I'm determined to not make this day bad. Yeah so I didn't toast my breakfast pastry long enough and it came out cold, so what? Yeah so there was frost on my windshield and I had just put my scraper in the trunk yesterday, so what?
So what? Those are both big frickin' deals! That's what!
No worries... Mondays are good days for me and even though the final two weeks of classes are coming down hard with a few big projects due, I still have time to continue to be happy about this four game win streak that will hopefully turn into at least a six game win streak so we can make serious ground on the Twins for the division lead.
What? Too greedy?
Happy thoughts remember, happy thoughts... Today is going to be a good day.
[ONE MAN WRECKING CHOO]
"Choo," said manager Manny Acta, "was a one-man wrecking crew."
"I feel like I played this way in Spring Training," Choo said. "I didn't put pressure on myself [in the spring]. The first three or four games, I put pressure on myself. But I talked to some guys and the hitting coach [Jon Nunnally], and they told me not to worry too much. I'm trying to see the ball and hit the ball."
Shin-Soo Choo certainly has been awesome hasn't he? Now because he can't carry the team forever, the rest of the boys around him have to step it up here. Yesterday the offense just had a chance to tee-off on a weak starter and they did that early, but they didn't cash in on any more opportunities throughout the rest of the game. That felt like a day that they could have finally breakout and just go pounding away on a pitching staff, but they didn't. Sure they scored seven runs, but Choo knocked in five and Grundle the other two.
Still though, it is hard to complain when you win the game and it made one person in particular, besides Manny Acta, very happy. That person would be Fausto Carmona, who all of a sudden realizes how good you can be with the first pitch strike, and Carmona threw 19 of them yesterday, which made Acta double the happy.
"That's very important for us," Acta said of Carmona's performance thus far. "You don't want to rely on the back end of your rotation. Carmona and [Jake] Westbrook are the key. And the fact that Fausto doesn't believe he's going to get beat by guys swinging the bat gives us a lift."
Carmona looks good up there and Redmond says he looks good from where he's sitting behind the plate as well.
"There were a couple of times Fausto got a little quick, but he was in the [strike] zone the whole time," catcher Mike Redmond said. "It wasn't easy. Give the White Sox credit. They battled."
"He's got that edge, that fire," Redmond said. "I see the focus, the confidence. He's seeing what happens when you keep yourself together and keep the emotions in check."
Just having the focus and confidence is good enough for me right now to know that we're dealing with a different Fausto. Stats aside, this team needed a focus Fausto Carmona. Because if they didn't get that, it didn't matter what numbers he put up in the early going, it would spell bad things for beyond what we see now because it would have been the same old Fausto still dragging around with the potential to get rocked at any second. Then with that rocking would come another one and boom, snowball.
Now when things get a little bad, I think there is some resolve in him to where things won't snowball and while things got rough for him in the fifth yesterday, the sixth turned out to be fine and he put what happened in the fifth behind him. I will have a big piece on Fausto going up soon on Bleacher Report.
[RANDOM RUNDOWN]
The attendance has been horrific. After drawing a 40,000 plus sell-out as you would expect, the Indians brought in a total of 54,139 the following five games. Well that was just tickets sold, who knows what the actual attendance numbers were (which are probably a lie given that the numbers are so low, I'm sure they beefed them up with other people ya know, like the hot dog vendors) for each game. Let's not forget the added boost that the Cavalier game gave them with that special promotion. Heck when you have the seating and you probably aren't going to sell them anyway, why not sell them for five bucks a pop?
Heck why not lower prices in the short term to begin with? Those tickets aren't selling anyway. Hafner is right though when he says if they win the fans will come. It's true, but the Indians actually have to win win, not just win. When I say win win, I mean win in September and be in a race for the division, but even then you might struggle to sell-out.
Jake Westbrook has been working on the lower arm slot delivery that he uses against certain right-handed batters. He developed it a few years before he got injured but hasn't really used it until the second outing in Detroit because he wanted to be sure he was healthy. Jake had a lot of success in 2005 against the right-handers, so if he can get that going, all the better. It also goes to show you that he's still working things out and he isn't quite back to where he wants to be.
The man who came up with the second biggest hit of yesterday's game (the two-out two-run single in the first) Mark Grudzielanek says everything he'll take the at-bats anyway he can get them. He was replacing Travis Hafner, who says everything is feeling good with the shoulder.
"I'm really happy with how the shoulder has responded," he said. "It hasn't given me problems at all. There's soreness in the mornings, but by game time it's fine. I've been able to take normal batting practice and get all the work in. It's felt good before, during and after games."
Part of the process for him is playing everyday. Yesterday was his first day off and to think about last year, when he couldn't go more than three or four days without getting a day off, if that, it's just a good sign. Hafner says he needs to get himself focused on being out there everyday and that means he'll probably hit balls like he has been. Eventually though, the power will come.
Speaking of injured sluggers.. Part two of the Russell Branyan test has been completed. Branyan played the entire game in Akron on Sunday at first base. Branyan went 1-4 with a run scored and a strikeout, but no whispers of anything bad health wise. One more game and he could be activated by Tuesday for the road trip.
Original Story:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheTri...
So what? Those are both big frickin' deals! That's what!
No worries... Mondays are good days for me and even though the final two weeks of classes are coming down hard with a few big projects due, I still have time to continue to be happy about this four game win streak that will hopefully turn into at least a six game win streak so we can make serious ground on the Twins for the division lead.
What? Too greedy?
Happy thoughts remember, happy thoughts... Today is going to be a good day.
[ONE MAN WRECKING CHOO]
"Choo," said manager Manny Acta, "was a one-man wrecking crew."
"I feel like I played this way in Spring Training," Choo said. "I didn't put pressure on myself [in the spring]. The first three or four games, I put pressure on myself. But I talked to some guys and the hitting coach [Jon Nunnally], and they told me not to worry too much. I'm trying to see the ball and hit the ball."
Shin-Soo Choo certainly has been awesome hasn't he? Now because he can't carry the team forever, the rest of the boys around him have to step it up here. Yesterday the offense just had a chance to tee-off on a weak starter and they did that early, but they didn't cash in on any more opportunities throughout the rest of the game. That felt like a day that they could have finally breakout and just go pounding away on a pitching staff, but they didn't. Sure they scored seven runs, but Choo knocked in five and Grundle the other two.
Still though, it is hard to complain when you win the game and it made one person in particular, besides Manny Acta, very happy. That person would be Fausto Carmona, who all of a sudden realizes how good you can be with the first pitch strike, and Carmona threw 19 of them yesterday, which made Acta double the happy.
"That's very important for us," Acta said of Carmona's performance thus far. "You don't want to rely on the back end of your rotation. Carmona and [Jake] Westbrook are the key. And the fact that Fausto doesn't believe he's going to get beat by guys swinging the bat gives us a lift."
Carmona looks good up there and Redmond says he looks good from where he's sitting behind the plate as well.
"There were a couple of times Fausto got a little quick, but he was in the [strike] zone the whole time," catcher Mike Redmond said. "It wasn't easy. Give the White Sox credit. They battled."
"He's got that edge, that fire," Redmond said. "I see the focus, the confidence. He's seeing what happens when you keep yourself together and keep the emotions in check."
Just having the focus and confidence is good enough for me right now to know that we're dealing with a different Fausto. Stats aside, this team needed a focus Fausto Carmona. Because if they didn't get that, it didn't matter what numbers he put up in the early going, it would spell bad things for beyond what we see now because it would have been the same old Fausto still dragging around with the potential to get rocked at any second. Then with that rocking would come another one and boom, snowball.
Now when things get a little bad, I think there is some resolve in him to where things won't snowball and while things got rough for him in the fifth yesterday, the sixth turned out to be fine and he put what happened in the fifth behind him. I will have a big piece on Fausto going up soon on Bleacher Report.
[RANDOM RUNDOWN]
The attendance has been horrific. After drawing a 40,000 plus sell-out as you would expect, the Indians brought in a total of 54,139 the following five games. Well that was just tickets sold, who knows what the actual attendance numbers were (which are probably a lie given that the numbers are so low, I'm sure they beefed them up with other people ya know, like the hot dog vendors) for each game. Let's not forget the added boost that the Cavalier game gave them with that special promotion. Heck when you have the seating and you probably aren't going to sell them anyway, why not sell them for five bucks a pop?
Heck why not lower prices in the short term to begin with? Those tickets aren't selling anyway. Hafner is right though when he says if they win the fans will come. It's true, but the Indians actually have to win win, not just win. When I say win win, I mean win in September and be in a race for the division, but even then you might struggle to sell-out.
Jake Westbrook has been working on the lower arm slot delivery that he uses against certain right-handed batters. He developed it a few years before he got injured but hasn't really used it until the second outing in Detroit because he wanted to be sure he was healthy. Jake had a lot of success in 2005 against the right-handers, so if he can get that going, all the better. It also goes to show you that he's still working things out and he isn't quite back to where he wants to be.
The man who came up with the second biggest hit of yesterday's game (the two-out two-run single in the first) Mark Grudzielanek says everything he'll take the at-bats anyway he can get them. He was replacing Travis Hafner, who says everything is feeling good with the shoulder.
"I'm really happy with how the shoulder has responded," he said. "It hasn't given me problems at all. There's soreness in the mornings, but by game time it's fine. I've been able to take normal batting practice and get all the work in. It's felt good before, during and after games."
Part of the process for him is playing everyday. Yesterday was his first day off and to think about last year, when he couldn't go more than three or four days without getting a day off, if that, it's just a good sign. Hafner says he needs to get himself focused on being out there everyday and that means he'll probably hit balls like he has been. Eventually though, the power will come.
Speaking of injured sluggers.. Part two of the Russell Branyan test has been completed. Branyan played the entire game in Akron on Sunday at first base. Branyan went 1-4 with a run scored and a strikeout, but no whispers of anything bad health wise. One more game and he could be activated by Tuesday for the road trip.
Original Story:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheTri...
