It wasn’t pretty, but the Indians swept the Rockies tonight despite Bob Wickman’s best effort to blow a save. Why he continually allows runners to take bases is beyond me; I’m sure Eric Wedge has talked to him about this more than a few times, and hopefully it won’t take a blown save or two to convince Wicky to, you know, try to hold a runner once in a while.
Kevin Millwood only went five innings, but seemed to get better as the innings progressed. Thanks to the meticulous John Sanders for letting me know that Millwood threw 33 pitches in the first inning, All those pitches in the first inning shortened his start and made the bullpen go a extra inning. I liked that Howry pitched the seventh and Rhodes the eighth, because the matchups favored Arthur in that inning. The defense helped out as well; Ronnie Belliard made a nice double play to get out of a jam (caused by his error), and Coco Crisp and Jody Gerut made nice diving/sliding stops in the outfield.
Jhonny Peralta didn’t play tonight, but there was a legitimate reason this time; Peralta hyperextended his elbow in last night’s game, so he got the night off in order to help the injury heal.
Ben Broussard left tonight’s game to be with his wife for the imminent birth of their first child. Congrats, Ben!
Thanks partly to Omar Vizquel, the Giants beat the Twins tonight, so the Indians end the day 8.5 games out of first place, and three games behind Minnesota (and the wild card lead).
Aaron Boone in June: .317/.396/.634. Baby steps….
Next up are the Arizona Diamondbacks, who have a pretty good offense, and a suspect pitching staff, with their bullpen shouldering the largest share of the blame. Check out what 1B Tony Clark is doing:
125 AB, .352/.388/.712, 10 2B, 11 HR
The good news is that the Indians miss Javier Vazquez. The bad news is that they face two southpaws during the series, so that probably means two more games with Casey Blake in right field.