A Look Back At The Week Ahead; June 3 to June 9

June 3

This day is interesting in that the Tribe has never lost an extra-inning game or been swept in a doubleheader. The last few years have not been kind to us though, losing ten of the last fourteen and the last three. The last victory was in Minnesota by a 10-1 score in 2009. The first two innings went pretty quick, but the Indians scored five in the third after two outs: Ben Francisco single, Jamey Carroll single, Victor Martinez RBI single, Shin-Soo Shoo RBI single and a Jhonny Peralta three run shot. That would be all Cliff Lee needed, but the offense kept at it. There was a Carroll RBI single in the fourth. Francisco and Victor got two more home in the eighth and Kelly Shoppach doubled in two in the ninth. Lee pitched eight strong innings, seven hits, one walk and five strikeouts. He allowed a single run in the seventh. Rafael Perez pitched a scoreless ninth.

June 4

This date has had some real highs and some real lows as well. The longest winning streak was eight games, from 1965 to 1972. That winning streak came to an end with the infamous 10 cent beer night game against the Rangers in 1974. There was also a nine game losing streak from 1983 to 1993. The Indian offense has broken double digits twelve times while the pitching has done the same, including a terrible 23-2 loss to the Twins in 2002. Of those 24 instances of double digit runs, three times both Cleveland and their opponent achieved it in the same game. The 1952 game was a 13-11 loss in Fenway, but was special because Larry Doby hit for the cycle that day. Doby opened the scoring with a two run home run off Mel Parnell in the first. But Bob Feller couldn't make it last, giving up three in the bottom half and three more in the second. Reliever Sam Jones allowed two more and after two, the Red Sox led 8-2. Doby cut that lead down in the third, driving in two more on a double. Steve Gromek relieved Jones and gave one back. In the fifth, the Indians knocked out Parnell on a Ray Boone two run double. Doby greeted Dizzy Trout with a two run triple and Harry Simpson added another with his own double, and the teams were tied at nine. But Gromek let George Kell hit a two run homer in the fifth and two run single in the sixth and the Red Sox were up by four again. In Doby's first attempt at finishing the cycle, he flew out to short in the sixth. His final chance came leading off the ninth and he singled to left. Trout gave up two runs, but both came at the expense of outs and ended the big inning. Doby finished 4-5 with three runs and six RBIs.

June 5

There has been marked improvement by the Indians on this date lately. Since 1991, they are 16-4 with four shutouts, including six straight from 1991 to 1997. The crazy stat on this day has to be the 13-2 mark on Saturdays. There has only been one interleague victory, the 8-7 win against the Cubs in 1999 in eleven innings. The game started inauspiciously, with Dwight Gooden giving up four in the first. David Justice got two back in the second on a homer off Jon Lieber. Gooden gave up another one in third on a Glenallen Hill homer, but Robbie Alomar got it back in the bottom half. Lance Johnson promptly got it back on a single, two stolen bases and a Chris Turner overthrow. An RBI groundout by Enrique Wilson and the score was now 6-4 in the Cubs favor. Dave Stevens and Paul Assenmacher combined to give up one more in the seventh. In the eighth, Manny Ramirez led off with a double and Justice drove him run, making it a 7-5 score. Rick Aguilera came in to close out the game and Omar Vizquel led off with a pinch hit bunt and a Tyler Houston error moved him to second. Two outs later, Robbie Alomar singled him in and went to second on the throw. Then Manny drove him in and voila, tie ball game. The Cubs threatened in both the tenth and eleventh, but Mike Jackson averted the trouble. They wouldn't get a third chance as Robbie Alomar singled to first and went to third on pitcher Scott Sander's error. After Manny and Thome were intentionally walked, Wil Cordero ended the game with a single to left.

June 6

One odd data point here is that the Tribe is ten games over .500 for this date for road games. There was also a long stretch where the Tribe faced the Athletics, the Philadelphia version, on this date. From 1947 to 1954, they faced them nine times. The Tribe went a fantastic 8-1. In three of those victories, they beat up on them 11-1, 11-5 and 11-4. The one game in that stretch that wasn't against the A's, was a 16-2 thrashing of the Yankees in Yankee Stadium in 1950. The Indians opened with three in the first and four more in the second off Bob Porterfield, mainly on singles and doubles. Meanwhile, Mike Garcia got out of the second with only one run on three singles and in the fourth, Joe DiMaggio homered. But the Tribe kept on scoring as well. Jim Hegan and Joe Gordon both homered. Two more were plated by Lou Boudreau and Gordon in the sixth. They topped it off with six runs in the ninth with the big blow being a triple by Luke Easter.

June 7

And as good as the Tribe was against the Athletics on June 6, they are even better on this date, a crazy 11-1 overall. In 1952, they smacked them down 14-0, in 2006 it was 11-2 and in 1987 it was a 12-2 victory in Oakland. The Tribe got five off of Dave Stewart in the first two innings, mainly off of five, yes five, errors. In the first, Brett Butler walked, Julio Franco singled, and then Pat Tabler singled in Butler. However Jose Canseco had an error on the single itself and the throw back to the infield with Franco scoring. After a wild pitch, Alfredo Griffin dropped a Joe Carter popup and Tabler scored. In the second, after a Butler walk, Franco reached on another Griffin error, stole second and they both scored on a Tabler single to deep left, Tabler making the third out at second. There was also a Mark McGwire error on a foul popup that did not factor in the scoring. Meanwhile Steve Carlton had found his fountain of youth, allowing only one run through seven innings on four hits, four walks and four strikeouts. Carter hit a solo shot off Stewart in the sixth, finishing his night, six runs, only two of them earned. In the seventh the Indians got another run on a Cory Snyder single, a Rick Dempsey walk and Terry Steinbach error on a Butler sacrifice. That ended Dave Leiper's might and Eric Plunk came in and allowed four more runs, mainly on a Mel Hall single and a three run double by Tony Bernazard. The scoring finished in the eighth on the A's seventh error, this time by Tony Phillips. Of the twelve runs scored by the Tribe, ten were unearned. What a strange game indeed.

June 8

Something will have to give in this year's game. The Indians are only 1-5 against Detroit, but 12-3 on Saturdays. The only victory we have against them is a 1-0 nail biter in the first game of a 1961 doubleheader. But the wildest game was in Fenway, to no surprise, in 1962. The Tribe won 15-9 in 13 innings. Ike Delock was the Sawx starter and gave up four in the first on a Chuck Essegian flyout, a Willie Kirkland single and a Bubba Phillips single. Kirkland and Jerry Kindall tacked on two more in the third, ending Delock's day. Dick Donovan was cruising until the fourth when he gave up three straight doubles to Carl Yastrzemski, Frank Malzone, and Pete Runnels, and a homer to Bob Tillman and the score was now 6-5 in the fourth. Fred Funk took over for Donovan that inning. Funk and Barry Latman gave up three more in the fifth to a Tillman double and Carroll Hardy flyball. The Indians took back the lead in the seventh with a Woodie Held homer off Galen Cisco and a two run homer from Tito Francona off Dick Radatz. Gary Bell couldn't seal the deal in the ninth, allowing a game tying homer to Eddie Bressoud. Both teams went down in order in the tenth and eleventh. The Indians loaded the bases in the twelfth but didn't score. But they did tag Hal Kolstad for six in the thirteenth. Kirkland hit a two run dinger, a bases loaded to Wynn Hawkins, a Francona base knock and a Gary Green grounder finished the scoring. Hawkings got the win by closing out the Sox in the bottom half.

June 9

The record on this date is a fantastic eighteen games over .500. The bulk of that excellence occurred in the first half of the century when the Indians beat up on the Senators thirteen of seventeen times. This is one of the few days that we have a winning record against the Yankees franchise. In 1921 and 1923, the Indians beat them 14-4 and 13-3 in New York. In the 1923 game, the Yankees got two in the first, most likely on a Steve O'Neill error allowing Babe Ruth to get on base. He was driven in by a Wally Pipp triple and then Bob Meusel drove him in. Bullet Joe Bush was cruising along until the fourth when the Indians scored three. But his day ended when they got seven in the sixth inning. George Uhle threw a complete game, allowing the third run in the seventh and the Tribe finished the scoring with three more in the ninth off George Pipgras. The Indians fished the day with twelve hits, ten singles, a Frank Brower double, a Tris Speaker home run and eight walks. Speaker led the day with four RBI, but Homer Summa and Joe Sewell each knocked in two. Speaker, Brower and Summa all scored three runs.