After an off day, the Indians head west to take on the Oakland Athletics in a three-game series this weekend. If you can stand to stay up past your bedtime tonight, you’ll see Justin Masterson take on A.J. Griffin for the Athletics. Griffin (10-8, 3.88 ERA) is coming off a no-decision against the Blue Jays, in which he surrendered 2 ER on 5 hits in 5.2 innings. For almost all of his games this season, Griffin has not walked more than two batters; however in his last start he managed to walk six. He’s also surrendered 28 home runs already this season, so the Indians could try to take advantage with the long ball tonight. The Indians faced Griffin one other time this season – he took the loss on May 8 as the Indians won 4-3. He gave up 3 ER on 4 hits over 6.2 innings, and gave up home runs to Carlos Santana and Nick Swisher.
Masterson (who also squared off against Griffin on May 8) is coming off his second straight rough start – he gave up 4 ER and 7 hits, while walking 4 in just 4.1 innings pitched. The Angels ran his pitch count up very high early, but the Indians still managed to come back late in the game. In the May 8 game, Oakland hitters batted just .160 off Masterson and he allowed 3 ER on 4 hits, walking 2 and striking out 7 as he collected the win.
Oakland is coming off a series with the Houston Astros where they lost 2 out of 3. The Indians are coming off a series win against the Twins; they hope to keep the momentum going against the Athletics, while we have to hope that some of Oakland’s struggles continue. Even though everyone pokes fun at the Oakland Coliseum and the Athletics are desperate to move, it was a fun place to see a game.
Additional Note: There were some requests to have auto-refresh and to just generally improve the comments section for these open threads. We’re currently working with someone who will help us improve the site; so hopefully we’ll be able to implement some of these improvements in the very near future. So hopefully we can do something to make it a bit more conducive to commenting while watching a game.
Let me get this out of the way now:
For the love of everything sacred can we please get the A’s a new ballpark?
Apparently people in Oakland agree with you, Sean. That is a sparse crowd for a contending team on a Friday night.
I have fond memories of that stadium. I was out west on a business trip in the late 90″s and was able to take my young son with me to see the tribe play there. good times!
So you guys aren’t a late night crowd? Or is it you have lives on a friday night?
Something is wrong tonight. When i post, The screen freezes and I can’t get back to the page without closing the page and re-opening the browser.. the post is there.
So goodnight and GO TRIBE! Even if we are down 2 in the first… please not another one of these games!
you have to be fn kidding me…
top of 7, bases loaded, 2 outs and cabrera pop fouls on first pitch!!
you were expecting something different? perhaps a weak rollover to short or a three pitch strikeout?
well, you could almost see the fear of god in the A’s when they saw big a-cab come out when it counts…kinda like how we brought in mark reynolds to pinch hit in the jul 19 game against the twins..
and there goes the lead…
i meant tie…i’m talking to myself
and now we play from behind again…
sure would have been nice to potentially have had some runs half an inning ago!
the only good part is that cabrera is 8 AB away
a decent throw and he would have been out by a mile
stubbs has a noodle arm
need something from bourn right now!
swisher has never seen an above the belt fastball that he didnt want to take a wild cut at. has he made contact with a single one of those this year?
dont like this…shoulda kept masterson
in other news, reynolds homers in his debut with NYY
we should have scored 5 or 6 off griffin and another 3 or 4 off the bullpen. what a frustrating game. just cut cabrera now, watching him bat is unbearable.
17 base runners and 2 runs……not worth my time to watch a horror show
f me…what a joke. what a joke. at this point, i blame francona, not cabrera. how the hell do you let this keep playing out over and over again.
Indians have 9….9…..9 MORE base runners and LOSE……….unbelievable
and who left 5 men stranded in 2 ab over the final three innings…
Just caught the end of the replay. Cabrera was 0-19 and you let him hit in the 9th with the tying run in scoring position? Was there no one on the bench? Of course it was a double play.
If they don’t win tonight, they are done! If they keep playing like this, they are done already. What a horrible offensive performance. I’m seriously questioning if they have the talent to do it.