Cleveland Indians

What better way to celebrate the 22-4 drubbing of the New York Yankees on April 18th, 2009? How about 14 random facts about the game? Significance of 14? Well that would be the number of the runs the Indians scored in the second inning.

Hold on.. I think they just scored again.

Did David Wells leave after Thursday's game? How about any of the other Yankee greats? I think the Bombers need some backup.

Have the Indians woken up?  After a scoring frenzy in today's game, I would like to assume so. 

Hit after hit, the Indians ran around the bases and racked up the runs.  The last time the Indians had scored 20 runs or more in a game was back in August of 2004—against who?

You got it, the Yankees. 

After a disappointing start by Wang (0-2), Yankees pitching continued to give up runs, which proved to be beneficial to the Cleveland Indians. 

In 2008 the Indians' Travis Hafner struggled through the worst year of his career.

Limited by a shoulder injury, Hafner appeared in only 57 games, hitting .197/.305/.323 with only 5 HRs and 24 RBI while striking out almost twice as much as he walked.

These numbers were a far cry from the Hafner of 2004-06 who averaged .308/.419/.611 with 34 HR, 111 RBI, 96 R, and 38 2Bs a year as one of the league's most best hitters.

I know it's early, but I really don't think the Cleveland Indians have a shot at winning the AL Central division. If you look at all the pieces, they just don't seem to come together.

While I don't think Cliff Lee's phenomenal year in '08 was all a fluke, I'm calling him out a little bit. I can't see him with an ERA under three this year. Looks more like he'll post one around 4.00, which is much more in-line with his career numbers.

The Yankees will open up their home schedule with a four game series against the Cleveland Indians. The Sunday game will be the biggest game, not the home opener, not friday or Saturday, the series finale, why you ask?

Carl "American Idle" Pavano will be facing the Yankees.

Well at least they won one. The Tribe dropped the first two in almost the same fashion they dropped all three to the Rangers to open the season. They got behind early thanks to poor starting pitching and then failed to come through with the clutch hit with runners in scoring position. The ugly numbers:

Game One - 1-5 RISP, 11 K, 8 LOB, 1 DP
Game Two - 1-9 RISP, 9 K, 8 LOB, 2 DP
Game Three - 2-7 RISP, 11K, 11 LOB, 1 DP
Totals - 4-21 RISP (.190), 31 K, 21 LOB, 4 DP

As I previously declared, Opening Day 2009 was a bust. But an even bigger disappointment was Cleveland's unofficial holiday, Home Opening Day.

It wasn't the cold weather, or the rain, or the game being postponed—we're Clevelanders, most of us were prepared for that stuff. It wasn't the overpriced alcohol or hot dogs or the drunk guy spilling his beer on us either. It's a baseball game, that's all part of the experience.

There aren't many bright things to say about the Cleveland Indians season so far.

Cliff Lee is 0-2.

Carl Pavano may be a bust.

Grady Sizemore already has 10 strikeouts.

Trevor Crowe has anger issues!!!

Of course, there is one thing that the Indians players, coaches, and fans should be excited about. His name is Travis Hafner.

Despite his poor average and lack of power, Hafner has done better than some may think the past few seasons.

Does anyone remember Mark "Hard Hittin'" Whiten?

I do and very well, also. You probably thought that in my "Does Anyone Remember..." series that I only use football players. Well I use other players, too. I also will do MLB, NBA, PGA, and probably boxing in my series.

So now I'm with Mark Whiten. Now I have a reason to use every player for my series. I usually get it from my player cards. And that is how I found Mark Whiten with that.