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Do IT this week: Layering
Carmona is recipient of season-high totals in hits, runs in victory
By Sheldon Ocker
Beacon Journal sportswriter
Published on Friday, Apr 18, 2008
CLEVELAND: How does a baseball team find it's offense? Sounds like a topic for a doctoral dissertation or a subject that two guys in a bar might bicker about.
The Indians? They don't really care, as long as their attack is here to stay. At least for a while. Offense, defense, pitching — all of the game's elements — can be ephemeral things that come and go at the slightest provocation.
Nobody can say with any certainty why the Tribe suddenly emerged from its lethargy to slam the Detroit Tigers 11-1 Thursday night at Progressive Field.
The Indians had lost six of their past seven, and their hitters had been acting as though they were allergic to wood. So whatever kicked in was heartily welcomed by manager Eric
Wedge, who subjected his high-paid serfs to a lecture in the afternoon.
''Last night was as bad a game as I've seen since I've been here,'' said Ryan Garko of the 13-2 loss to the Tigers. ''If we didn't show something tonight, it would really have been bad. We are a better team than we showed last night.''
Apparently referring to the effect of the team meeting, Jason Michaels said, ''I thought today we came out with a little more fire and determination.''
Both the Tribe's run and hit (13) totals rank as season highs, surpassing the 10 runs and 12 hits the club amassed against the Chicago White Sox on Opening Day back on March 31.
''Our approach definitely was better tonight,'' said Wedge, who has hammered away at the value of going to the plate with the idea of getting a good pitch to hit and taking an aggressive swing. ''Almost to a man, we did a better job of putting up good at-bats. And individually, these guys should feed off that.''
It's not as if the Tribe took advantage of some poor rookie trying to make his mark in the big leagues. Maybe that was a good thing. As an example of how bad things have gone, Wednesday night, Tigers novice Armando Galarraga throttled the Indians for 62/3 innings, giving up two runs and one hit.
Thursday night, the Tigers starter was esteemed right-hander Justin Verlander (0-3, 7.03 ERA), who struggled some in his first three starts of the season but had no right to expect to be treated rudely by the Tribe.
Verlander gave up five runs and seven hits in five innings, but well-placed doubles — one by Franklin Gutierrez that hit the line in left and one by Casey Blake that skipped over the first-base bag — were the key blows that put the pitcher on the defensive in the three-run second.
The hardest hit Verlander gave up was Garko's two-run homer in the fifth. It seemed to set the tone for the next inning, when Zach Miner emerged from the Tigers bullpen and yielded five runs in the sixth inning.
''Hitting is weird,'' Garko said. ''You might be completely lost at the plate, but you put up a few good at-bats, and you're hitting again.''
Travis Hafner went the opposite way for his third home run of the season, clearing the high wall in left for a two-run shot, and Jamey Carroll doubled home one run and Michaels' single scored two more. Yes, that Michaels. Did you think he would hit .091 the entire season? Michaels broke loose for two singles, a sacrifice fly and three RBI, raising his average to .139.
''It's been frustrating,'' he said. ''I had some good at-bats and had some favorable results. But good at-bats — I can't stress that enough. You can't really control the hits.''
Fausto Carmona (2-1, 1.96 ERA) overcame a pitch-filled (30) but uneventful first to work 62/3 innings and allow one run on seven hits and only one walk. In his last start, Carmona was undone by allowing eight walks in 31/3 innings.
''Fausto set the tone,'' Wedge said. ''It was uncharacteristic of him to walk that many in his last start. He did a good job of making adjustments to get the ball back on the plate.''
In explaining his command problem, Carmona said, ''Coming from my last start, I was holding my arm away from my body. I had to make sure my arm stayed behind my body tonight.''
Carmona took part in the boys will be boys segment of the game by hitting two batters — Ramon Santiago and Gary Sheffield — to start the sixth inning. He struck Santiago with a breaking ball in the lower leg, but he nailed Sheffield with a fastball that drew warnings to both benches by umpire Jim Wolf, who by that time had witnessed four hit batters.
The first two — Garko (before the home run) and Michaels — ran the Tribe's league-leading total to 16 for the season. Bobby Seay hit Grady Sizemore as he led off the seventh inning to make it 17. Wolf let that one go because it was a breaking pitch.
''I'm not going to comment on any of that,'' Wedge said.
Going into Thursday night, only one other American League team was in double digits in hit batters: The Toronto Blue Jays with 11.
Sheldon Ocker can be reached at socker@thebeaconjournal.com.
CLEVELAND: How does a baseball team find it's offense? Sounds like a topic for a doctoral dissertation or a subject that two guys in a bar might bicker about.
Get the full article here.
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