How Fun Was That Inning

Posted by David Hein Apr 19, 2009

Talk about fun! 37 minutes of my morning Saturday was spent watching a replay of the Cleveland Indians' historic 14-run second inning against the New York Yankees.

Thanks to the wonderful product of MLBTV, I was able to start my day off in fine baseball fashion.

There are two types of baseball most fans love - the 1-0 pitchers battle and the slugfest. And the Indians certainly threw down the gloves and battered the Yankees.

This game also confirmed two storylines to the 2009 season. First off, the Cleveland Indians will score some runs - a lot of runs. Especially with Victor Martinez and Travis Hafner apparently nearing their former selves, Cleveland manager Eric Wedge has an offense that can challenge the Texas Rangers. Shin-Soo Choo could have one of the biggest outbreak seasons of 2009. And this may finally the season that players like Ryan Garko and Trevor Crowe live up to their big-time prospect status. If not, more hitting studs are waiting on the farm such as Matt LaPorta.

The other storyline is that the Yankees still have serious pitching questions despite adding mamoth contracts in CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett. Chien-Ming Wang has given up 23 runs in six innings in three starts so far. Joba Chamberlain may be a strong starter but how many innings will he pitch? And what happens if Wang doesn't correct himself? Will Joe Giradi have to go with those young pitchers again - something which did not work well in 2008.

Well, as long as they are bad enough to give up 14 runs in an inning, I will certainly be watching.