ugly. Still I was trying to find some hope in it. Instead of being down 3 games, the Indians were down by 1 game and headed for interleague play. I was really optimistic that the Indians with a return home and the Tigers going on the road that first place would be ours rather soon. I would soon be right.

Day 8 Game 1 Cleveland: Indians win 5-1 vs. Pirates

In Interleague play leading to this game, the Indians were 3-0. On Twitter, trends like to get going like #Batmagic. Well I wore my Green Bay Packers hat to bring some #hatmagic to the game. Against Pittsburgh, who won 4 in a row prior to the series. Their city’s love for football, in seeing Packers, I believed, would help the Indians. And it did.

The Indians, in a tight one, leading 2-1 for most of the game, broke it open in the bottom of the 8th, thanks to the return of Pronk hitting what looked like a homerun, even though it was a double as ruled by the umpires, even after a replay. Still 3 runs scored this inning. 2 of the runs scored on the Pronk double. The Indians were back playing well. To make matter even better, they were back in a tie for first.

Day 9 Game 2 Cleveland: Indians win 5-1 vs. Pittsburgh

This night I helped a fellow fan who was coming to town for the game. Since I had to work, I thought it would be nice to help someone out by letting them use the tickets for the game. There was going to be a post game concert with Donnie Iris from Pittsburgh and Michael Stanley from Cleveland after the game. The Indians never lost the lead in the game, leading 2-0, 3-1 and eventually winnng 5-1. Yet I never felt the excitement throughout the contest. I felt bored.

Now I think this would be shocking for the fans to read since Carrasco had a no-hitter through 5 innings. It just seemed like this offense was vanilla and needed a jumpstart, an identity. The next day, it would get one.

Day 10 Game 3 Cleveland: Indians win 5-2 vs. Pirates in 11 innings

Itwas truly a joy, as a baseball fan to take my family to the Indians game. It was Father’s Day and was really special. News came across the Twitter feed that Bruce Fields was the new hitting coach and Jon Nunnally was out. I was okay with this move because of the lack of runs and exciting hits. Also there were guys struggling like Cord Phelps. This change was going to help.

Already, after the news, the swings looked better, the offense looked sharper and my attitude about the team’s progress looked brighter. Cord Phelps and Carlos Santana alone looked like they appeciated this news as they led the team with 2 homeruns, 2 doubles and 4 runs batted in. It seemed to me that this team was ready to do great things. I hope Fields will help make this young team even better. We shall see.

The Cleveland Indians finished 1-6 on the current homestand. The Indians are 8-13 since May 18th, 2011. They were swept by the Rangers and lost 2 out of 3 to the last place Twins. These are the hard cold facts. You just have to follow Twitter and realize something is wrong. Less positive and more negative. Some people refuse to tweet since the team is struggling. So what shall we do, give up? I refuse to give up. I predicted Detroit would win the AL Central. The Indians I predicted would be 81-81. Both may still happen. However, I would like to say that to have this team where they are is amazing but how they got there is frustrating because of how it is perceived. If we started out 0-6 and now were 35-26 and 1/2 game in front for the best record as Boston is currently, we might feel ecstatic. However, Cleveland, who started out 18-8 at the end of April and now are 34-26, we feel it slipping away and act as though 90 losses are inevitable. This is how it was perceived by the media and many fans. Boston the best, Cleveland one of the worst So should we fans of the Cleveland Indians just accept this? Should we just hand Boston the AL title? Right now it looks as if this is inevitable, so why cheer? Why try? If we took this philosophy into everything we do and did, we would be hopeless. I am a man who is driven by faith, hope and love. I know that the Indians are driven too to believe. Otherwise 18 wins in April would not be possible. They are driven to hope that better times are ahead for the franchise. They are driven to love this team and support it as are us fans I understood losing to the AL Champion Rangers. What bothered me was losing to the Minnesota Twins. Now we head for New York and Detroit. I hope the Indians get back to the FUN da mentals and play 1 game at a time without worrying about the 1st place status. I think the Indians will do a lot better to do what got them to 18-8. A “Smart, fundamental, move the runner, score the run, pitch strikes, don’t walk runners, shut down the opponent with quality pitches” philosophy would do wonders for this team. This philosophy had doubters and the Indians were out to prove us doubters wrong in April. Now in June, these doubters are saying “I told you so.” They need to get back to proving doubters wrong and playing right, making every moment count. I leave for NYC later today and hope as I will see the Indians Friday what fight they can muster up. This road trip, I pray will make them better. I hope that the team’s soul can be resurrected and stay competitive. We shall see…

April was a time for the most wins in Indians franchise history (18). The Indians were surprising everyone and proving to be (01) in all of Major League Baseball. May (01) 2011, they had (19) and everyone was shocked. Now it is June (02) 2011 and the Indians are 33-21, still in first place, the best record in the major leagues by .004 percentage points. So I ask myself, why do I sense panic when we finished the greatest road trip on turf at 3-3 and lost last night and now are  just 4.5 games ahead of rival Detroit?

Our philosophy as a team was set by Acta when he said that the pitchers need to attack the strike zone. Yet yesterday, Indians pitching never recorded a strikeout. We need to play fundamental defense to win. Yet yesterday, the Indians had crucial errors that either scored the runs for Texas or led to more opportunities to hit the runners in allowing them to score.  Also, we sacrificed an early lead in the ballgame. These are things that never occur in our 33 wins.

Strikeouts

As a team the Indians were 10 in the AL with 147 total strikeouts earned. In May they were dead last in the AL with 151 total strikeouts. They are 5th total this month but with no strikeouts recorded last night, they could not gain ground on the teams that were off yesterday in this category. Overall for the entire year, they are tied for 13th out of 14 teams with 328. The team needs to get better at this if they want to continue to contend this year.

Errors

The errors and/or walks have allowed for the team to go from only allowing 3 unearned runs per month in April to 12 unearned runs per month in May to 4 unearned runs already these past two days in June. If this pace continues, the lead that Cleveland enjoys for the moment in the league and division will quickly evaporate.

Reasons for concern

The Indians pitchers began the 2011 season ending April with an 18-8 record and 6 saves with a 3.49 ERA for the month. In May, the Indians were 14-12 with 8 saves and a 4.05 ERA. In June, the team is already 1-1 with no saves and a 6.00 ERA.

These stats also show the  Indians’ offense had a league-leading .272 batting average, a .344 on-base percentage and a slugging percentage of .447 in April, all tops in the AL. In May, they fell to 11th  in the AL in batting average with a .248 batting average, 10th in on-base percentage with a .380 slugging percentage and 11th in on-base percentage reaching base at .314. In June so far, the Indians are 1st again in batting average at .321, 1st in on-base percentage at .382 but are only 3rd in the league in slugging percentage at .481.

These three areas highlighting pitching, defense and offense show why the Indians appear to struggle. They lost 1.5 games in the standings to Detroit from April to May and another half game to them already in June. Factor in also that we have yet to play them on the road where the Indians do not do as well and there is reason for concern.