The Daily Take: Camp Colt and Carlos Carrasco

The Indians two hispanic pitchers at the top of the rotation have been a tale of opposites recently.  While the Indians' veteran (for this team at least) ace has been struggling mightily, their pitcher who was at #2 to start the season has been completely dominant.

Since the last daily take, the Indians have gone through the whole rotation once, Hafner and LaPorta traded spots on the DL, and the Indians are doing pretty well.  In these 5 games, they have gone 3-2 with their hitting finally coming back around.  Hafner was back for this series and suddenly, the team started hitting. Whether its pitchers focusing less on the other hitters, or something mental/psychological, the presence of Travis Hafner has really helped.  All of a sudden, the Indians are scoring 5 runs a game again.  Their hitters that were struggling (Santana, Choo) have been hitting much better, and Hafner himself is contributing.

To couple with this offensive surge, the pitching has been generally good.  Its nothing new for Masterson who is consistently excellent, but Carrasco has been hit or miss at times and Tomlin has been awful recently.  While Carrasco's been hit or miss, he has been dominant recently.  He struggled with control early on and giving up too many fly balls, but he is keeping balls on the ground and not walking batters.  He also is 6-1 with a 2.80 ERA since May 11th and 3-1 with a 1.95 ERA in June.  Unfortunately, Carmona has been awful and hasn't posted a quality start since May 8th & has an ERA of 8.86 since.  




Even though there has been a lockout (which may soon be resolved), the Browns have not been inactive.  Colt McCoy has been organizing offensive camps at Texas.  This is great and is very telling about the kind of player Colt is. Anytime a player takes this kind of initiative to get chemistry with his teammates, it can't be bad.  The Browns got in trouble for giving Colt a playbook i guess he got to keep it.  I am starting to be more and more optimistic.  The lockout would be especially hard for the Browns without this because they have a new offense and a young Quarterback.

Colt was able to be decent last year (mid 70s QB rating) while being thrust into the role and having very little chemistry with his Wide Receivers.  Through these camps, he has already started to establish chemistry and camaraderie with his Wide Receivers and Tight Ends.  They also watch film of the offense and everyone has a playbook.  Fortunately, the rookies are also getting involved.  The more camps they have, the more giddy I get about how well C)olt will be last year.  The Browns had a top 5 toughest SoS and he played some of our toughest games and didn't do too bad, especially since he was forced into the role.  Now he is developing chemistry with his receivers, has a playbook, and has a softer SoS (pass Ds in the NFC West are awful).



In other news:

Rory McIlroy just dominated at the US Open this weekend, a tournament famous for its punishing roughs and narrow fairways and very low scores.  He is 22 and he set the record for the lowest score in the history of the US Open, a tournament that has gone on for 111 years. This is the 4th tournament in a row where he had a top-15 finish.  He blew a significant lead at the Masters, your first major is often the hardest.  I think he has a good shot to win the next 2 tournaments and maybe even the 2012 Masters. He is a phenomenal talent and along with Jason Day, is poised to take the PGA by storm.  He is referred to by Kevin Garside at the Telegraph as the "Anti-Woods" & Woods needs to watch out and will have an extremely tough time winning majors now.