Indians pitching from top to bottom continues to shine.
Yesterday afternoon I was scouting Tyler Chatwood on YouTube and saw that he had a pretty good sinker and wondered if the Indians would not benefit from going up against a rookie. Luckily, I was wrong. The more I read about Chatwood as impressive as he looked and was on the Angels' depth chart, the more I remembered Cleveland Indians' history.
It was 1986 and a highly touted prospect of the Indians was then Greg Swindell. He was called up to make his debut against the 1986 Boston Red Sox. That team kicked Greg "the Flounder" around and won 23-5 by sitting primarily on a fastball. Back to the present day, it was Tyler Chatwood's debut. On the radio, the play by play announcer, Tom Hamilton, said that while the Indians did not have a deep scouting report on Chatwood, the hitting coach prepared the batter by telling them to sit on the fastball. They did sit on the fastball and took full advantage of it to run their winning streak to 8 games and an 8-2 start.
Asdrubal Cabrera started off the scoring with a homerun to deep center field to make it 1-0. Austin Kearns hit a double off the wall at right field to score Orlando Cabrera who hit a line drive single to centerfield to start the offensive onslaught in the second inning. Matt LaPorta added a two run shot to right field that scored hin and Kearns. Now the score was 4-0 and a rout seemed to be in place especially with the starting pitching that the Indians have been showing so far in 2011. However, there would be no more scoring. 4-0 was the final score.
Tonight, the Indians will go against Dan Haren, who I always have seen as a true threat, a true ace. The Indians however, with an eight game streak are meeting the challenges they face with such professionalism. On paper, they still are young, inexperienced and yes, shocking even me. Hopefully Fausto Carmona is up to the task of keeping the team in the game and the offense can do well to score just enough. This one can only hope.
On the lower end in A ball, the Lake County Captains, a Cleveland Indians affiliate pitched a no hitter. Three pitchers Trey Haley, Francisco Jimenez and Clayton Ehlert combined for the first no hitter in minor league baseball for 2011 against the Dayton, Ohio Dragons, an affliate of the Cincinnati Reds. The game was the first one at home for the Captains since winning last year's Midwest League Championship. What a homecoming it was. To read the article go here. Things are rally getting exciting as the Cleveland Indians are adding much needed depth.
