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At the start of this game, I said to a friend at the ballpark that I have a feeling that the Dave Burba we saw in the complete game his last outing wasn’t the one we’ll get here – and I was right – he gave up three runs in the top of the first in a mostly ineffective inning. However, what did surprise me is that we got them right back in the bottom of the first and the game was tied pretty quickly on a Raffy HR. The White Sox pulled ahead in the third 4-3, and we had SEVERAL chances over the next couple of innings to take the lead, and we didn’t. We did tie the game up in the 6th, though.
However, in the 7th, Gabe committed the second of his two errors of the game and allowed the go ahead run to score. However, we managed to pull it together and tie the game in the bottom of the 8th, and finally win it in the bottom of the 9th on a sac fly by Gabe, atoning for his errors.
Not thrilled with Burba, although our pen did pretty good not allowing anything major. Nice to pull off this win, even though it helped the Indians as they too won.

Ugh. :(

No time to write commentary, but even if I did, what more needed to be said about this one than Bartolo Colon? :)

No time to write commentary, still way too busy at work. Nice to see 6 in a row, though!

No time to write commentary, too busy at work. Nice to see a sweep, though!

Dave Burba pitched a complete game – Dave Burba?!? Of all our pitchers this season, Burba was the one I least expected to pitch a complete game. Not that I’m not happy about it mind you, just more surprised at seeing that. Was nice to see us get out and get another win – this now makes three straight series we’ve won, and with the Indians reeling pretty good, I’m hoping we can step into Cleveland on Friday and take another one there. With Seattle losing too, we’ve pulled into a respectable last place position of only 6.5 games out. :)
Anyway, there’s not much to say about this game except Burba was great, tossing only 104 pitches for the complete game, and our offense was good – with Arod getting another home run, and Raffy finally getting his 500th double – he really was hoofing it to get that one, too. :) Rusty Greer contuinues to play extremely well, going 4-5, scoring a couple of runs, and driving one in. This modified lineup that Narron has had out there the last couple of days has worked really well. Bill Haselman also had a few RBI’s himself, and has done really well the last week or so.
We’ll probably see Hector Ortiz catching tonight as Has needs a day off again.

A great way to start off the road trip – a big 10-2 win in Toronto, although I thought it was Montreal for all the empty seats they showed on TV up there (granted the Maple Leafs were in a Game 7 situation, but still..)
It was a night of historic home runs for us. Well, all but Bill Hasleman’s. :) Arod finally hit his 250th, becoming the second youngest player in history to do that (about a week behind Jimmy Foxx). Raffy hit his 254th, I believe and is now in sole possession of 25th place all time. Also, Hank Blalock hit his first major league home run (after Arod made another one of his “predictions” that Blalock would bust out this series). Kenny Rogers looked superb again, and my least favorite remaining bullpen person Steve Woodard gave up a home run, but we limited Toronto to 3 runs on 5 hits.
The more I see him, the more I’m impressed with Calvin Murray – I suspect he’ll bump Everett from the regular lineup once Gonzalez comes back. Speaking of Everett, was nice to see a big smile on his face when he and Murray crashed into each other in the field.
Overall, a great game – the bobblehead approves!

With this win, we have now won two series in a row, and are 4-2 over the last 6 games! Woo-hoo! :) Plus we’re going to end the month less than 10 games out, which isn’t great, but is still manageable – the season isn’t over quite yet.
What a pitching performance! Ismael Valdes still isn’t getting any run support – but this time it didn’t matter, he won. I have to say, Valdes has been the biggest surprise of the season so far for me. The more I see him, the more I like him, and hope he does well enough to stick around for more than just this year.
Offensively we got next to nothing, but that’s not a surprise given it’s Bartolo Colon pitching against us. We got only two runs, but it was enough. Valdes combined with three other pitchers (Rocker, Seanez, & Irabu) to keep the Indians to a lone run with 7 scattered hits. A sweet sweet pitching performance, and if our offense ever comes around for real, we shouldn’t have any trouble winning games with pitching like this! Plus it was nice to see this performance on national TV (ESPN covered this game).
As I write this on Monday’s off day, Dan Miceli was designated for assignment. Good – I never wanted him here in the first place as a pitcher. He was ineffective, and I think the pen is better for his not being here at all.

Rob Bell returns, wearing a new uniform number, and also seems to be a much better pitcher than he was last year.
Rob looked really sharp tonight – curve ball was good, and was most definitely way better than the Rob Bell we had pitching for us last year. If he continues to pitch this way – then this will be a most welcome addition. I see that he’s going to get another start, which is good – hopefully he can string it together and stay.
Overall our pitching was very good again this game, only giving up two runs on six hits. That’s an ERA of 2.00 – which is Pedro Martinez territory – can’t argue with that! Van Poppel & Irabu both pitched shutout frames, and over the last 6 games, our pitching has looked like what it was supposed to look like if we had Zimmerman & Powell from the start of the season. This month has been maddening, but it looks like we may be starting to turn the corner finally.
Time will tell. :)