The Daily Take: Indians Updates, Browns Depth Chart

Its been a little while since I did a daily take.  Going on vacation can really screw up your schedule.  Thankfully, Cleveland sports has been pretty stagnant, a word that describes the Indians well.  The big news for the Indians is that they are basically out of the race, though that happened shortly after my last post about them.  After that post, they lost 2 in a row and slid from 5 back to 6.5 back.  Now, the Indians statistically have less than a 2% chance of going to the playoffs and I would consider that a bit generous.  They had a nice stretch at home against KC and Oakland, both of whom suck, but just dropped 2 in a row to Detroit and are down to 8.5 games back and only 1 game above .500.  Their only real hope at this point was to win all the remaining series against Detroit and sweep at least 1.

A Case for Thome for the HOF

Its only coincidence that I am writing this and the Indians recently acquired Jim Thome.  Ever since he hit his 600th, I have been thinking about his place in history.  He was one of the greatest pure sluggers of this generation.  Bonds and Sosa have more home runs, but they were not "pure" sluggers because they used impure methods to enhance their records.  Thome's legacy will forever be somewhat tainted by these men.  In 50 years, people may try to speculate everyone in this generation was using.  Eight players in history have hit 600 home runs and 3 are tainted by PEDs.

The Daily Take: Indians Sliding

The Indians are sliding badly.  They did just win against Seattle, but they still lost 4 in a row during that period.  Seattle is a team the Indians should be able to win a series against, or at least tie.  A tie would be a disappointment and the Indians need to gain some ground.  The Indians are 5 games out now and only a half game away from being in 3rd place.  This is a prime time for the Indians to gain some ground.  Detroit is playing in Tampa and travels to the rival Twins.  Even though the Twins aren't great, its still on the road while the Indians get 3 bad teams in a row in a homestand.

The Daily Take: Vick Still Hasn't Learned

Michael Vick still doesn't get it.   He has definitely matured as a person during his time in jail but if you are to take him at his word of what he said in the recent GQ article, I am not sure if he still has true remorse for what he did.  Instead of actually talking about remorse, he was rationalizing his actions and excusing them.  His excuse was that it was necessary growing up in a poorer neighborhood.  I hate to tell you Vick, but its not at all necessary and plenty of people are able to get buy in those sorts of neighborhoods without turning to dogfighting.  He might actually be sorry for what he did, but that's different from remorse and rarely do remorse and rationalization go hand-in-hand.

Indians Take 3 of 4 and Browns Preseason tonight.

The Indians have certainly carried over the momentum from their 3-4 road trip.  While that was not the biggest success when it came to record, they faced 2 first place teams and were competitive on the road.  It was crucial for them to carry the momentum into the Detroit series and they did.  They won 2 out of 3 against Detroit, which put them 5-5 in a 10 game stretch where they faced the 3 division leaders in the AL.  Not only that, but the 5 games were all competitive and they had a run differential of +10 which is quite good for a 10 game period.

The Daily Take: Indians 3-4 on road trip, Hall of Fame Speeches

The Bad News:  The Indians went 3-4 on their recent road trip and lowered their record to .500
The Good News: The Indians took 3 out of 7 against 2 division leaders on the road

Its all about perspective.  While the Indians had a bad road trip, they had a good one at the same time.  It was ugly and heartbreaking for fans, but 3-4 is not a bad result considering they played the Rangers and the Red Sox.  It hurts a lot more because the Indians were in all the games and the starting pitching and defense was enough to win each game.  Unfortunately, games are 9 innings.

Recap of Cleveland Sports Activity

This has been a pretty interesting week for someone who is a big Cleveland fan, and a fan of sports in general.  For the first time in history, NFL free agency and baseball's trade deadline have collide.  I guess  the NFL lockout gave us something.  While both Cleveland teams have had a lot of rumors swirl about, there have been very few moves actually done but the ones that were done were smart, well thought out moves.