News and Notes: May 9, 2012

Indians in first place but last in attendance

It's Time To Pay Attention To The Cleveland Indians - SB Nation Cleveland

Usually it's Tampa Bay that gets this treatment, but with the Indians winning, they're getting it now as well.

The Indians have drawn a league low 234,651 through Monday's games. That's 16 home dates, so the Indians are averaging 14,667 fans a game, including the Opening Day sellout. That will pick up as the weather gets warmer, but still it's indicative of a disturbing trend: the number of fans that are going to go to Indians games, rain or shine, win or lose, are a very small group now. It has to take good weather and a winning team to attract any kind of crowd now.

Hamilton hits four home runs in Rangers' MLB win - Yahoo! News

The Tribe's performance over the weekend is looking more impressive based on what the Rangers are doing to the Orioles. They crushed Baltimore 10-3 last night, but the story was Josh Hamilton's four home runs, tying a major-league record. There's been less four-homer games (16) than perfect games (21) in MLB history. All four of Hamilton's home runs were two-run shots, with Elvis Andrus scoring on all four home runs.

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Via BaseballThinkFactory and Twitter, an amusing conversation between Paul Hoynes and Chris Perez:

@hoynsie Thanks for coming: After winning his big-league debut in Game 1 Mon, Zach McAllister optioned to Triple-A Columbus. #Indians.

@ChrisPerez @hoynsie It wasn't his debut, just first win

(hat tip: baerga1)

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