Update, long time coming

Fair readers, we at DoubleWahoo apologize profusely for the insane dearth of posts recently. Although you number few in readership (approximately 2 at last subscription renewal), I have received multiple comments about my lack of progress in updating the world on Cleveland sports, UVA sports, and other stuff that I feel like talking about. So here it is.

The Browns got two of the 5 highest rated players in this years draft, OT Joe Thomas, and QB Brady Quinn. Those two guys also fill 2 of the 5 positions on a team that pundits say make a winning club, left tackle, defensive end, QB, wide receiver, and cornerback. Speaking of corners, the Browns also picked up Eric Wright out of UNLV, who apparently has first round talent, but had some character issues, so he fell to the Brownies in the second round. Personally I’m not worried about character when Romeo Crennel is around. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you mess with. This draft could go down as the turning point of this franchise, and golly let’s hope so.

In terms of franchises that had their turning points a while ago and are now reaping the rewards, the Indians are atop the American League Central at the end of April. Despite missing 4 games with Seattle due to snow, and having to play three “home” games in Milwaukee, the Tribe posted a 14-8 record for the month of April, and worst case scenario will have a 1 game lead entering the month of May. Here’s some keys to the team thus far.

• They’re winning series: The only series defeat came in a sweep to the Yankees at Yankee stadium against three pitchers the Tribe has never seen before, and with Victor who has been the best hitter with runners in scoring position on the team. The final game should’ve been a win after Fausto pitched a gem, but Borowski came in and choked in the ninth. Not even a save oppurtunity.
• Despite Borowski’s choke in the Bronx, the bullpen has been more successful this season thus far. Cabrera is re-emerging as an unhittable back of the bullpen option. Found it interesting the other day to read an article that in the last two seasons, Cabrera’s slider has been the most unhittable pitch in all of baseball. He misses bats with that pitch around 60% of the time. In ‘05, by far his more effective season, he missed bats close to 3/4 of the time with his slider. Gross. What’s different this year? He has confidence. He goes out there, throws his sinking fastball for strikes, gets ahead of the hitters, and then makes them look stupid with his splitter and slider.
• Some kind of weird, elusive, winning mojo. They’re winning the one run games and extra inning games that didn’t go their way last year.

Reasons the rest of the league could be in trouble?

• Lots of hitters for the Indians are still trying to hit their stride. Guys who are playing well: Grady, Pronk, Martinez, Garko, Nizon. Guys who are still trying to find themselves at the plate a bit: everyone else. That is scary, for a team who is second in runs scored per nine innings to only be able to look up. In the recent win streak even, Grady and Vic had a little bit of a down turn with Hafner turning it on. Now he’s pressing a bit again, but Barfield and Blake are turning it up a bit. Let’s get this offense running on all cylinders and then everyone watch out.
• Cliff Lee is coming back, which means Fausto Carmona who beat Johan Santana and then gave up only 1 run in 8.3 innings against the Orioles has to go somewhere, which is scary. Few teams have six quality MLB starters in their pocket, and you need that many to get through the season, just ask the Yankees.

School is still going well, and we keep plugging along. Four more weeks, and then you loyal readers might see an increase in the rate of posting here.

That’s all for now.

Tribe starts season 2-0

On opening day, the Indians brought their bats. They scored 11 runs in the first three innings, including a 5 spot in the first en route to a 12-5 victory over the White Sox. It’s run production like that that has people picking the Indians as a playoff contender this year. In the second game of the season, the Indians came from behind all day after Jake Westbrook yielded a 3-run homerun in the bottom of the first, but prevailed with an 8-7 victory. Making these victories that much sweeter is the opponent: Chicago White Sox. For whatever reason, as an Indian’s fan I am very bitter towards the White Sox. I think it has a lot to do with their television announcer, Hawk Harrelson. He is an idiot. He was an OK player, a really crappy GM, and now the worst homer in all of baseball. For those unfamiliar with the term, homer means you root for your team and your team only. He is not excited about baseball at all unless the White Sox did something good. Granted, the home team announcer should be a little biased, rooting for his team etc., but Harrelson takes it to new heights. He practically shouts everything that happens for the White Sox and then barely mutters, in the most monotone voice, inserting extra pauses to show you how unexcited he is, whenever the Indians have a positive outcome. I stopped listening to him last year, but just seeing the White Sox station covering the game makes me think of his voice in my head and it almost ruins the game.

This writer is trying not to get overly excited about the first two games, but when you have performancs like todays by Victor and Hafner, you can’t help but get excited. Martinez was 4-4 today with two walks and is batting .750 so far this season. I know it’s only two games, but .750!?! Hafner drew 4 walks today, two of them intentional, the other two intentional unintentional walks. Grady Sizemore has hit two homeruns, one off of the second pitch of the season, and the other today with the Tribe down 1, a man on base, and a left handed pitcher in the game. Huge. Grady is hitting .400 to start the season. Just overall very happy about the Tribe. A few kinks that still need to be worked out, and the platoons aren’t able to substitute very well yet because the regulars against leftys haven’t gotten a chance to play. Once they get their swings under them I think this team could do great things.

While not thrilled with the bullpen today, they got the job done. Mastny came in for two batters and promptly retired them. Then on comes Fultz to get two batters (and surrender a walk), Betancourt on for two batters (with a walk), and then we get to the back-end of the bullpen. Hernandez is 42, still throws the ball 94, and you can tell has the swagger of a veteran. He gave up a leadoff double, but then sat down the next three. Joe Borowski looked to be having trouble finding the zone in the ninth, surrendering a lead-off walk to Darin Erstad, who then promptly stole second because Borowski wasn’t even pretending to hold him on. A strikeout of Jim Thome, then a walk to Paul Konerko, then a strike-out of Jermaine Dye, and then he gets Joe Crede on a full count, Crede gets a hold of one to left field, but Michaels tracks it down and cradles it into his abdomen as he’s falling on his tush to end the game.

Notes:

•  Sizemore is really pumped. He was very excited after his home run, and extremely excited about Michael’s catch. He may not be a very vocal leader, but he plays with a passion that is infectious.
•  The Indians squandered back to back bases loaded oppurtunities in the eighth and ninth innings. Would’ve been nice to see those converted, but, a win is a win.
•  The bottom of the order went a combined 4-19 with a walk. However, those four hits were one after another with Delucci getting a double, Peralta tripling him home, Barfield singling him home, and Marte crushing one to left. Good job by them that inning. Less impressive was Delucci, then Peralta, then Barfield getting struck out with the bases loaded. Followed by Marte and Sizemore in the next inning, and then Nixon gets the new rally going, which also wasn’t converted.
•  Alot of the walk drawing and giving has to be due to an extremely inconsistent strike zone called by the ump. He’s old, and I bet if you look up his computer rating, it was horrible.

Lots of hope going into this season. The bullpen got the job done, I won’t say they looked strong, but this loss is on the White Sox bullpen, not ours. A little better outing from Jake and this game wouldn’t have even been a contest.

Not a good day to be a Wahoo fan

A Wahoo fan of any kind.

In what was supposed to be his final start before the season begins, CC Sabathia, ace of the Tribe’s pitching staff, took a line-drive off of his forearm from Reed Johnson. This is bad news. Anyway you dice it, a bruise affects his control because it’s hard to use muscles when they’re in pain, and they don’t respond as well, a fracture means time off and more arm strengthening needed to get back. A bruise would hopefully be less time, although often guys will rush back if they don’t think there’s a big injury.

The other bad news is for fans who like to chant Wahoo-wa Wahoo-wa, Uni-v-virgin-ee-uh: Leading receiver from last season, Kevin Ogletree, will be sidelined this season with an ACL tear. He’ll likely have it repaired sometime soon, but this is bad news for the Hoos, who often have trouble putting together good offensive sets.

Whether their lack of offense is due to a no-nonsense offense that often runs the same play, or due to lack of playmakers, or just due to the youth of the line and well everyone last year, losing Ogletree is a big hit. He’s not a huge guy, but think Steve Smith, just not quite as good in all aspects of the game quite yet. Regardless, the next best receiver coming into this year was under 100 yards last season. That’s right, not game. Season. We’ll see how the Hoos rebound from this. The good news is the main receivers in the Cavalier’s offense are usually the tight ends, but it would help the Cavaliers out to have a deep threat and stretch the field.

So, here’s hoping CC isn’t hurt that bad, and Ogletree makes as full of a recovery as you can after tearing your ACL.

Crazy

Things have been crazy here at the offices of DoubleWahoo as the offices recently moved, but they’re settling back down to normalcy.

Of note today: The Browns signed Jamal Lewis formerly of the Ravens to a one-year contract. If this means they are drafting Adrian Peterson, that makes me happy because nothing would be more painful than having to root for the Browns as they are led by former Notre Dame signal caller Brady Quinn. That would ruin my love for that franchise, and no one wants that to happen. I think Lewis would be a good mentor for Peterson (minus the jail-time for setting up a drug buy), they are both bigger power backs with more speed than say Jerome Bettis. While the bus really did run through people, Lewis and Peterson have the quickness to break it outside, not like Barry Sanders or Reggie Bush, but a mix of those two greats. The problem with versatility is that they’re not quite the strongest or the quickest, so the Browns will need to be sure to vary their offense and give teams different looks so that they don’t just expect Peterson between the tackles, but they don’t run him outside too much. Lewis did that in his record-setting yardage year (2003: 2,066 yards) and hopefully he can mentor Peterson to make him just as effective.

In other news the young kids are looking good in Indians camp. So is David Delucci, and the utility battle wages on. I for one hope that Hector Luna does not get the job. Outside of that I could care less. Hopefully our young guys around the diamond will stay healthy. The outfield has so many guys who want to play that we could almost field 3 full outfields of major-league ready talent. Granted they wouldn’t be the best at their positions like Sizemore is, but they could all face major-league pitching right now. The infield has Asdrubal Cabrera who is going to swing a toothpick in the big leagues, but his glove will allow him to rise to the top. I’m very excited about potentially seeing him when the Bisons come to Richmond. Second base is not an area of strength for the Tribe, but potentially Cabrera could slide over. If the injury bug bites, it bites.

Alright, off to healing old people.

Best Day Ever

Not only did the Indians win their first spring training game 13-2, but UVa beat Virginia Tech AND combined with UNC losing to Georgia Tech tonight, that puts UVA in sole possession of first place in the ACC. If we can beat Wake Forest on Saturday at Wake Forest, we will win the regular season ACC championship.

UVA rode Singletary and Reynolds all the way tonight, but they also got significant contributions from Diane, a nice little pop from Joseph, Cain and Soroye were pounding the glass and playing a nice inside out game. If we can play stingy defense like we did and attack the glass…oh man. Now we need to go on the road and take care of business.

To top it all off, pending the uploading of stats I should win my regular season ACC-fantasy league in my first year participating. Couple that with my first best in beard win and all in all this is a great year.

Most Important Day of the Year

March 1st marks the first spring training ballgame to be played by the beloved Cleveland Indians. Jake Westbrook will toe the rubber for the Tribe against Woody Williams and his Houston Astros.

Prediction for the game. Thanks to the fact that Woody Williams is obviously a square (6 feet, 200 lbs, 40 yrs. old, same letter as both initials) he obviously is not athletic enough to win this game; therefore, the Tribe will be victorious. You heard it first here.

Of course I will probably predict the Tribe to win every game, but not for reasons such as “good baseball playing” or “better statistics” because those are silly reasons. No, here at Double Wahoo we will rise above the fray, stray from the status quo, and give a multitude of reasons why the Tribe will win ballgames, most of them having nothing to do with baseball.

Correction on Peralta

The editors did not mean to give the impression that Peralta had a great year at the plate last year. The point of the previous post is that Peralta’s main appeal is as a power-hitting shortstop (relative to the norm at his position). This is only a benefit if he can play a decent shortstop. Now, his lack of vision caused a decline in BOTH areas last year. He did not put up tremendous numbers at the plate and frankly looked lost most of the time in the field, allowing balls to slide under his glove, or simply being nowhere to be found on a seemingly manageable ball hit to his side of the field.

The hope is that the vision has corrected his fielding back into the “average” range, and will also benefit his hitting so that he doesn’t look like a little-leaguer as soon as a MLB pitcher throws him anything except a fastball.

Lasik eye surgery

Not to be confused with Lasix, a powerful diuretic (makes you pee), Lasik eye surgery basically shaves away some of your cornea, thereby altering the depth that light must travel. This will function similar to glasses and contacts by changing the focal point of light, hopefully landing it closer onto the retina to improve vision. While bulking up a little bit on this procedure I found it hilarious that they use the same equipment (microkeratome) to cut a small flap in your cornea as they use to prepare slides for histological examination. The difference being of course, those slides are prepared from preserved tissue. Little tid-bit.

So why, one might ask, would the powers that be at Double Wahoo care one lick about Lasik surgery. For one thing, the editors have horrible vision and hope one day to benefit from this surgery. On the other hand, it was revealed today that Jhonny Peralta (no, not a mis-spelling, an awesome spelling) had a Lasik procedure performed this offseason. That is a very interesting fact, considering that Peralta has been much maligned for his play last year at a position traditionally considered the captain of the infield; shortstop. Jhonny’s problem is he’ll always make a team because he puts up tremendous offensive numbers compared to other shortstops; however, he needs to play at least respectable defense otherwise there is no benefit. In order to put up those good numbers, Jhonny bulked up a little bit and grew 2 inches. In a game so dependent upon coordination, this can cause problems. Another KEY component of coordination is vision. Apparently the Indian’s shortstop and number three hitter to start the season was lacking this as well.

While I’m glad Jhonny has corrected his vision, it makes me wonder how he was allowed to get away with being vision-less for the season. According to Peralta, he didn’t like the way that contacts felt, so he didn’t wear them. Only during the final two weeks of the season did he suck it up. Makes you wonder, when a professional athelete won’t wear contacts, and will allow his statistics to suffer because of it. Just makes you go, “huh?” Ah well, hopefully that’s the stupidest thing Jhonnny Peralta ever does, and he returns to having a big bat for a shortstop and playing adequate enough defense to allow that big bat to shine.

Keith Foulke

He shares my name, but that doesn’t mean I automatically understand everything he does, such as retiring before the seasons starts, even after signing with a new team in the offseason. I understand that he probably wasn’t feeling great when he signed the contract, but assumed that he would feel better when the season rolled around. And maybe he was completely honest about his health to the Indians, and Shapiro was willing to take a flyer on him hoping to get a discount. A $5 million a salary says not much of a discount was given, although the heavy performance incentives say that the Indians were at least wary.

Regardless, I guess I’m just mad because now we have to rely on Joe Borowski, who is extremely injury-plagued, not in the way that Travis Hafner keeps getting beaned, but in the way that he has had a broken wrist, shoulder trouble, and is 35 years old. That is an old arm to rely on. Granted, last season he had 36 saves, but in his career he only totals 80. That means that last season is either a new trend, or it is an outlier.

So now it comes time to hope that some of the young guns can step into roles that have been opened for them. Fernando Cabrera could be dominant if he can maintain his control. Jason Davis throws the ball hard just too straight sometimes, and Matt Miller needs to stay off of the DL. Anyway, we’ll see these questions answered as the season begins and you can catch all of the hot Tribe action right here.

First Post

Welcome to my blog. The DoubleWahoo is actually something I stole from my brother, since we both went to The University of Virginia and are both avid fans of the Cleveland Indians. UVA uses the chant “wah-hoo-wah” as part of its victory song, “The Good ‘Ole Song.” This yell was then shortened to Wahoo, and a fish of the same name caught on as the unofficial mascot because of its propensity to drink copious amounts (of water) in order to enlarge its profile before a fight.

The second wahoo comes from Chief Wahoo, the mascot of the Cleveland Indians. While the mascot is probably offensive, it never seems to garner as much criticism as the Seminoles of Florida State, and other schools or teams with Indian logos. To the Tribes’ credit, they are slowly using the scripted I logo to phase out Chief Wahoo, but they will still undoubtedly be referred to as the Tribe. So, I like sports, and I will write about them alot no doubt. I’ll also write some of my expeditions in medical school probably, and other random things that cross my mind.