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October 19, 2007
INDIANS JOURNAL
By Kevin McNamara
BOSTON – Playoff baseball is littered with heroes who’ve seemingly come out of nowhere to provide a huge impact for winning teams. That’s why Red Sox fans will always remember Bernie Carbo and Mark Bellhorn, to name just two legendary post-season performers.
This fact was not lost on Cleveland manager Eric Wedge when he met with a small pack of media members Friday. Wedge was asked about the struggles of some of his players and if he could do anything to shake things up. The same question could’ve been posed to Boston’s Terry Francona. Baseball gurus may think the final two games of the ALCS will be decided largely on the skills of Manny Ramirez, Curt Schilling, Fausto Carmona and Grady Sizemore but you’d best be ready for a surprise guest.
“Everybody has to remember that when it comes to post-season you talk about everything from yesterday’s game to tomorrow’s game but everything prior to today doesn’t mean anything,” said Wedge. “There’s only one thing that matters and that’s (Saturday) night’s game.”
Boston’s Schilling owns a 9-2 record in 17 playoff starts and several Sox know what it’s like to face playoff pressure with their season on the line. The Indians do not, however. Does this matter?
“We’ll find out,” said Wedge. “When it comes to our guys, the experience that they’re gaining in this series with regard to so many firsts is that really every day for us, or every game for us in a different situation, is another first for us. I think our guys have done a heck of a job handling all of that and they have a sense of security with each other in how they handle things.”
While Boston fans are ready to strangle Coco Crisp and Julio Lugo for their awful showings in the series, in Cleveland Travis Hafner is the goat of the moment. Hafner, who hits out of the critical third hole, is scuffling along at a .158 (3-of-19) clip. His only extra-base hit was a home run off Josh Beckett in Game One. That’s not the output the Indians need from their strong designated hitter.
“Haf’s had a couple of tough games but I’ve got a lot of confidence in him,” said Wedge. “I think what we need him to do is just to maybe simplify things a little bit. He’s a great hitter. He’s stepped up for us time and again.”
After jumping out to a 3-1 series lead, the Indians had every right to hope for a clinching win on Thursday night. In fact, they had no plans on flying to Boston. Instead, they recovered from the 7-1 defeat, slept in their own homes and flew East Friday afternoon. The Red Sox left Cleveland a few hours after the game and arrived home by 6 a.m. Neither teams worked out at Fenway Park Friday.
“We weren’t going to the ballpark expecting to lose,” Wedge said. “We were going in expecting to win so if we didn’t, we were going to come in (to Boston Friday).
Wedge said that the balance of the two teams told him at the start of the series that neither team was likely to roll to an ALCS win in four of five games.
“I think prior to this series we felt like we were going to go pretty deep into it, we really did,” said Wedge. “You look at just how well both teams performed in the regular season as well as the post-season prior to this series. You’ve got two pretty good teams that are going to battle it out and work hard to create opportunities for themselves. I think that’s what you’ve seen so far.”
Tempers often flare in a long playoff series but the Josh Beckett-Kenny Lofton stare down in Game Five was the first example in this series. With mounting pressure, don’t rule out additional dust-ups.
“I’m surprised that we haven’t seen more of that when it comes to the post-season because emotions run high,” said Wedge. “There was some verbiage back and forth and they toed up a little bit and everybody ran out and got some exercise and everybody ran back, which is usually how it works. But nothing really happened.”
Game time for both Saturday and Sunday is 8:23 first pitch….Spotted in Cleveland: Indians’ World Series T-shirts, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Also, Indians’ assistant general manager Chris Antonetti is expected to interview for the vacant G.M. job in St. Louis….Victor Martinez is 7-of-11 (.636) against Curt Schilling. Grady Sizemore is 4-of-9 lifetime…The World Series starts Wednesday and Thursday in either Boston or Cleveland.
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