FR Baseball: W/E 8/7..Palmiero sucks!..Wild NL East; Yankees are DEAD; who gets the NL Cy Young?

one man's opinion...

[ken5050]

OK, all you Freeper baseball fans..exciting week on and off the field. As usual, let's recap the races, then we'll talk about off the field shenanigans...

[1Old Pro]

Yankees are kaput, toast..done..

Too early for that declaration IMHO.

[ken5050]

Did you hear the report that the O's don't want Palmiero back? They may release him..

[1Old Pro]

Didn't hear it, interesting.

[SCALEMAN]

Yankee fans are front runners..
Tiger Woods fans are front runners..
Cowboy fans are front runners..
Irish fans are front runners..
Cub fans are..to be pitied and ridiculed

[steve8714]

you are correct sir!

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

Sox win!!!! maybe it was the hard way. But we will take it

[GraniteStateConservative]

6 games tick off the schedule for the Yankees and they are right back where they were before those 6 games-- 4.5 back in the AL East.

[ken5050]

I predicted 3-4 on this 7 game home styand for the MFYs....and I stand by it..

[ElTianti]

And the MFYs LOSE!

That Sox bullpen must be delt with, they can't go into October giving away 5 run leads like that.

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

yes they do and I dont think Remlinger is the answer

[ElTianti]

yes they do and I dont think Remlinger is the answer

His number aren't awful, 711 hits in 817 innings with a career 4.29 ERA.

[GraniteStateConservative]

This is how the Yanks season has gone:

11-19
16-2
12-18
11-2
10-10

The Bipolar Yankees.

[ken5050]

Woo-Hoo!!!!..Last night the Tribe gave you an engagement gift...What a last inning...I'm surprised you've not been here already gloating....BTW..the Indians are ahead of the MFYs in the WC standings as of today...

[Petronski]

Alas, the Indians remain .001 behind the GDYs. What an inning, though. I think I've watched the 101-second video capsule of "the inning" on the Indians website about five times so far. Yowza!

[Petronski]

Eleven-run ninth lifts Tribe past Royals
Improbable comeback extends Cleveland's streak to four
By Matt LaWell / MLB.com


KANSAS CITY -- For eight innings Tuesday night, the Indians were little more than a solemn group of men who just happened to be playing a kid's game.

Then they turned into the kids.

They whooped and hollered. They slapped high-fives. They poured out of the dugout to pound each other on the back. Oh, right, and they scored 11 runs in the ninth inning to rally for an improbable, 13-7 win over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium.

That's not a typo. The Indians really did score 11 runs in the ninth.

That's the most they've scored in one inning all season. Heck, it's more than they've scored in all but four games this season.

"That's why you play this game to the end," manager Eric Wedge said, still seemingly in disbelief at what he had just seen. "Crazy things have happened before, and they'll happen again."

But probably not as crazy as this. Not for a while, at least.

Not as crazy as sending 14 men to the plate and collecting eight hits and two walks. Not as crazy as seeing the Royals drop three balls in one inning. Not as crazy as seeing 48 pitches and connecting on more than a few.

The numbers just keep going, and it's rather difficult to digest all of them. A dissection of the inning could confuse even the most fluent baseball fan, though, in the end, everything boils down to one thing.

"You score 11 runs," Aaron Boone said, "and you've got to do some things right."

Indeed, the Indians did plenty right, and everything started innocently enough when Casey Blake drilled a double to left and Grady Sizemore drove him home with another double to left. Coco Crisp followed with a single to center that scored Sizemore from second. That made it 7-4, but hardly a game, especially after Jhonny Peralta looked at strike three for the inning's first out.

But the Indians never stopped. Travis Hafner doubled to left and, all of a sudden, Victor Martinez strode to the plate representing of the game's tying run. He singled to left and drove home Crisp to make it a two-run game.

With Ramon Vazquez running for Martinez, Ronnie Belliard popped up to short. Second out, right? Not so fast. Royals shortstop Angel Berroa dropped the ball. Hafner scored on the error to draw the Tribe to within one run, but Vazquez was cut down at second for that second out.

With just one out to go, things looked bleak, especially after all that effort. Wedge even sent Jeff Liefer to the plate to pinch-hit for Ben Broussard.

Liefer, who carried with him a meager .222 batting average, fouled off two pitches and worked the count to 1-2 before he lofted a ball to deep left, just in front of the wall and, seemingly, right into left fielder Chip Ambres' glove to end the game.

"When I first hit it, I thought it might have had a chance [to get out]," Liefer said. "And then I saw [Ambres] kind of settled under it at the wall and I thought I'd just missed it.

"Then I saw it clink off his glove and I was happy again."

Yes, the ball "clinked" right off Ambres' glove as Belliard raced around third to score, tying the game.

"I knew if he misses it or drops it, I can score," Belliard said. "I was running hard with my head down, and he dropped it and I scored."

And the Tribe rolled. The Royals, now thoroughly deflated, just rolled over.

The rest of the inning was a blur. Boone doubled to left and drove in Liefer for an 8-7 lead. Blake walked. Sizemore singled and drove in Boone. On the same play, Royals right fielder Emil Brown booted the ball -- literally, with his foot -- and Blake scored for a three-run lead.

Then Crisp walked and Peralta, who struck out so long ago, sent a 1-2 pitch over the wall in left for a three-run homer that can only be described as an exclamation point.

"We couldn't believe it," Blake said. "We were just going nuts."

Boone added that the chaos in the Indians' dugout was enough to cause bodily harm.

"It was pretty wild," he said. "Victor [Martinez] is always my gauge, and he was going nuts. He was hurting my hand, slapping it. Guys were high-fiving. It was a pretty exciting atmosphere. It was like a little-kid feeling. You can't believe it and you're giddy."

The win, coupled with losses by the Yankees and A's, landed the Tribe in a second-place tie with New York in the American League Wild Card race. Both teams remain 3 1/2 games back of Oakland.

And with the manner in which the Indians have been racking up wins during recent weeks -- they've won four straight, and nine of their last 11 -- the team is riding higher than ever.

"We never feel like we can lose a game," Peralta said. "We always feel like we have a chance to win."

After this rally, nobody will doubt them.

Matt LaWell is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

[ken5050]

Your'e correct about the .001 differential..but if you go to CNNSI.com....MLB WC standings..they list the Tribe AHEAD of the Yankees..

[ken5050]

One game swing today for you..Yankees will lose this afternoon...reality check for the 32-0 phenom..and Sabatha should be big tonight..how can KC even showup?.. Yu might have a beanball or two...

BTW..did you see the yankee ;owlights..some drunk fan jumped/fell? out of the upper deck..landed on the netting..or he'd be dead today..

[Petronski]

Petronski's Rule #3:

Never rely on CNN for accuracy.

[ken5050]

I am mortified..mortified, I tell ya...

[GraniteStateConservative]

The Royals and the Drays field so poorly that they shouldn't even be considered major league teams.

BTW, it was former Red Sox prospect Chip Ambres whose error tied the game up instead of catching it to get the final out of the 9th. So, you're welcome, Indians fans.