Cleveland Sports Forum

Would'a, Could'a, Should'a!

Well, in my opinion, I was good with all the off season acquisitions except maybe for Giambi.

At the time, we made all the right moves as far as I was concerned. It's pretty hard to deny that this has been one of the best seasons that I've seen around here in close to 20 years.

Besides his game, I liked what Swisher has brought to the team. He's energetic and certainly is a conversation piece to say the least. I think we can all agree that he was an upgrade in personnel over the 2012 outfield. Was he worth all the cash? Maybe not. I feel he's done a nice job.

It's pretty hard to get excited over what's just happened this week, but I still think we have some great baseball ahead of us. This team has too much character to take a dive now.

It's pretty hard to get excited over what's just happened this week, but I still think we have some great baseball ahead of us. This team has too much character to take a dive now.

Ditto!!

What a bad Shapsonetti joke.

A position player mops up on the Shaps "bump" after an unbelievably horrific home series to essentially end all hope of winning the Division in "sweep the rug out" fashion.

I am just guessing the pitchers must have had icy and greasy fingers from fried chicken and cold beer in the Shapsmarieantoinetticona Locker Room.

Pathetic.

And indeed with a nod to Kenm, Dolan is a complete dumb arse.

25 Mllion to "Cabs" and "Swish" next season.

For any "sports writer" to ever refefence the futile years of Gabe Paul without putting Mark Shapiro at Numero Uno, that would be horifically pathetic.

Well this week sucked.

I said Monday I hope this isn't the start of one of their losing streaks, and of course it was.

The Tigers helped.

I hope their entire starting rotation gets caught in a drive by shooting on the way to the Stadium for their next home game.

Lets hope they can bounce back, rip off a 12-15 streak to close out the month and hope Detroit dies.

Would Masterson be Detroit's 5th starter??

Shitty series. Living in metro Detroit, perhaps this has not been noticed by many:

Leland's Tigers start slow. They finish strong. That our Indians have hung around for most of the last couple years at least until June or July is testament to this.

Kind'a figures Masterson would be their #5. All matters considered, I still think our staff has done a nice job this year and Masterson in particularly. Too bad Kluber went down. That leaves a big hole in the staff. I wonder if Salazar is ready to take over Kluber's spot in the rotation !?!?!

Sure wish we would have selected Sale over Pomeranz.

Clark accuses Pujols of PED use
FOX Sports


UPDATED AUG 9, 2013 3:51 PM ET

Former major-league slugger Jack Clark, on his radio show Monday, accused Los Angeles Angels first baseman Albert Pujols of using performance-enhancing drugs, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.


Clark is in his first week as co-host of an afternoon talk radio show on WGNU in St. Louis, where Pujols played through the 2011 World Series championship season of the Cardinals.

Clark said that while he was the hitting coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the early 2000s, he was told by Chris Mihlfeld, who was a conditioning coach with the Dodgers, that Mihlfeld “shot him up,” meaning Pujols.

Mihfeld denied that he told Clark the Pujols took PEDs, according to a report by ESPN.

Dan Lozano, Pujols’ agent, declined comment when reached Thursday about the allegations, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Mihlfeld was the baseball coach at the Kansas City junior college Pujols attended in 1998 and is a former personal trainer for Pujols, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Clark has mentioned Pujols in relation to PEDs on the air previously. On Aug. 2, after co-host Kevin Slaten said he has long believed that Pujols “has been a juicer,” Clark interrupted and said, “I know for a fact he was. The trainer that worked with him, threw him batting practice from Kansas City, that worked him out every day, basically told me that’s what he did,” according to the Post-Dispatch report.

Clark recalled a conversation with Mihlfeld, who has worked with several major-league clubs, when Clark was a Dodgers coach.

Mihlfeld “had told me what he was doing with ‘Poolie’ — threw him batting practice, worked him out, shot him up, all that stuff,” Clark said on the air.

In 2006 one of the players Mihlfeld trained, pitcher Jason Grimsley, admitted using PEDs and was suspended by MLB.

At that time, Pujols said: “I don’t resent this as much for myself as I do for Chris. He’s got no way to defend himself against somebody who puts something out there that’s not true.”

Pujols also defended himself.

“I’ve said before I have nothing to worry about. If they want to test me … then let’s go. I’ll do it tomorrow. No problem. But Chris has been put in a really unfair position. I know it bothers him. I hear it every time I talk to him.”

Pujols, who is on the disabled list with a foot injury, has never been known to fail a drug test.

Clark didn't stop with Pujols. He also expressed skepticism about Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander, who signed a contract extension in the offseason and has not been as dominant this year as in previous seasons.

“Verlander was like Nolan Ryan, he threw 97, 98, 100 miles an hour from the first inning to the ninth inning,” Clark said on the air. “He got that big contract, now he can barely reach 92, 93. What happened to it? He has no arm problems, nothing’s wrong. It’s just the signs are there.

“The greed ... they juice up, they grab the money and it’s just a free pass to steal is the way I look at it.”

Clark played for the Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres and Boston Red Sox in his 18-season major-league career. He finished with 340 homers.

Pujols said he intends to sue for defamation.

I'm expecting Antonelli to make a waiver deal to replace Reynolds. [yankees could be happy to get rid of Travis, but I'm thinking something more talented]

Just for the heck of it, I looked at Reynolds and Hafners splits and here's how each performed since May 1:

Reynolds 252-23-47-26 3 doubles 7 homers 33BB 101K 49% of outs were strikeouts
slash line: 167/280/282/562 (OPS since June 1 was 466 with 60% of his outs as strikeouts)

Hafner 196-13-32-22 5 doubles 6 homers 20BB 63K slash line: 163/241/281/522.

Of course NY pays Travis much less than we paid Reynolds and as a friend remarked yesterday, if we hadn't had Reynolds in April we'd be half a dozen games farther out than we are

Doesn't matter on how many games more you would be out. You're still out. At this point it's much more important that Dolan would have more money..... or, uh, I guess it has no effect at all.

Baron wrote:Looking ahead at the games we have in the Division, I would make a bold prediction that if we can stay above .500 in our division games, we should be able to hold on to the wild card and possibly pass detroit if we don't do it this week.

4 of 7 from Detroit
6 of 10 from the Twins
4 of 6 from the Royals
4 of 6 from the White Sox

That's not really too much to ask considering the way the team has been playing.

Don't see it a big hurdle to break even on the west coast road trip....

I think the biggest obstacle is going to be the road trip at the end of the month with 3 in ATL then 3 in Detroit.

If we can be ahead or within 2-3 games back after that trip, I think we can pull it off.

Of course we are due a good 4-6 game losing streak, I just hope it doesn't start tonight.

Well that was a crappy premonition on my part.

If they turn it around and rip off a good streak to finish out August hopefully we can look at this last week as a bad dream. They lose in bunches and win in bunches......just wish those losing bunches hadn't involved Detroit.

Thank god we only have 3 games left against them.

No truth to the rumor that Tito is on vacation and Manny Acta is presiding over the 2013 version of the August Bataan Death March.