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What a great game last night!! Every at bat, every pitch and every play was intense. Miller struggled a little. Allen struggled a little. But, the game ended with the right team having the better score. Go Tribe!! Beat those Jays!!

Friday @ 8PM is Game 1 vs Toronto. I'm assuming Kluber starts this one.

Home field advantage throughout!

When you're wrong, you're wrong and I was wrong about demise of Cleveland Indians

By Paul Hoynes, cleveland.com
Email the author
on October 11, 2016 at 1:41 AM, updated October 11, 2016 at 1:43 AM

BOSTON – Corey Kluber walked up to me Monday night in the Indians clubhouse at Fenway Park, poured a beer over my head and said, "Thanks."


I knew what he meant, but he was definitely thanking the wrong guy. He should have been thanking himself and his teammates for sweeping the Boston Red Sox in the American League Division Series.


On Sept. 17, I said the Indians were done. I said their postseason dreams were over before they began. I wrote that after watching Carlos Carrasco walk off the mound with a broken right hand. Carrasco's injury followed the loss of Danny Salazar on Sept. 9 to a right forearm injury.


When a contender loses its No.2 and No.3 starters in September, any plans for an extended stay in October are more fantasy than fact.


I believed that when I wrote it, but I was wrong.


I said the Indians would win the AL Central, but that was it. There was no way they'd advance past the best-of-five American League Division Series. Not when they'd be facing powerhouses such as the Red Sox or Rangers.


Well, the Indians just swept the favored Red Sox in three straight games. As for the Rangers, they went down in three straight against the wild-card Blue Jays. Now it's the Indians vs. Toronto in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series starting Friday at Progressive Field.

The Indians, as they did in the ALDS, will have home field advantage.


As you can imagine, the Indians weren't pleased with what I wrote. Some of them still aren't.


Near the end of Monday's celebration, Jason Kipnis said, "Will you at least admit you were wrong?"


I told him I was wrong.


But I don't for a minute think that what I wrote had an affect on how the Indians played. Reporters who cover baseball teams can aggravate those teams. They can make life miserable for them. But they cannot determine if they win and lose games.


If the Indians think otherwise, they're shortchanging themselves. I underestimated them, but they shouldn't underestimate themselves. This is a good team with a good manager and coaching staff. It's a team that's going to get better as well.


In my mind, however, there was no way they could win a postseason series with the losses of Carrasco and Salazar. That was before Kluber came out of Sept. 26 start in Detroit after four innings with a strained right quadriceps muscle.


But the rotation of Trevor Bauer, Kluber and Josh Tomlin did just fine. It helped that they were backed by a killer bullpen and an offense that outscored and outmuscled a Red Sox team that led the big leagues in runs scored during the regular season.


In the end I don't need a beer poured over my head to remind I was wrong. I would have much rather drank it, but I get the point that was being made.

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index...e_wrong_a.html

I have been very impressed w/Francona. He's been doing a great job w/the pitching staff and implements small ball.

I think Coco's sacrifice bunt was the key play in the game.

I love the SS---Lindor. Is he a highly regarded player?

I also have a question about the right fielder, Chisenhall. He seems to handle the bat okay and he hasn't dropped any balls, but man, it sure looks like almost every catch he makes is an adventure. He starts the wrong way, gets off-balance, and then makes a late stab at the ball. Is this typical of his play in RF? How is he regarded as a fielder?

Oh........and Red Sox catcher. I think his name is Leon. What was up w/him staring down our pitchers in every game after he struck out? It was cracking me up.

Extremely intense there at the end. Extremely!

GO TRIBE! sweeeeep!

game 1 on friday at 8 correct?

Yes! It is. Go Tribe!!

Anyone watch the Cubs/Giants game last night? Wow, crazy intense game. Arrieta takes Bumgarner deep, Giants make their comeback in the 8th off Chapman, Bryant ties it up off a car in the 9th, each team was running out of pitchers and position players and then it ends on back-to-back doubles in the 13th. I finally went to bed around 2:15am.

I still think the Cubs have this series.....unless the Giants win today. We'll see.

Thanks. Do you know the full schedule?

Also, this would be the 2nd conference/league finals in a row with teams from Cleveland and Toronto. If you remember, the Cavs beat the Raptors 4-2 in late May.

It's too bad Toronto doesn't have an NFL team.

Look at Grateful's post.

Fri
Sat
Mon
Tue
Wed
Fri
Sat

Also an outside chance of San Francisco making the World Series too.

Ha ha ha, hadn't thought about that as well.

Amen! A real nail biter. I am impressed with these guys. Like Major League flashbacks
LOLetc. when i watch. Hope we get a jump on this series as well.

Go, Tribe! Might as well win it all . . . .

As tough as the Red Sox lineup was, Toronto's might be tougher. Donaldson, Bautista, Encarnacion, Tulowitski, Upton, Smoak, et al, will provide lots of white knuckle innings for our staff, and fans. Plus, we might need to come up with a 4th starter - Clevinger?

Lindor was runner up for rookie of the year last year. He was a high draft pick for us and one of our top farm prospects. If I remember correctly his scouting report was good contact hitter, will hit for good avg, average power and fielding was suppose to be compared to Omar Viszquel. He's one of the top young SS's in the game. He was hitting the ball all year till he went into a hitting slump (I think in Sept) and went 0 for 20, 21...in that area.




I watched part of the first half and most games of the second half, I don't remember Lonnie running around as much as he did this series. I'm pretty sure he's top 5 for his position in right field with one of the better arms at that spot.

I don't know what was up with the BoSox catcher, I got the same vibe with his at bats.

Lindor

Just looked up an article on Lindor for u Vers

I didn't read the article, but I will say that we saw 2 SS in this series who many people feel are 1 and 1A in all of MLB. (Lindor and Bogaurts)

Tulowitzki the Blue Jays SS is pretty good too.

The BoSox had a lot of annoying habits. Their closer trying to look like a vulture before every pitch. Pedroia going ballistic when the umps correctly called strikes on him. The crowd howling on every ball a foot off the plate because it wasn't a called strike, etc.

Quick trivia question:

If the Indians reach the World Series, how has Kluber already helped the Indians chances to win the Series?

Answer in next post.

He won the All-Star game giving the AL team the World Series home field advantage.

And that could be economically significant also. (Possibly 4 WS games in Cleveland)

Also 4 games with a DH?

forgot about the AS game ... cool stat

j/c:


https://twitter.com/twithersAP/status/785924035657895936

Possibly 4 WS games in Toronto. It reads so much better my way...

Thanks for answering my questions. I haven't watched MLB for years. I mean, I went to one game a year because my brother wanted me to....LOL and I perhaps caught an inning or two here or there, but I am completely lost on who all these guys are.

I appreciate you trying to educate me. Lindor is an impressive player. I only watched those three games, but he kinda stood out. Has a ton of tools. The RF dude.........maybe it was just a fluke and the balls had a lot of spin on them, that happens when right handers hit to RG at times.

Oh, and Boston's catcher............LMAO. Dude was tripping me out. He would strike out, stop and stare at our pitchers like they sucked and he was trying to intimidate them. Bizarre. I have never seen a guy go that extreme before.

I have one more question---for now. LOL....

What about our second baseman? I can't remember his name. But, he seemed like a pretty tough player. Not the same talent as Lindor, obviously, but he seems like a gritty, solid player.........the kind of guy who helps you win. Can someone give me some feedback on him, please?

Allen struggled A LOT!!!! He got behind in almost every count and as the bases became crowded, he got backed into throwing some very hitable pitches and lucky for him he got away with them.. a single and a couple of very hard hit outs.

Hopefully having gone through that and coming out with the W will help him relax next time because we are going to need him. I thought for sure he was channeling his inner Jose Mesa..

Jason Kipnis, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. I know we drafted him from ASU. Going off memory, he was drafted as an outfielder. Hit for around .300 in the minors for us and we converted him to 2b. I don't remember if he played that in college or not. Was projected for good contact hitter with some projected pop. Has above average speed for the bases.

Now for us the past few years he's been one of our best players for the things you saw. Had a couple nice years and was one of the top at his position. The past couple years he's had a few injuries that has shortened his seasons. This year he's been healthy and putting up great numbers on the offensive side. On defense, he's above average, good to decent range. He's had a couple trips to the All Star game for us.
Having Lindor and him in the middle is a very solid combo. One of our very popular players among our fans.


I know the announcers were saying it was windy and the sun was making it tough. But he was even doing it on the liners. It's something that maybe I didn't notice during the season or maybe just playoff jitters.

Speaking of the announcers, I know theres a lot of posts about how bad they were, one thing I want to add is the stress/pressure they added at least to me. I'm already nervous about the dang game no matter the score. But everytime a Bosox player came up....hell the count could be 0-2...I'm stressing, and the announcer is saying things like

- Oh, he hasn't had a good series but he has 15 hr's in the past 2 weeks.

- Oh, this guy is one of the top hitters with 2 strikes.

They just went on and on about each player at each at bat

So while i'm stressing out about the game in general, these damn announcers are in my head making me think how much better Boston is compare to us, and we're about to blow it, haha.



Yea that Boston catcher....how dare the Tribe pitchers strike him out LOL

Awesome stuff, Scott. Thanks so much for the education.

I wish you would post more. I like your football takes, too. I have noticed that you always seem to be rational and logical. I appreciate that.

Thanks again for the knowledge.

Now............I have a mini-rant, but perhaps I am wrong and someone could correct me.

The shift was employed when I used to watch MLB. However, it seems even more prevalent in today's game. I never could understand why guys didn't drag bunt or slap one down the line. I saw Bonds do it and he reached first base easily.

Now, I get that a lot of these guys are good hitters and power hitters. However, think about this.....hitting .300 is a good average for a major leaguer. That means you are unsuccessful 7 of 10 times.

And you are passing up an almost sure hit? And man, I think it is even more important to reach base in big games and/or close games. Is this just about ego.........as in........"hey, I can jack one so why should I settle for a single?" or am I missing something?

Speaking of Kipnis, I heard he went out to watch David Ortiz take BP before yesterdays game. When Ortiz saw him hanging around the batting cage, he asked Kipnis what he was doing. Kipnis reportedly said something like "Watching your last batting practice ever.".

Psych!

I think one of the "struggles" of the game was that it was the same exact strategy as game 1 (Miller in the middle innings, Allen to close).

The first time I think it psychologically freaked out the Boston batters. The second time they weren't caught off-guard.

But in reality, the Red Sox were due to explode and they didn't.

And the Sox could have very easily exploded last night.

So there really wasn't a big struggle. Although I was on pins and needles those last 3 innings. Even a slight "struggle" and the Sox could have scored 3 more runs. In reality the Cleveland pitching held 'em.

Thank goodness for that unanticipated Coco Crisp homer.

Dodgers force game 5

Cubs/Giants tied in game 4

I think Indians/Jays will be a very good series too

I am rooting for Cubs in the NL, Indians in the AL. I'd like to see either team get to the WS to make it interesting for me.
It was nice to see Sox lose, lemme tell you. I hate them more than I do any team in baseball.

Thank Vers, I appreciate the compliment. I've been on the boards since '99 on the old boards. Always been more of a reader than writer. I do love the game chat that Mourg or TO open up on game days.

Dealing with the pull hitters like mentioned with Ortiz, Carlos Santana and etc. I have always thought the same thing. It just seems way too obvious. I wish someone would really explain about it. You think they could just keep their hands back and drive it the other way,

My guess and its basically a shot in the dark, that's their job is to pull the ball and they're getting paid for that power. For example, I have heard players complain about the Home Run derby messing up their swing. Since they are only trying to get the ball out of the yard. I wonder if that applies to the natural pull hitters and trying to spray the ball around the yard? Maybe that takes away from their power and natural power swing. I didn't say it was the best reasoning.

One thing I wanted to add (I read from an article, that I totally forgot about being a good reason) is that pitching partly dictates that too. Most of the time the pitcher is playing into that pull. Most of the time the pitcher is pitching middle to inside to induce that pull. So that partly has to take into account. (This is all without talking about the bunt). If interested I'll post the article, was definitely interesting coming from a former minor/major leaguer)

Dave, I would love to read the story if theres one available about what Kip said, I'll have to search for it.

Lamp, I agree...I very much dislike the Bosox between them and the Yankees, I'm happy to see both of them out of it.

That was a great line by Kip, though done in good humor. All these guys have have great respect for another.

I thought it was classy that Big Papi let the Tribe have their time to celebrate before going out to say his goodbyes to the crows.

According to Andre Knott on the A to Z podcast there was a lot of mutual respect between the two teams.

Here's the tweet on Kip ribbing Big Papi...

Heidi Watney Verified account
@HeidiWatney
#Indians Kipnis to #RedSox Ortiz: " I just watched your last batting practice ever" #jokes #confidence #ALDS #postseason

Tweet

Klubber starts game 1

I pity tha fool that faces him!

One last positive word on our sweeping the Red Sox.

They were at full strength.

Toronto is a tough team. Good pitching. Good lineup. Good bullpen.

When Bautista is hot they're even better.