Well, that happened.
Feel free to apply that to any one of the three events of Sunday, none of which could have made anyone very happy: the Indians extra-inning loss; the end of The Sopranos or the Cavs deer-in-the-headlights performance against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 2 of the NBA Finals.
It’s hard to draw any cosmic connection between the three events beyond the obvious disappointment underlying each. Still, if bad things happen in three then that quota was certainly reached yesterday, which mean that things are looking up for Tuesday.
At last look, the Indians, entering game two of their own version of the neverending story with the Seattle Mariners, had lost five of their last nine. There certainly is an ebb and flow to the season and sometimes a team wins when it should lose and vice versa, which is why it is often better to not get lost among the trees that represent each individual game and just take stock of the forest. But every once in awhile there is a game that demands strict scrutiny, Sunday’s game with the Reds being a prime example.
Manager Eric Wedge called it one of the worst offensive efforts he could remember. Who’s to argue? Outside of pitcher C.C Sabathia, who had two hits, one would be hard pressed to find a quality bat among the 27 outs made. It’s not even so much that the regular hitters appeared to have no approach toward any of the Reds pitchers, it’s that they didn’t even look like they were trying. As Wedge noted (courtesy of Paul Hoynes game story) “you can't allow a game like that to happen . . . not collectively. There are going to be individuals that struggle, but you can't have a total breakdown from the entire ballclub.”
But a total breakdown it was, which is why, in the end, a stellar effort by Sabathia was wasted. For those keeping track, the Indians offense has turned pathetic with Sabathia on the mound. In his last two starts, he’s been the recipient of exactly one run. Amazingly, he’s 1-0 in those starts, which pretty much is all the evidence that is needed to place Sabathia on the All Star team.
Part of that may be due to the fact that when Sabathia is on the mound, the Tribe is usually facing the opposition’s best pitcher as well. But that just further fuels the urgency for the hitters to ensure that they remain disciplined and focused at the plate because the opportunities are likely to be fewer. For whatever reason, though, the Indians hitters were neither disciplined nor focused on Sunday. Perhaps they, too, were waiting for the finale of The Sopranos to begin.
But no such excuse could be made for the Cavs. They were actually playing opposite of Tony and the crew, which was probably a good thing if you care about the team’s reputation nationally. It’s easy enough to record one show and watch another in this day and age, but hopefully most decided against it and tuned into The Sopranos instead. At least then those viewers would have missed one of the most miserable halves of basketball the Cavs have played all season.
It’s true enough that the Cavs also, naturally, played a miserable third quarter Sunday night. But by the time the third quarter rolled around, the Cavs were already pretty much out of the game due to, as Wedge might say, a total breakdown by the entire club.
If fans of The Sopranos were disappointed in how writer David Chase chose to end his opera, at least they can take solace in the fact that it was, after all, only a show. The Cavs, on the other hand, were real life and whatever one might think of Chase’s final Sopranos script, it still ran rings around whoever scripted the Cavs first half approach.
At this point, the conventional wisdom is putting the blame on head coach Mike Brown and his decision to continue to start an injured Larry Hughes. His inability to guard Tony Parker has created a sort of domino effect that seems to have taken the other four, including LeBron James, out of their rhythm. There is a fair amount of validity to that wisdom, but it misses the point. It’s unlikely that a healthy Larry Hughes would be faring much better.
It’s pretty likely at this point that Brown is merely trying to protect rookie Daniel Gibson, preferring to bring him in off the bench rather than place undue pressure on him by starting him over Hughes. While it’s hard to argue with a coach when he is in a much better position to know his players than the average fan, nothing in Gibson’s make up even whiffs at him being intimidated by the enormity of the situation. Brown’s caution seems, at the very least, unnecessary.
In this regard, Brown should take a page from Mike Hargrove’s handbook when he started rookie pitcher Jaret Wright in the fourth and seventh games of the 1997 World Series. Wright was a much more heralded rookie than Gibson and, consequently, had more pressure on him. But Wright also had the kind of swagger and bravado that allowed him to easily handle the situation. And handle it he did, winning game four and giving up only one run in 6 1/3 innings in game seven. Not only was Wright not the reason the Indians lost that series, he was the reason they almost won it.
Gibson is in much the same situation. Though seeming to lack the overt swagger and step of Wright, he doesn’t lack for confidence either. Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals proved that. He doesn’t seem to need Brown’s paternal approach, particularly when he has James covering his back on the floor. The guess is that Brown will give in and Gibson probably will start on Tuesday night. If not, then Brown will have exhibited the true flaw of the inexperienced coach: stubbornness. It was on full display Sunday night and if Brown, like the rest of his team, is going to take the step to the next level, then he has to have the courage to admit when something’s not working and try something else. If not, then the Cavs in this series will quickly find themselves suffering the same fate as The Sopranos: canceled.
Showing posts with label Mike Hargrove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Hargrove. Show all posts
Monday, June 11, 2007
Friday, May 04, 2007
The Edge
It all started with a cold snap.
The miserable early season weather, which included an unprecedented snow-out of an entire week of games in Cleveland and has caused the Dolans all manner of financial losses at the box office and concession stands, may actually turn out to be the best thing that has happened to the Indians in a long, long time. It seems to have fostered an us vs. them attitude that has allowed the Indians to develop a competitive edge not typically seen under manager Eric Wedge and has pushed the Indians to a hot streak that started two weeks ago and has continued into early May.
But it wasn’t just the presence of snow and cold that did it. Breaking it down to a much finer point, the first person to get under this team’s skin was, ironically, one of the better-liked individuals in recent Indians history, Mike Hargrove. Hargrove, as manager of the Seattle mariners, became the human snow delay by essentially preventing Paul Byrd from pitching an abbreviated no-hitter on a truly miserable opening day. In retrospect, it may have been better for Hargrove and the rest of baseball if Byrd could have at least finished pitching to Jose Lopez.
Most recall, of course, that Byrd had a 1-2 count on Lopez when Hargrove sauntered out on the field to discuss the snow that was flying, again. Hargrove’s sublimely-timed visit and the ensuing heated discussion allowed the intensity of the snow to pick up just enough that home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez and crew chief Rick Reed were forced to call for another delay. Ultimately this led to the game being called when the weather didn’t much improve. The game, which was to start at 4 p.m. was officially called at 8:41 p.m. The Indians lost a sure victory and Byrd lost a probable, though severely truncated, no hitter. But in the process, an attitude began to develop.
The way the rest of that weekend played out only allowed this attitude to further percolate. There were endless questions from the media, locally and nationally, to Byrd and Wedge and others about what took place, particularly given the perception that Hargrove was responsible for what took place. While Wedge and GM Mark Shapiro were appropriately politically correct in addressing Hargrove’s antics, Byrd was less gracious. In one of his milder statements he said, “the snow was coming for five minutes. If the count's 3-0, nobody is saying anything. They [Seattle] tried to get away with something, and it worked. Nobody was saying anything when I wasn't throwing strikes. I thought it was handled poorly.”
As the snow continued to fly that weekend, the front office, the players and the fans began watching the Weather Channel as if it were CNN, trying to figure out what would happen next. As prospects dimmed for any real improvement in the weather with the Los Angeles-by-way-of-Anaheim Angels coming to town, major league baseball did what it does best and muddied the situation further by telling Cleveland, in effect, that this next home series would be played in Commissioner Bud Selig’s hometown of Milwaukee. While not complaining publicly, you could almost hear the teeth grinding of Shapiro, Wedge and the players who now had to pack their bags. It would be hard for an attitude not to develop under this set of bizarre circumstances. Fortunately the Indians used this new found lack of respect for good and not evil by taking two of three from the Angels.
With a touch of swagger, the Indians were permitted to return home to play the White Sox, a key divisional rival made all the more hateful by a mouthy manager in Ozzie Guillen and an arrogant Chicago media breathing down their necks that is constantly compensating for the fact that they are not in New York. The Indians proceeded to take two of three from the Sox, just a week after taking two of three from them in Chicago.
Often the kind of edge that a team gets from such slights, perceived or real, is as easily lost as gained without something intervening to remind them why they were mad in the first place. As they embarked on their trip to New York, they knew they were facing a team decimated by injuries, particularly to their pitching staff. The Yankees were hardly barking, about the Indians or much else. Whatever edge existed seemed to be temporarily replaced by arrogance as the Indians laid a colossal egg, losing three straight. In fact, they really weren’t competitive in any of those games. And it wasn’t as if the Yankees were on a roll. In fact, that series has been the only high spot in an otherwise miserable early season for New York. Following those wins, the Yankees went on to lose 8 of their next 9 games.
Thankfully, though, baseball continued to pick on the Indians. First, major league baseball, under the skittish and indecisive leadership of the aforementioned Selig, continued to dilly dally around with the conundrum of how to reschedule four lost Indians home games against a team that is not scheduled to return this season. While major league baseball continued to fiddle with what was now apparently the hardest problem they ever faced, it wasn’t lost on the Indians front office or the players that responsibility for this situation rested solely with major league baseball and its schedule makers who made sure that two west coast teams, one that plays in a dome and another who plays in near perfect weather, were making their only trips to Cleveland at a time when the weather is always iffy.
Although baseball still hasn’t announced how the games will be rescheduled, word has leaked over the last several days out that at least one of those “home” games will be played in Seattle, bringing the total to four the number of games the Indians will not get to host this season. While that may be the best alternative among a set of really bad options, the fact remains that the major league front office created this mess and, in the process, gave the Indians another reason to believe that they weren’t being respected.
On the heels of this came the bizarre happenings in the game against Baltimore last Saturday night. Unquestionably, the home plate umpire made a mistake in waving off the run that had scored prior to centerfielder Grady Sizemore doubling up Miguel Tejada who, resembling one of the Indians, forgot how many outs there were and ran on contact and failed to return to first base after Sizemore’s catch. But it also is unquestioned that neither Baltimore nor the umpiring crew realized the blunder for several innings. When it was finally brought to their attention, the umps didn’t claim “rub of the green” as is usually the case. They put the run back on the board and Baltimore now had a 3-2 lead. You wouldn’t be alone if you were left with the feeling that this was something you’ve never seen before.
This eventually led to the protest that the Indians lost. While acknowledging that the umpires made a mistake, the essence of the Indians protest was that Baltimore didn’t lodge a timely complaint, which was true. This was a legitimate argument that has decent support within the rule book. Perhaps it didn’t help their protest that the Indians buttressed their argument by claiming that by putting the run on the board it caused Wedge to manage differently. Anyone with a set of eyes and the patience to watch this team through Wedge’s tenure knows that this may be theoretically true but realistically impossible.
Though denying the protest, Selig and crew did the Indians a favor by failing to discuss the basis for the denial, as if the protest was so frivolous that it didn’t warrant a two-sentence explanation. This only led to the perception that baseball either didn’t want to uphold the Indians argument on a technicality (the failure of Baltimore to timely complain) or simply didn’t want to have to reschedule still another Indians game, which seems more likely. Whichever, this gave the Tribe still another reason to believe they were being disrespected and allowed an edge that may have been dulling to once again sharpen.
If you witnessed either Wednesday’s or Thursday night’s game, that sharp edge was on full display. On Wednesday night, shortly after the protest was denied, newly-rich Jake Westbrook had to leave the game early due to an abdominal strain and the Indians trailing The bullpen kept the game close and the Indians ultimately prevailed in extra innings on a bloop single by Travis Hafner. Thursday night marked Cliff Lee’s return to the rotation and he promptly put the Indians in a 4-0 hole, although a shaky defense helped that cause. But a close play at the plate in which Toronto catcher Jason Phillips blocked the plate from Josh Barfield led to a few choice words from Phillips to Barfield and the intercession of David Dellucci, who was coming to bat. Dellucci took offense at Phillips irrational exuberance and a bench-clearing nearly ensued.
Following that exchange, Dellucci promptly made a stunning catch in left field and followed that up in the bottom half of the inning with a double. In the process, he personally took a whetstone to the edge that has now clearly developed on this team and that led to another victory, a 7-1 homestand and a streak that has seen the Indians win 10 of their last 11.
It’s hard to know whether these series of early season slights will continue to occur as timely as they have thus far. But even if they don’t it may just be enough for this team to at least develop a personality, something it has never done under Wedge. And that, just as much as anything else, is necessary if this team is going to be a serious contender this season.
The miserable early season weather, which included an unprecedented snow-out of an entire week of games in Cleveland and has caused the Dolans all manner of financial losses at the box office and concession stands, may actually turn out to be the best thing that has happened to the Indians in a long, long time. It seems to have fostered an us vs. them attitude that has allowed the Indians to develop a competitive edge not typically seen under manager Eric Wedge and has pushed the Indians to a hot streak that started two weeks ago and has continued into early May.
But it wasn’t just the presence of snow and cold that did it. Breaking it down to a much finer point, the first person to get under this team’s skin was, ironically, one of the better-liked individuals in recent Indians history, Mike Hargrove. Hargrove, as manager of the Seattle mariners, became the human snow delay by essentially preventing Paul Byrd from pitching an abbreviated no-hitter on a truly miserable opening day. In retrospect, it may have been better for Hargrove and the rest of baseball if Byrd could have at least finished pitching to Jose Lopez.
Most recall, of course, that Byrd had a 1-2 count on Lopez when Hargrove sauntered out on the field to discuss the snow that was flying, again. Hargrove’s sublimely-timed visit and the ensuing heated discussion allowed the intensity of the snow to pick up just enough that home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez and crew chief Rick Reed were forced to call for another delay. Ultimately this led to the game being called when the weather didn’t much improve. The game, which was to start at 4 p.m. was officially called at 8:41 p.m. The Indians lost a sure victory and Byrd lost a probable, though severely truncated, no hitter. But in the process, an attitude began to develop.
The way the rest of that weekend played out only allowed this attitude to further percolate. There were endless questions from the media, locally and nationally, to Byrd and Wedge and others about what took place, particularly given the perception that Hargrove was responsible for what took place. While Wedge and GM Mark Shapiro were appropriately politically correct in addressing Hargrove’s antics, Byrd was less gracious. In one of his milder statements he said, “the snow was coming for five minutes. If the count's 3-0, nobody is saying anything. They [Seattle] tried to get away with something, and it worked. Nobody was saying anything when I wasn't throwing strikes. I thought it was handled poorly.”
As the snow continued to fly that weekend, the front office, the players and the fans began watching the Weather Channel as if it were CNN, trying to figure out what would happen next. As prospects dimmed for any real improvement in the weather with the Los Angeles-by-way-of-Anaheim Angels coming to town, major league baseball did what it does best and muddied the situation further by telling Cleveland, in effect, that this next home series would be played in Commissioner Bud Selig’s hometown of Milwaukee. While not complaining publicly, you could almost hear the teeth grinding of Shapiro, Wedge and the players who now had to pack their bags. It would be hard for an attitude not to develop under this set of bizarre circumstances. Fortunately the Indians used this new found lack of respect for good and not evil by taking two of three from the Angels.
With a touch of swagger, the Indians were permitted to return home to play the White Sox, a key divisional rival made all the more hateful by a mouthy manager in Ozzie Guillen and an arrogant Chicago media breathing down their necks that is constantly compensating for the fact that they are not in New York. The Indians proceeded to take two of three from the Sox, just a week after taking two of three from them in Chicago.
Often the kind of edge that a team gets from such slights, perceived or real, is as easily lost as gained without something intervening to remind them why they were mad in the first place. As they embarked on their trip to New York, they knew they were facing a team decimated by injuries, particularly to their pitching staff. The Yankees were hardly barking, about the Indians or much else. Whatever edge existed seemed to be temporarily replaced by arrogance as the Indians laid a colossal egg, losing three straight. In fact, they really weren’t competitive in any of those games. And it wasn’t as if the Yankees were on a roll. In fact, that series has been the only high spot in an otherwise miserable early season for New York. Following those wins, the Yankees went on to lose 8 of their next 9 games.
Thankfully, though, baseball continued to pick on the Indians. First, major league baseball, under the skittish and indecisive leadership of the aforementioned Selig, continued to dilly dally around with the conundrum of how to reschedule four lost Indians home games against a team that is not scheduled to return this season. While major league baseball continued to fiddle with what was now apparently the hardest problem they ever faced, it wasn’t lost on the Indians front office or the players that responsibility for this situation rested solely with major league baseball and its schedule makers who made sure that two west coast teams, one that plays in a dome and another who plays in near perfect weather, were making their only trips to Cleveland at a time when the weather is always iffy.
Although baseball still hasn’t announced how the games will be rescheduled, word has leaked over the last several days out that at least one of those “home” games will be played in Seattle, bringing the total to four the number of games the Indians will not get to host this season. While that may be the best alternative among a set of really bad options, the fact remains that the major league front office created this mess and, in the process, gave the Indians another reason to believe that they weren’t being respected.
On the heels of this came the bizarre happenings in the game against Baltimore last Saturday night. Unquestionably, the home plate umpire made a mistake in waving off the run that had scored prior to centerfielder Grady Sizemore doubling up Miguel Tejada who, resembling one of the Indians, forgot how many outs there were and ran on contact and failed to return to first base after Sizemore’s catch. But it also is unquestioned that neither Baltimore nor the umpiring crew realized the blunder for several innings. When it was finally brought to their attention, the umps didn’t claim “rub of the green” as is usually the case. They put the run back on the board and Baltimore now had a 3-2 lead. You wouldn’t be alone if you were left with the feeling that this was something you’ve never seen before.
This eventually led to the protest that the Indians lost. While acknowledging that the umpires made a mistake, the essence of the Indians protest was that Baltimore didn’t lodge a timely complaint, which was true. This was a legitimate argument that has decent support within the rule book. Perhaps it didn’t help their protest that the Indians buttressed their argument by claiming that by putting the run on the board it caused Wedge to manage differently. Anyone with a set of eyes and the patience to watch this team through Wedge’s tenure knows that this may be theoretically true but realistically impossible.
Though denying the protest, Selig and crew did the Indians a favor by failing to discuss the basis for the denial, as if the protest was so frivolous that it didn’t warrant a two-sentence explanation. This only led to the perception that baseball either didn’t want to uphold the Indians argument on a technicality (the failure of Baltimore to timely complain) or simply didn’t want to have to reschedule still another Indians game, which seems more likely. Whichever, this gave the Tribe still another reason to believe they were being disrespected and allowed an edge that may have been dulling to once again sharpen.
If you witnessed either Wednesday’s or Thursday night’s game, that sharp edge was on full display. On Wednesday night, shortly after the protest was denied, newly-rich Jake Westbrook had to leave the game early due to an abdominal strain and the Indians trailing The bullpen kept the game close and the Indians ultimately prevailed in extra innings on a bloop single by Travis Hafner. Thursday night marked Cliff Lee’s return to the rotation and he promptly put the Indians in a 4-0 hole, although a shaky defense helped that cause. But a close play at the plate in which Toronto catcher Jason Phillips blocked the plate from Josh Barfield led to a few choice words from Phillips to Barfield and the intercession of David Dellucci, who was coming to bat. Dellucci took offense at Phillips irrational exuberance and a bench-clearing nearly ensued.
Following that exchange, Dellucci promptly made a stunning catch in left field and followed that up in the bottom half of the inning with a double. In the process, he personally took a whetstone to the edge that has now clearly developed on this team and that led to another victory, a 7-1 homestand and a streak that has seen the Indians win 10 of their last 11.
It’s hard to know whether these series of early season slights will continue to occur as timely as they have thus far. But even if they don’t it may just be enough for this team to at least develop a personality, something it has never done under Wedge. And that, just as much as anything else, is necessary if this team is going to be a serious contender this season.
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