Friday, April 20, 2007

Reliving the Indians game
With everything going on in the world today, in the grand scheme of things, yesterday's Indians game doesn't mean much.
I want to get that out of the way first, because we do, as sportswriters, have a tendency to overstate things.
Yesterday's Indians loss was embarrassing. But it was not tragic.
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In the blur of what happened in the ninth inning, there wasn't much to write about last night. In order to understand the blown save, I re-watched the ninth inning today.
Some thoughts:
-Originally, I was hard on Eric Wedge for not ordering a walk to Alex Rodriguez. A day later, I don't think it would have mattered. The bottom line was Joe Borowski didn't have it. The last pitch he threw to Rodriguez could have been hit out of the park by any hitter in the majors.
It was down the middle on a 1-0 count. So many of Borowski's pitches in the ninth inning were that way.
The batter after Rodriguez was Jason Giambi, the (as Tom Hamilton said) ehhhemm, weight lifter.
Giambi has outstanding numbers against Borowski, and would have gotten a hit. Maybe he would have lined out, but the odds would be in his favor.
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As bad as it was, I'm not going to sound the alarm on Borowski. Unlike Fausto Carmona, Borowski has been a closer before, and has succeeded in the role. He'll be fine.

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1 Comments:

At 3:11 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

There seems to have been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over that loss. Maybe because it came against the Yankees. It even drove Bill Livingston to write a nice, long, bellyaching column about the Indians' shortcomings today.

While I do think Wedge should not have let A-Rod beat his team in that instance, even at the risk of a Jason Giambi grand slam, I also realize that (pardon my French) shit happens over the span of 162 games.

The Indians went into the Bronx and had their heads handed to them. At least it happened in April and not September.

I think the most important games are in Tampa Bay. They need to win (better yet, sweep) this series. A good showing in Tampa and Minnesota will erase the Bronx pummeling.

I know it all adds up in the end, and that series hurts, but the same thing will happen to the Tigers, Twins and White Sox at some point.

 

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