Good for the Indians. They took what could have been a very difficult setting – the first real game in the new Yankee Stadium against CC Sabathia – and turned it into an easy win.
Grady Sizemore hit a grand saluki, or salami, or whatever it is. Victor Martinez had a big game. Jhonny Peralta and Kelly Shoppach drove in two. And Cliff Lee pitched like the Cliff Lee of 2008 instead of the one we've been watching. All good signs.
They say there is no momentum in baseball. Too many games. Especially with Eric Wedge always stressing "separating" and "separation" and "separate." But sometimes a good feeling can carry over. The Indians have that chance with this win, because it was what can be categorized as a "good win."
Forevermore, the team that won the first game in Yankees Stadium will be the Cleveland Indians.
Maybe, just maybe, this will get them going.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
sitting hafner for this game was a chump move on wedge's part. the team should have planned hafner's rest schedule to include him in this game. trav makes big boy money so i don't see any reason they should have been protecting him. since he was once a top hitter in the league there was no reason to sit him against a guy he'd seen his entire indians career. lefty or not.
trav could continue to prove people like me wrong and show the team and the city he was worth the big coin. instead they hide him. resting hafner was a big sign of weakness displayed by wedge.
opening the new yankee stadium with the reigning cy young winner dueling his former teammate the previous cy young winner is the type of game you pull out all the big guns for. luckily the tribe won but it just goes to prove what a lousy manager wedge is.
We only scored 10 runs and won by 8, Wedge made a horrible decision not playing Hafner. Let see, you have to rest Hafner and you are facing a tough lefty. Yet doing the obvious makes Wedge a lousy manager. You can not make up the stupid reasons ignorant fans will come up with for bitching about Eric Wedge.
Had you said this before the game one could excuse it as just a fan with an opinion. Not a smart opinion, but an opinion. Saying after we won by 8, makes one wonder about your sanity.
Good move Wedgie, you did what was clearly the smart thing and it worked. Do not worry, fans love to hate the manager and second guess him. Almost always it is a stupid reason to attack as it is this team. Guys like terje that can not even come up with a rational reason to complain just prove the point.
Managers mainly make 50/50 decisions. To argue against those is fine, but to complain that the manager is stupid or a lousy manager because he takes the opposite view of yours on a decision where you have equal arguments or close to equal on both sides of the issue is just being a jerk. Now when the manager makes that decision, it works out great and the team wins easily and you still say he was wrong, terje goes from being a jerk to someone with severe mental issues.
Grady Sizemore got caught stealing. Had he not tried to steal he would have scored a run. A run that at the time would have been important. Yet we always read fans say Wedge teams to not steal enough or bunt enough. As if deciding to steal a base or bunting always benefits the team. Fact is unless you can steal at a rate over 75% and nealy 80% you hurt your team. And very very few base thieves can accomplish that percentage. If you look at our roster over the Wedge years, there were very few players that one could see getting close to that success rate. Grady maybe the only one. Yet fans complain we should run more. The fact that during the Wedge years after the first two tear down and rebuild years, the Indians have been near the top of baseball in runs scored. But then making sense when complaining about the manager never was a requirement.
I think Grady is a great player and think he does a great job in deciding when to run. I am glad Wedge leaves the decision to Grady on when to run. He has earned it. I am also glad that guys like Shopach, Victor, Peralta, Garko and tons of guys from our past do not run. You run when you have guys like Grady, you do not with 99% of the other players that have been on this team. Some of the new Indians may have the ability in spots to run. Guys like Fancisco, Choo and Cabrera have replaced slower players and if they pick their spots can steal a base. But until they show their judgement is ready, they should err on the side of not stealing. In the past Cabrera has been way under the 75 threshold. Stealing has its place, and the threat of stealing is important too. But the decisions have to be good and just saying we have to run more is not true.
bubba, i did say it before the game in the tribe forum at the peedee. it was a weak decision from a weak manager. wedge would have never sat hafner before his shoulder fell apart. he played in 152 games two years ago. so basically the big money guy is too fragile to play in the big game.
lucky for wedge and unlucky for a tribe fan who wants the team to succeed that the indians won yesterday. another year of wedge ball is another year without a championship.
Hey, misery loves company. If we are going to suffer through a sloooow start from the Tribe, then let's make other fans go home unhappy, too. It was great to ruin their party in the House That Public Money Built. ESPN had to struggle to find ways to avoid talking about the outcome of the game, and who delivered the whooping, while drooling over the new park. Nice shade of corporate brown lipstick, you're wearing. It's small comfort…
I don't get your condescending reference to the "House That Public Money Built," Matthews. That describes Cleveland's arena, baseball park and stadium.