Cleveland Indians

A.L. Central standings through Sunday, May 19: Team W L GB RS RA DIFF Cleveland 25 17 - 208 173 +35 Detroit 23 19 2 222 175 +47 Kansas City 20 20 4 171 157 +14 Chicago 19 23 6 155 170 -15 Minnesota 18 22 6 180 191 -11 The AL Central continues to be fairly closely bunched, bu the Tribe has pulled into a two-game lead. If you're the optimistic sort, Cool Standings (used by ESPN) now projects 93 wins the the Indians and gives them a 61% chance of making the playoffs. If you're the type who tempers their expectations, Fangraphs' advanced standings now projects 83 wins for the Indians, putting them 10 games back of Detroit and 2 games back of the second wildcard. Cleveland Indians (5-2) The Tribe started its week with a doubleheader against the Yankees. Justin Masterson pitched his second shutout of the season in the front end before the Indians feel in the nightcap. Next up were two games in Philadelphia. The first was a 6-2 loss, the third straight game in which the Tribe scored 2 runs or fewer, but the bats bounced back Thursday, propelling the team to a 10-4 win with home runs by Mike Aviles, Nick Swisher, and Jason Kipnis. The weekend brought three games back at home against the Mariners (with a fourth coming Monday afternoon). Friday night one of the biggest crowds of the season Kipnissed a walk-off home run in the 10th inning after Ubaldo Jimenez struck out 9 (though lasting just 5 innings). Saturday brought another walk-off win, but this one was only made possible by Chris Perez, who allowed to home runs in the 9th that tied the game. That cost Zach "Rough and Ready" McAllister the win, but we're all smart enough to know that doesn't matter. On Sunday the Tribe sparred us all any drama, as the offense got to Felix Hernandez early, making him the team's 7th Cy Young winning pelt on the young season. Masterson pitched another 7 shutout innings, striking out 11. The Indians are now on a 17-4 tear, their hottest 21-game stretch since late in the 2007 season and it's now been over a month since they lost a series. This is the baseball. Player of the Week: Justin Masterson (2 starts, 16 innings, 20 strikeouts, 0.00 ERA, 0.75 WHIP) Player of the Weak: Mark Reynolds (.120/.214/.280, 8 strikeouts) Detroit Tigers (3-4) The Tigers hosted the Astros. They won Monday's game 7-2 behind a strong performance by Anibal Sanchez and home runs by Victor Martinez and Andy Dirks, and again Tuesday, on the strength of Doug Fister's solid outing. On Wednesday, after winning their first 6 games of the season against Houston, Detroit finally dropped one, still giving them a 2-1 series win. Next came 4 games in Texas to face the Rangers. Justin Verlander was roughed up for the second straight start and didn't survive the 3rd inning of Thursday's loss. The Tigers split the next two contests, with Rick Porcello pitching well and Sanchez pitching poorly. In Sunday's finale the Tigers looked poised to earn a series split, twice taking a two-run lead, but each time they squandered the advantage, eventually falling 11-8. Miguel Cabrera went 4 for 4 on Sunday, including 3 home runs. Since joining the Tigers in 2008 he leads the AL in hits, home runs, runs, RBI, and OPS. Player of the Week: Miguel Cabrera (.429/.484/.964, 12 hits, 4 HR, 7 R, 7 RBI) Player of the Weak: Alex Avila (.063/.200/.063, 4 strikeouts, 1 hit all week) Kansas City Royals (2-4) The Royals spent the week in California, beginning with three games against the Angels. K.C. banged out 19 hits in the opener, a 11-4 win highlighted by 5 hits from Billy Butler. After dropping the second game, the Royals bounced back to win the rubber match and take the series. Next they rode of the Pacific Coast Highway (okay, they probably flew) to Oakland. The A's had won just 2 of their previous 10 games (including a 4-game sweep at the hands of the Indians), but Kansas City couldn't solve them and scored just 5 r

Matt Moore improved to 8-0 by holding the Orioles to 1 run over 7 innings. They must be wondering how good they'd be if David Price didn't stink so far this year. Miguel Cabrera hit 3 homers yesterday. Lots of hyperbole came along with this. But here's what matters to us: The Tigers lost. So the Indians have a 2-game lead on the Tigers. And are thus on pace to beat the Tigers by 7 games in the division race. The Rangers DL'd Ian Kinsler and called up Jurickson Profar to take his place. See, people who panicked that Texas had no room for everybody: These things sort themselves out. The Twins lost their 5th straight game. Obviously, their early-season adequacy wasn't going to last.

Regardless of what the Tigers did against the Rangers on Sunday Night Baseball, YOUR Cleveland Indians were coming into this week in first place of the AL Central and the hottest team in baseball. They've got one more left against the Mariners, and win or lose, they're going to welcome Detroit into Cleveland as the leaders of the AL Central for a first place show down. Is this what it's going to be all summer? Because it sure as heck looks like it. Detroit and Cleveland look like the class of the Central right now. Kansas City looks okay and they may be in it, but the way the Indians look? Detroit and Cleveland could be taking this one to September. Photo - AP via Yahoo! Sports First things first of course. There's this little matter of Eric Wedge's Seattle Mariners, who are one game away from being swept in four games. MARINERS - 0 | INDIANS - 6 W: Justin Masterson (7-2) L: Felix Hernandez (5-3) [BOXSCORE] In his past three starts now, Justin Masterson has had ONE bad inning. Seriously, go back to his start against Oakland, and other than a fourth inning in which he gave up a bunch of singles that scored three runs, Masterson has been untouchable. Date back to that fifth inning against Oakland and he's gone 19 straight scoreless spanning that game, the shutout against the Yankees, and yesterday's excellent start against the Mariners. Sunday's game also marked the fourth game Masterson has pitched where he has gone seven innings and hasn't given up a run. He has two complete game shutouts to his name this season and two more of those starts and in both he has struck out eight. I mean coming into this year, he has had one complete game shutout, and now he has two. Oh and the most impressive stat of Masterson's 2013 season thus far? He's 3-0 pitching in games with former Cy Young winners. If he keeps this up, he's going to add that title to his resume. He is now in the company of seven game winners in Major League Baseball, and has his ERA below 3.00. He's pitched more innings than anyone in the game and who would have thought, but he's third in the AL in strikeouts. He came just one shy of his career high of 12 in just seven innings against the Mariners. In fact, it was his first double digit strikeout game since he struck out 12 in nine innings against the White Sox in his last start of 2009, the year he arrived in Cleveland. He was absolutely brilliant and incredibly fun to watch. Little traffic on the base-paths, lots of strikeouts, and he did it all in just over 100 pitches. "When you're going against Felix, and there's not one guy in the clubhouse that didn't think we had a chance to win, that's a pretty big compliment to Masty," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "From the very first pitch of the game, he came out firing. And he not only was firing, but he was pitching. He was using both sides of the plate. He was using the two-seamer, four-seamer, throwing the breaking ball to both sides of the plate. He just kept going up, down, in, out and just worked ahead." And in the credit where credit is due department, the most impressive thing about this particular start? The Mariners filled their lineup with left-handers against him. Only three were hitting right-handed and they were mostly towards the bottom of the lineup. With a few switch-hitters, the Mainers were able to load up on Masterson's kryptonite. That didn't matter in this one though and that is a supreme credit to Masterson. Of course we can't credit Masty without crediting the offense that has been bashing these Cy Young pitchers. They made Felix Hernandez look completely ordinary. They worked him from the get-go, and chased him after five innings. He hasn't gone fewer than six innings all year, he hasn't given up more than four earned runs since June of last year. It was his shortest outing since May of last year. This guy rarely goes out and doesn't give you a quality start. And the Indians made him look like

May 20 W L T Pct All-Time 57 43 0 .570 Home 35 22 0 .614 Road 22 21 0 .512 Extra Innings 1 4 .200 Double Headers 3 2 4 - Monday 6 4 0 .600 Tuesday 8 5 0 .615 Wednesday 7 6 0 .538 Thursday 5 7 0 .417 Friday 8 7 0 .533 Saturday 10 6 0 .625 Sunday 13 8 0 .619 Orioles/Browns 6 3 0 .667 Red Sox 11 4 0 .733 White Sox 3 1 0 .750 Tigers 4 5 0 .444 Royals 4 3 0 .571 Angels 1 2 0 .333 Brewers 1 1 0 .500 Twins/Senators 6 8 0 .429 Yankees 10 3 0 .769 Athletics 9 5 0 .643 Mariners 0 2 0 .000 Rangers 0 1 0 .000 Blue Jays 0 2 0 .000 Reds 2 1 0 .667 Marlins 0 1 0 .000 Pirates 0 1 0 .000 The interesting stat about this day isn't the sparkling .570 winning percentage. It has to be that the Pythag for this date is only .515. Now normally that wouldn't be too crazy, but also taking into account that the Indians have broken double digits nine times while their opponents have only done it six times. So the disparity isn't from a random amount of blowout losses. The longest winning streak was six games from 1963 to 1970. And we have yet to beat Seattle on this date. In 1937, the Indians smacked around the Red Sox in Fenway by a 16-5 tally. Johnny Marcum started for the Sawx and allowed one in the first and two more in the second, getting pulled in favor of Fritz Ostermuller who allowed two more. Johnny Allen was unable to protect the 5-0 lead, giving up four in the bottom of the third, with Willis Hudlin relieving him. Ostermuller was mostly effective until the seventh, where he gave up three more runs. Heading into the top of the eighth, the Indians led 9-4, but exploded for seven more runs off of Archie McKain and Ted Olson. The hitting star for the day was shortstop Lyn Lary, going three for six, three runs, three RBI, two triples and a double. Jeff Heath drove in four while also going three for six with a triple. Third baseman Roy Hughes was three for three with four runs scored and two stolen bases. Hudlin pitched 6.1 strong innings, scattering six hits, the lone blemish a Pinky Higgins homer. Hudlin himself went two for three with a stolen base. May 21 W L T Pct All-Time 51 46 0 .526 Home 31 21 0 .596 Road 20 25 0 .444 Extra Innings 8 2 .800 Double Headers 1 2 3 - Monday 5 3 0 .625 Tuesday 8 7 0 .533 Wednesday 9 5 0 .643 Thursday 5 7 0 .417 Friday 8 6 0 .571 Saturday 7 9 0 .438 Sunday 9 9 0 .500 Orioles/Browns 5 4 0 .556 Red Sox 8 8 0 .500 White Sox 0 3 0 .000 Tigers 2 5 0 .286 Royals 5 1

The Juice returns for season No. 6! It’s almost eligible for free-agency! Stop by daily for news from the action, along with great photos, stats, video highlights and more. Miguel Cabrera doesn’t exactly need to remind us that he’s really, really good at hitting baseballs. Coming into Sunday’s game against the Texas Rangers, the reigning AL MVP and Triple Crown winner, already led baseball in batting average and RBIs. With an other-worldly display Sunday, the Detroit Tigers slugger showed why he’s a Triple Crown candidate again. He hit three homers, going 4-for-4 and driving in five runs. He now has 11 home runs, which is one behind the AL lead. But here’s the reality check: The Tigers still lost to the Rangers 11-8 in a matchup that many think we could see again come playoff time. The Rangers have the best record in baseball at 29-15, while the Tigers are in second in the AL Central at 23-19, behind the surging Cleveland Indians. View full post on Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Cleveland Indians News

The Indians roughed up yet another Cy Young winner en route to an easy 6-0 victory. Current Series Indians lead the series 2-0 Fri 05/17 WP: Vinnie Pestano (1 - 0) LP: Lucas Luetge (0 - 1) 6 - 3 win Sat 05/18 WP: Chris Perez (2 - 0) LP: Oliver Perez (1 - 1) 5 - 4 win Seattle Mariners Lookout Landing @ Cleveland Indians Let's Go Tribe Sunday, May 19, 2013, 1:05 PM EDT Progressive Field TV: ROOT-HD (SEA)/STO-HD (CLE)/MLB.TV (FREE TODAY) RADIO: KIRO (SEA)/WTAM (CLE)/MLB Audio Felix Hernandez vs Justin Masterson Partly cloudy. Winds blowing out to left field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 80. Complete Coverage > Mon 05/20 12:05 PM EDT Pre-Game Reading Material Series Preview: Seattle Mariners - May 17-20 Mariners at Indians Series Preview: Q&A with Let's Go Tribe - I answer some questions from Lookout Landing's Jon Shields. Latest News #Indians expect RHP Daisuke Matsuzaka to be pitching again for Columbus within a month. He's been out since April 28 with strained oblique. — Tom Withers (@twithersAP) May 19, 2013 Today's Lineups Cleveland Seattle CF Michael Bourn CF Michael Saunders 2B Jason Kipnis 2B Dustin Ackley LF Michael Brantley 3B Kyle Seager 1B Nick Swisher DH Kendrys Morales DH Jason Giambi RF Mike Morse C Carlos Santana DH Raul Ibanez 3B Mark Reynolds 1B Justin Smoak SS Mike Aviles C Jesus Montero RF Drew Stubbs SS Brendan Ryan Asdrubal Cabrera is geting the day off (I presume), as Mike Aviles is a lifetime 6-for-14 against King Felix.

May 19, 2013 Indians 6, Mariners 0 Chapter 42: Just another Cy Young victory When the 2013 season began, there were seven pitchers in the AL who had won a Cy Young at some point in their careers. After today, the Indians have faced six of them (R.A. Dickey, David Price, Jake Peavy, Justin Verlander, Bartolo Colon, Felix Hernandez), with only CC Sabathia left unfaced. In addition, they've faced Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee during Interleague Play. So they've faced in total eight former Cy Young winners, in other words, about one every week this season. Counting today, they've won seven out those eight matchups, with Jake Peavy the lone loss. Today might have been the most impressive of the lot. Felix Hernandez came into the game today the league leader in ERA at 1.53, and hadn't given up more than two runs in a game since April 11th. The Indians scored two runs in the first inning, and three runs in the second. Terry Francona before the game, when asked about how to attack King Felix, said that you had make him work as much as possible so that perhaps you could get him out of the game by the seventh inning. Hernandez has not only great rate stats, but he's gone seven or more innings in five out of his nine starts, and hadn't gone fewer than six innings in a start this season. Well, by the time the second inning was over with, Felix Hernandez had thrown over 60 pitches. The tone was set from the first at-bat of the game. Bourn lined a single through the middle, then took second when the Seattle outfielders didn't charge the ball quickly. Hernandez struck out Jason Kipnis, leaving Bourn at second base, but Michael Brantley, who was batting third because Asdrubal Cabrera was given a day off, dumped a single into shallow right field to plate the first run of the game. Mike Morse foolishly threw directly to home plate on the play, allowing Brantley to go to second. That overthrow came back to haunt the Mariners, because when Nick Swisher's grounder went under Justin Smoak's glove, Brantley was able to score the Tribe's second run. The Indians didn't score again that inning, but Hernandez would have to throw 15 more pitches to finally retire the Indians. The second inning started much better for Hernandez, as the first two Tribe hitters grounded out. But Michael Bourn reached on an infield single, Jason Kipnis added a single of his own, and Michael Brantley blasted a three-run homer to right-center to essentially blow the game open. That three-run shot blew the game open because Justin Masterson was once again dominating. He wasn't quite as dominating as his last outing against the Yankees, as there were many fly balls and line drives hit on the day. But he was missing bats, too, and by the time he left the mound after the top of the seventh inning he had struck out 11 batters, many of them left-handed batters. The Indians would tack on the final run of the game on another hustle play. In the fourth inning, Mike Aviles hit a double down the left field line, and when home plate was left unoccupied after Drew Stubbs hit a dribbler, he jumped on the opportunity, scoring the Tribe's sixth run off Hernandez . With the victory the Indians are now eight games above .500 and will spend another day in sole possession of first place. This hot streak is now three weeks old, and since that second game of the doubleheader in Kansas City, the Indians have gone an astounding 17-4. Source: FanGraphs Roll Call (41 Commenters) Game Thread (531 Comments) # Commenter # Comments 1 tgriffith1992 84 2 johnf34 64 3 PyroKinesis 37 4 westbrook 27 5 CLEinAZ 24 6 Matt Y. 24 7 Danieldelamaiz 22 8 9James 21 9 JulioBernazard 20 10 Ockus_NYC 18 11 kendaru.geter 17 12 profdlp 17 13 Chief Wahoo 14 14 27ftBaja 13 15 Gradyforpresident 13 16 Heavysoviet 13 17 Pa tribefan 11 18 notthatnoise 9 19 Brick. 8 20 Lo

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Indians expect right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka to be pitch again in the minor leagues within the next month after an oblique injury sidelined him. View full post on Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Cleveland Indians News

Previous Minor-League Updates April 6-12 • April 13-19 • April 20-26 (PTM) • April 27-May 3 May 4-10 • May 11-17 Permanent Prospect That Matters post PTM Update Stats are either major-league stats (if the player is presently in the majors) or overall minor-league stats (if the player is presently in the minors). Rule 5 picks TJ McFarland and Hector Rondon's major-league stats are with Baltimore and Chicago (NL), respectively. Position Players Age Position/Player Level PA BA/OBP/SLG OPS 2B HR SO BB 25 C/IF Yan Gomes MLB 50 .271/.280/.521 .801 2 2 6 1 24 SS Juan Diaz AAA 151 .206/.253/.319 .572 7 3 42 8 23 1B Jesus Aguilar AA 164 .248/.311/.362 .673 5 4 39 14 21 SS Ronny Rodriguez AA 160 .217/236/.329 .565 5 2 26 3 21 3B Giovanny Urshela AA 134 .297/.321/.422 .743 8 2 17 5 20 2B Jose Ramirez AA 150 .246/.311/.291 .602 1 1 14 13 21 C/2B Tony Wolters A+ 41 .200/.268/.257 .525 2 0 12 4 19 SS Francisco Lindor A+ 183 .327/397/.459 .856 10 1 16 18 20 CF Luigi Rodriguez A+/A- 166 .264/.341/.361 703 9 1 17 5 18 SS Dorssys Paulino A- 140 .205/.279/.227 .507 3 0 26 12 Jose Ramirez is back off the DL and back hitting like he had before: lots of singles, excellent bat control, and almost zero power. Diaz and Rodriguez both continue to struggle at AAA and AA, but Francisco Lindor is treating the Carolina like high school. Lindor now has more walks than strikeouts. He and Texas prospect Rougned Odor (nephew of Tribe minor-league hitting instructor Rouglas Odor) are the only teenagers in the Top 40 in OPS in the Carolina League. Dorssys Paulino is still struggling in Lake County, but his decent SO/BB ratio gives me hope. Tony Wolters will re-join the Mudcats today as a full-time catcher, so it should be interesting to see how his hitting is affected by the posistion switch. Geovanny Urshela has far outpaced the other members of the Akron infield on offense. He's not having any problems making contact against AA pitchers, but it would be nice to see some more walks. Pitchers Age Role/Player Level IP G ERA H/9 SO/9 BB/9 25 RP Cody Allen MLB 19.1 17 2.33 7.0 11.2 2.8 25 RP Hector Rondon (5) MLB 15.2 13 4.60 6.9 6.3 4.6 24 RP TJ McFarland* (5) MLB 18.1 9 2.95 10.3 9.8 2.9 25 RP Scott Barnes* AAA 14.0 11 6.43 9.0 10.3 5.1 23 SP TJ House* AAA/AA 51.2 9 4.35 9.1 8.5 2.6 22 SP Trevor Bauer AAA 24.2 4 2.55 5.5 11.3 3.6 22 RP Giovanni Soto* AAA 7.0 7 5.14 7.7 6.4 7.7 23 RP Trey Haley AA 10.1 8 3.48 7.0 9.6 9.6 23 SP Danny Salazar AAA/AA 38.2 8 2.33 6.8 13.0 3.0 22 RP Shawn Armstrong (DL) AA 5.2 6 6.35 12.7 9.5 4.8 19 SP Mitch Brown (DL) A- 15.2 5 11.49 12.1 10.3 6.3 Not many changes here, except that Giovanni Soto is off the DL, giving the Columbus bullpen three quality left-handed relievers. In fact, most of the best pitching prospects (or non-prospects, as in Carlos Carrasco) are on the Columbus pitching staff. Three-fifths of the current Columbus rotation (Trevor Bauer, TJ House, and Danny Salazar) are on this list. Cody Allen will probably graduate from the PTM when it's revisited in June, as he now has 48.1 major-league innings pitched. PTM uses the MLB rules for rookie status, and pitchers lose rookie status once they reach 50 innings pitched (or 45 days of non-September service time). Prospects That Might Matter Update I'll be revisiting the PTM list at the end of May, when there's enough of a 2013 sample to make any kind of judgment. But until then, here's a list of the prospects not currently a PTM who meets the age criteria, along with some prospects that are producing but need a promotion to make the list (in italics): Columbus (25 and younger) C Chris

Last Night's Game MLB Final Score/Recap: Cleveland Indians 5, Seattle Mariners 4 - Let's Go Tribe Cleveland Indians survive 9th-inning blown save to beat Seattle, 5-4 | cleveland.com Seattle Mariners at Cleveland Indians - May 18, 2013 | MLB.com CLE Recap Thanks to Detroit's loss in Texas last night, the Indians start today in sole possession of first place. And not only that, but every other team in the AL Central lost as well. Here's the standings: AL Central Standings W L PCT GB STRK Cleveland 24 17 .585 0 Won 3 Detroit 23 18 .560 1 Lost 1 Kansas City 20 19 .512 3 Lost 2 Chicago 19 22 .463 5 Lost 1 Minnesota 18 21 .461 5 Lost 4 (updated 5.19.2013 at 9:32 AM EDT) This next stretch of the Indians' schedule is particularly nasty, as it involves road trips to places that have traditionally been very difficult for the Indians. Between now and the middle of June, the Indians make their annual visits to Boston, Cincinnati (part of a 4-game "home-and-home" series), New York, and Texas, along with five more games against Tigers and home series against the Rays and Nationals. By the end of June, they'll just about be done playing the AL East (there's a home series against Toronto in July and a home series against Baltimore in September). So we'll have a really good idea about just how good this Indians club is by the official start of summer. Other Indians News Terry Pluto's Cleveland Indians Blog: Starting pitching and other scribbles about the hot Tribe | cleveland.com This hot streak has been fueled by not only the offense getting on a roll, but the rotation as well. The team's top four starters (Masterson/McAllister/Jimenez/Kazmir) have all been outstanding since that second game of the Kansas City doubleheader, and Corey Kluber, the starter who began that great stretch of pitching, has been very good filling in for Brett Myers. Speaking of Myers, he'll make one more start in the minors, and if the elbow feels good afterwards, will be activated probably during the Reds "home-and-home" series the week of the 27th. That would give Kluber at least one more start with the Indians. Carlos Santana’s Coming Out Party | WaitingForNextYear Jon looks at Carlos Santana's great start. Highly-touted prospect Wolters transitioning to catcher | indians.com: News Tony Wolters has just appeared in a few minor-league games this season, but it's not because he's been hurt. Wolters has been learning a new position, the most difficult position to learn in baseball: catcher. After some time in Arizona and a recent one-day trip to Cleveland, he's going to re-join Carolina today as a regular catcher. In the piece Bastian gives the background behind how the decision was made from both management and player's perspective: During Spring Training, Indians manager Terry Francona mentioned to Cash that Wolters -- a semi-regular fill-in during the late innings of Cactus League games -- reminded him of Tigers catcher Alex Avila in terms of his body type, hands and demeanor. Francona waited before bringing it up in a meeting that included general manager Chris Antonetti and vice president of player development Ross Atkins. "It took me a while to make the decision," Wolters said. "They put it in my hands, and I told them I'd do it, whatever makes it faster to what my end goal is. I was just glad that Terry saw that in me. We'll see how it goes, but I'm excited." If this works out, the Indians will have themselves a very nice prospect. Wolters is still only 21 years old (in baseball age), and was before the transition one of the better hitting prospects in the minors. AL Central News Remembering Fred White - Royals Review Longtime Royals broadcaster Fred White passed away last week, and Craig Brown penned a very nice tribute to him. Right on Q: The White Sox and "Star Trek" - South Side Sox In honor of this weekend's Star Trek premiere, S