Series #14: Oakland

[Special_K19]

Friday May 16 7:05
C.C. Sabathia vs Mark Mulder

Saturday May 17 7:05
Ricardo Rodriguez vs John Halama

Sunday May 18 1:05
Brian Anderson vs Ted Lilly

All-Time Match-Up: A's lead 214-181 overall and 3-0 this year.

[Special_K19]

Mark Mulder (6-1 2.55)
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/150426.jpg

vs

C.C. Sabathia (2-2 3.06)
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/282332.jpg

LET'S GO C.C.!!! :dance2: SHUT OUT THE A'S!!

[Special_K19]

WE BEAT MARK MULDER!!!!! :dance2:



Sabathia sharp as Tribe sinks A's
By Justice B. Hall / MLB.com


CLEVELAND -- C.C. Sabathia did his part Friday night to help the Indians beat the Athletics.

Sabathia pitched his best game of the season, and he needed to if the Indians were to beat Mark Mulder and the Athletics.

The Indians needed more than good pitching, though; they also needed something that had been in short supply lately: runs. The Tribe didn't get a lot of them, but enough to beat Mulder and the Athletics, 3-2, in front of 22,357 fans at Jacobs Field.

"It was a great win for our team," said Sabathia, who finished with a season-high eight strikeouts and a no-decision. "I felt like if I kept the game close, hopefully, we could pull through and got some runs off of 'em."

He did his part. But early on, it didn't look as if his teammates would be able to get anything off Mulder, who held the Indians to two hits over the first five innings. At that point, he was holding a 2-0 lead, thanks to two mistakes that Sabathia has given up earlier.

Sabathia's first mistake came on an 0-1 pitch to Ramon Hernandez in the second inning which the A's catcher launched for his fourth home run of the season.

"That was just good hitting," said Sabathia of the changeup he threw to Hernandez. "I'd throw that pitch again."

Sabathia's second mistake came on an 0-1 pitch to Miguel Tejada in the sixth. The result was the same as the first: solo homer.

"It was just a bad pitch," Sabathia said.

He didn't however, make another bad pitch. He came into the game with his top-shelf stuff on display. He needed it, because Mulder was filling the stadium scoreboard with zeros.

Trailing 2-0 in the sixth, the Indians scored twice. Both runs came with two outs.

Omar Vizquel got that rally started when he hit a dribbler down the third-base line that he legged into a single. That hit brought Ellis Burks to the plate. On a 1-1 pitch, Burks tied the game with a homer into the left-field seats.

The Indians wouldn't score again off Mulder until the eighth, and Vizquel and Burks once again teamed to produce a rally.

Vizquel singled on Mulder's two-strike pitch, and that brought Burks up.

"I thought for sure they'd walk me," he said.

Burks thought wrong. Because the A's didn't walk him, and when Vizquel caught Mulder asleep and stole second, Burks was in position to supply the Tribe's go-ahead run.

On a 1-1 pitch, Burks hit a ball that just leaked into right field for a single, and Vizquel raced home to break the 2-2 tie.

Holding a 3-2 lead, Indians closer Danys Baez came in from the bullpen. Baez set the Athletics down in order in the ninth, saving the victory for rookie Billy Traber (1-2, 3.68 ERA) and saddling Mulder (6-2, 2.65) with the loss.

But none of that would have been possible without Sabathia's good work early, Indians manager Eric Wedge said.

"I know he did a very good job with two strikes, obviously, in terms of working his fastball up and his breaking balls out of the zone -- particularly against left-handers," said Wedge. "He definitely did a good job of hanging in there and getting better as the game went along."

[Special_K19]

John Halama (2-2 3.77)
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/134280.jpg

vs

Ricardo Rodriguez (2-4 4.66)
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/400156.jpg

HERE WE GO RICO, LET'S TURN IT AROUND TONIGHT!!! :dance2:

[Special_K19]

2 IN A ROW AGAINST THE F'S!!!! :dance2:


Take two: Tribe squeezes out win
By Justice B. Hill / MLB.com

CLEVELAND -- For the second night in a row, the Indians found themselves in a pitchers' duel with the Athletics.

And for the second night in a row, the Indians won the duel.

Their 4-2 win over the A's went to reliever Terry Mulholland, who gave up the tying run in the eighth inning before the Indians scored twice in the bottom of the inning, ensuring the dominant performance of Ricardo Rodriguez didn't end in a loss.

"He pitched like the Ricardo we saw in Spring Training and we saw in the first four starts or so," Indians pitching coach Carl Willis said. "He got back to being more aggressive, and that tightened up his secondary pitches."

In going six innings, Rodriguez worked the inside of the plate aggressively. He held the A's to three hits and one run, and he turned a 2-1 lead over to the Indians bullpen. But the bullpen wasn't able to hold on to that lead.

While reliever Jason Boyd did work skillfully out of a bases loaded jam that Carl Sadler and Billy Traber's wildness had created in the seventh, Mulholland couldn't avoid the power of Erubiel Durazo in the eighth. Mulholland served up a fat 0-1 pitch to Durazo, who lined it over the wall in right field.

Durazo's homer turned Rodriguez's start into a no decision, and it also forced the Indians to mount a late rally, something they haven't been too adept at doing through much of the '03 season.

This night, however, would be an exception.

With former Indian Ricardo Rincon pitching for the A's in the eighth, pinch-hitter Brandon Phillips drew a walk. John McDonald's bunt moved Phillips to second, and Matt Lawton singled to right field, and Terrance Long charged the ball in right as if he planned to make a play on Phillips at the plate.

"At the last minute, the ball took a bad hop," Lawton said.

Indeed the ball did, and the bad hop allowed Phillips to score easily and Lawton to trek to third as the ball skipped under Long's glove and rolled to the wall.

Lawton then scored an insurance run on Omar Vizquel's squeeze bunt.

"(Third-base coach Joel) Skinner told me, 'OK, we're squeezing here,' " said Lawton, who had never been part of a squeeze play in his career. "I wanted to tell him, 'OK, when do I go?' I just treated it like a steal."

Holding a 4-2 lead, Danys Baez came in to seal the victory, the Tribe's second straight over the A's.

But this win wouldn't have been possible if not for the 24-year-old Rodriguez. He ran into few problems in this outing. Whenever he did, the rookie right-hander had the stuff to work out of it.

One example of that came in the first, when Rodriguez walked Eric Byrnes. The A's leadoff hitter stole second, and then reached third with two outs. But Rodriguez made sure Byrnes stayed there, striking out Miguel Tejada to end the inning.

In the second, Rodriguez rolled through the A's lineup without a hitch, and in the bottom of the inning, he got a 1-0 lead to play with thanks to his battery-mate.

With the count 1-2, catcher Josh Bard rocketed a John Halama pitch into the left-field seats.

While a 1-0 lead never looks like much, it looked awfully good with the way Rodriguez was pitching. And the lead looked even better in the fifth, when the Tribe pushed the score to 2-0.

With nobody out and men on second and third, the Indians needed another hit off Halama -- something that might break open this pitchers' duel. They didn't get one.

All the Indians got off Halama was McDonald's sacrifice fly, which gave them a 2-0 lead. They needed to score more then, because their bullpen couldn't hold that two-run lead.

But in the end, the Tribe came up with some late offense, which made sure that Rodriguez's fine work added up to victory.

"He's really pitched well for us," Indians manager Eric Wedge said. "I think he just went through a couple of starts where he just got away from some of the things he needs to do to be successful.

"And, quite frankly, that's just being aggressive with the sinker and being aggressive with his secondary stuff. He did a good job with that tonight."

[Special_K19]

Ted Lilly (3-2 3.67)
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/150404.jpg

vs

Brian Anderson (2-4 5.40)
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/110230.jpg

LET'S GO BA!!!!!! SWEEEEEEEEEEEEP THOSE BUMS!! :dance2:

[Special_K19]

Stupid bullpen. :Pissed:

A's rally to spoil Anderson's outing
By Justice B. Hill / MLB.com



CLEVELAND -- Tribe fans broke out their brooms a bit prematurely, because the three-game sweep that their Indians looked as if they'd locked up Sunday afternoon turned into a loss.
Cruising along with a 5-0 lead, the Indians saw their big lead evaporate, thanks to the bullpen's wobbly work. In the end, the pen gave up what remained of that five-run lead and more as the Athletics rallied in the last two innings to defeat the Indians, 8-5, in front of 25,421 fans at Jacobs Field.

For the Tribe, things started to come undone in the eighth inning. At the time, veteran Brian Anderson had held Athletics to one hit and no runs.

"B.A. was outstanding today," Indians manager Eric Wedge said. "He threw the ball as well as he had all year long. Unfortunately for us and B.A., they did get to him a little bit."

Wedge was referring to what the A's did in the eighth. They sandwiched three singles around an out, loading the bases.

With Anderson still in, Ron Gant, notorious pull hitter, singled to right. He knocked in the A's first run.

"You take your chances on him hitting the ball the other way," said Anderson, winless in his last five starts. "He did."

But the A's were just getting their offense revved up.

After Gant's single, Wedge brought in right-hander Jason Boyd to face Eric Byrnes, who hit a sacrifice fly to knock in run No. 2. That brought up Scott Hatteberg, and he singled to left, knocking in a third run.

Miguel Tejada, the reigning AL MVP, walked to load the bases for Eric Chavez, the A's cleanup hitter. Facing left-hander Terry Mulholland, Chavez made the inning's final out.

But the A's continued in the ninth what they had started in the eighth. With closer Danys Baez pitching for the Tribe, Erubiel Durazo doubled to center. Ramon Hernandez tried to beat out a bunt, but Baez, who pitched in the last three games, fielded the ball and threw Hernandez out at first.

Baez wouldn't retire another batter.

He gave up a single to Mark Ellis, who knocked in Durazo. Terrence Long singled to put runners on first and second with one out.

Pinch-hitter Chris Singleton singled to center, knocking in the tying run and putting the go-ahead run at third base. Byrnes singled to right. His hit put the Athletics ahead 6-5.

"They hit everything," said Baez (0-4, 5.57 ERA), who blew his third save of the season.

The Athletics then made the score 7-5 on Scott Hatteberg's single off Carl Sadler, who replaced the ineffective Baez.

For good measure, they added one more run.

By then, Baez's last-inning collapse had already ruined what had been a superb performance for the Indians. They were on the brink of sweeping the Athletics for the first time at The Jake since June 1999. The way Anderson was pitching, the sweep seemed more than likely.

His work also benefited from some spectacular defense and bursts of early offense. Facing left-hander Ted Lilly, the Indians gave Anderson a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Jody Gerut doubled to open the inning. One out later, Ellis Burks singled to right field, knocking in Gerut.

After Milton Bradley struck out, Shane Spencer walked, putting runners on first and second base. Casey Blake then singled off Lilly, a hit that scored Burks for the inning's second run.

Two innings later, the Indians added a pair of runs, building their lead to 4-0. They would add another run in the fifth off Lilly.

But the Oakland bullpen held the Indians hitless from the fifth on, and the Tribe's bullpen couldn't prop up Anderson when he faltered late.

"We did get some pitches up," Wedge said of his bullpen. "But they did a great job of hitting, too. They've got some strong, veteran players in that lineup. I thought we did try to work some fastballs in and mixed it up a little bit, but they did find some holes."

[PissedPrincess]

2 of 3!!!!!!!!! :Party: :dance2:

WAY TO GO TRIBE!!!!!!!!!!!

[Special_K19]

We should have swept, but 2 wins is still damn good. :dance2: :clap2:

Get this, in the first 25 1/3 innings of the series against the A's, the A's had 9 hits and 4 runs....In the final 1 2/3 innings they had 12 hits and 8 runs. :hmm:

[PissedPrincess]

Effin Bullpen.:angry:

[SlushyBOB]

Alright! Way to take 2 of 3 from the Angels' AL West competitors! Much appreciated:clap2:

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: