Will all the crybaby bandwagon Indians fans upset about the Yankees 6-2 come from behind victory against the tribe acknowledge that the Yankees, just one day later, were winning 6-2 in the 8th and Mariano Rivera blew the lead for the 57th time in his career. That's right, as good as Mariano Rivera has been, he's blown 57 leads as a Yankee closer, do you think after each and everyone of those blown leads Yankee fans pronounced it was a season changing momentum swinging staggering defeat? So just 24 hours after the Yankees sucked all of Cleveland's momentum dry and the Indians were doomed to have a bad season, Cleveland wins, and the Yankees lose after leading 6-2 in the 8th inning. Thank God that Fan momentum is strictly for the fans and not the athletes.
Only in Cleveland, only in the pound puppy patch, do we find such a shrill sound of gloom and dire doom after each and every Indians loss. I believe that fan negativity actually does cast a pall over the enthusiam the fans should have over being able to come to the park and watch Vic, Travis, Grady, CC, Jake, and many others play game after game, we have a solid group of players, lets enjoy them rather act like they annoy us.
Travis Hafner was the victim of a bad throw in the ninth inning last night, but it may have been the best thing that could have happened. When Travis got the game winning hit, he wisely put his head down and ran hard, and when the throw went home, Travis wisely ran to second, but the throw from centerfield was sooooo bad, that the catcher literally had to run between the pitcher and the third baseman to catch the ball, the result was the Tampa Bay catcher was a lot closer to second than normal, and he had such a clear unobstructed view he was able to throw Travis out even though Travis was already pretty darn close to the second base bag. Why was that a good thing? Because when Vic hit his inning ending liner to left, I envisioned what might have been, Grady tagging up and hard charging home and being involved in a very hard crash at the plate.
If I'm Eric Wedge, I would ask Grady not to ever crash into the catcher because the risks certainly outweigh the gain. Grady is so valuable to this team that being injured by crashing into the catcher is just never going to be worth it, unless we're in the playoffs and it's the series deciding run.
Casey Blakes hustle down the line, for the second game in a row, created a good result. This time Casey caused a rushed throw from an infielder which went for a hit and and error. Casey was now perched on second with no outs in the 8th inning. Even though Casey didn't score, it was his hard charge down the line that caused the hit and error in the first place. In the Yankee game, Casey beat out a close play at first in the ninth inning which allowed our sixth run to score. Sure we ended up losing, but Casey's hustle in each game had a positive effect.
