A Quest Called Tribe

On August 15th, the Twins placed Delmon Young on waivers.  He was quickly claimed by the Tigers and we have all heard the anecdotes about Delmon taking the Twins bus to Comerica Park and his new Detroit teammates struggling to comprehend his presence in their locker room.  From seemingly every babbling voice in the peanut gallery, I heard such cries as "Why didn't the Indians claim him?" or "Couldn't the Indians have at least blocked Detroit?"  At the time, I noted Young to be a "non-factor" as he had posted a .662 OPS and just 32 RBI for Minnesota.  I further explained that the Tribe would get a similar boost when Shelley Duncan came back from an overnight in AAA forced by a numbers crunch.

Well, I suppose that I mildly underestimated Young, who has put up 26 RBI in 37 games for the Tigers.  Recognize, though, that his OPS since the trade is still a lowly .693.  For means of comparison, think Matt LaPorta (.710).  Duncan has matched Delmon every step of the way.  Young's numbers (.258/.280/.413, 6 HR) are actually worse than Shelley's (.298/.374/.606, 7 HR, 23 RBI) and the fact that the latter has 50 fewer PA's allows for the staggering difference in OPS.  Oh, did I forget to mention?  Duncan's OPS (do the math) is .980.  So, for all of y'all that are whining about how the Tigers' addition of Delmon Young caused the Tribe's downfall, perhaps it's time to stop playing WoW and regain some understanding of reality.

Speaking of reality, here's some harsh for ya.  The Indians have exactly 2 players (Asdrubal Cabrera, Carlos Santana) with more than 114 games played and just five in triple digits period.  If you were to organize the team's season line-up by most games at each position, the second base (Orlando Cabrera) would digging his own grave on the left coast and the center fielder (Grady Sizemore) would have appeared in fewer than half (71) of the games played.  Additionally, only one starter (Justin Masterson) has pitched every fifth day for the length of the season.  If you're wondering what derailed the dream... yeah, one word: injuries.

Hey, I'm not so pissed at Tony Sipp (though his propensity to serve up the gopher ball is troubling).  Instead, I plan to pour my bubbling cauldron of rage all over Fausto Carmona.  You see, the game should have never gone to extras and it would not have, had Carmona had the ability to shut down a bunch of scrubs.  Seriously, despite fielding their most respectable line-up of the entire series, the Twins featured just three honest-to-goodness major leaguers.  Could Fausto, he of the 15 losses and 5.25 ERA, limit Minnesota to three runs or fewer?  Hell, no!  $7mil for 2012.  Should the Tribe pick up the option?  HELL!  FREAKIN!  NO!

The boys need to take one of three from Detroit to finish .500 and two of three for the tantalizing 82-win plateau.

Then there's this...




Here's to making the Tigers squeal like pigs.

Cheers.