MVN - Most Valuable Network

Game 135: Cleveland’s Byrd Baffles White Sox for Complete Game Shutout

How good was Paul Byrd today?  Up until A.J. Pierzinski walked in the eighth inning, Paul Byrd faced the minimum batters.  After Jerry Owens was caught stealing in the fourth inning on a perfect throw by Byrd battery-mate Kelly Shoppach, Byrd retired the next 12 batters in a row.  He was that good.

With the 7-0 complete game shutout over the White Sox, Byrd’s second this year, Byrd moved to 14-5.  He has won his last four starts, and seven of his past eight.  He has walked 23 batters…not during that span, BUT THE WHOLE SEASON.  Of all the Tribe starters, he has the highest winning percentage, to go along with second on the team in wins, with fourteen.  He’s tied with Fausto.  Now, raise your hand if at the beginning of the season, you thought Fausto and Byrd would have 28 wins combined on September 1st.  Okay, now those of you that have your hands up…put them down liars.  Sure, Byrd has his bad outings, but in between those rare occurances, Byrd has been an exceptional pitcher this season.  He’s been much better than his 4.19 ERA suggests.  Byrd is as old school as you get, and you can tell that the Indians want to win for him.  Sure, they want to win for all the others as well, but there’s something about Byrd that maybe makes the team buckle down even more.  Maybe it’s the old-school windup.  Maybe it’s the old school jersey pants that only go down to the knees.  Maybe it’s the way he throws strikes.  Whatever it is, Cleveland scores for Byrd, and when he pitches like he does tonight, it makes for an easy win.

The only trouble that Byrd faced was with one out in the ninth.  After only giving up two hits all game, he gave up back to back singles in the ninth to Juan Uribe and Jerry Owens.  He then walked Josh Fields to load the bases with Jim Thome coming up.  The crowd had been booing Thome all night, and you could almost imagine him hitting one into the club seats I was sitting in, in right.  Byrd grinded it out, and struck out Thome.  Konerko was next, and he forced a pop out to end the game.

In typical Paul Byrd fashion, he gave the credit to his success to the not-needed bullpen. 

“The bullpen has picked me up so many times this year, I wanted to give them a night off,” he said. “I wanted to do that because they’ve bailed me out and gotten me out of so many jams all season.”

In a pure selfish sense, I looked over to the bullpen and saw Tom Mastny warming up, and begged for Byrd to work through it. He did, and what a game it was. Leave it to Paul Byrd to reset the bullpen, and keep the Indians on track.

I want to give my props now to Kelly Shoppach.  He’s Byrd’s personal catcher, and they have a great relationship.  You can tell by watching them that they make calls as they go.  You watch a guy like A.J. Pierzynski, who rarely had a clue where the ball was going tonight, and learn to appreciate Shoppach.  I can’t think of more than three or four times that Shoppach had to move his glove from where he started it.  Yeah, Byrd gets credit for throwing it, but Shoppach gets credit for calling it.  He also has a tendency to come through for his pitcher offensively.  Tonight, Shoppach went 2-4 with two runs and two RBI, including a two-run, eighth inning home run.  It was a good night for the back up catcher, and it really makes you wonder what he could do as a starter.

The offense was everything that we wanted it to be tonight. In the first half of the year, the beef with the bats is that the Tribe depended on the big inning. In the second half, the beef with the bats has been that they HAVEN’T HAD ANY BATS. Tonight, it was methodical. In the first inning, after a Kelly Shoppach single, a Grady Sizemore walk and an Asdrubal Cabrera sacrifice (yeah, a #2 hitter that can get the runners over…and it was an incredible bunt), Travis Hafner scored a run on a ground out to the right side of the infield.

In the fourth inning, Franklin Gutierrez hit a one out solo homer for his tenth of the year. Kenny Lofton followed with a double, and Casey Blake came through with a run-scoring single, to give the Tribe a 3-0 lead.

In the sixth inning, Jhonny Peralta hit an infield single, and moved to second on a passed ball by Pierzynski. With two outs, up came Casey Blake again, who again came through with a single to score Peralta, and make the score 4-0.

In the seventh, Cleveland struck quickly after a Grady Sizemore strikeout. Cabrera doubled off the wall in left on the first pitch he saw. It was his second double of the night, to go along with his sacrifice. Up came Hafner, who took a ball, before hitting a laser shot to the same spot as Cabrera’s, scoring Cabrera. It was 5-0.

I already mentioned the eighth, as Kelly Shoppach homered, scoring Kenny Lofton, who had walked earlier in the inning.

You couldn’t get any more methodical than that, with power (two home runs), small ball (bunt sacrifice) and clutch hitting, all in one game.

Casey Blake has had three opportunities with runners in scoring position in the past two games. He’s driven home all three runners. Blake has struggled all season with RISP, batting .170 coming into the game. If he gets a clutch bat…it gets more interesting.

I don’t know what it looked like on TV, but the crowd at the Jake was incredible. I think it was a sell out, but along with that, it was an active crowd. So many times you either run into a small crowd, or an apathetic one here in Cleveland. Tonight it was neither. Perhaps it was the hated White Sox in town, or the 5 1/2 game lead the Indians have built against the Tigers, but it was electric tonight.

John Koronka was designated for assignment to make room for Luis Rivas. John, we hardly knew you.

Cleveland closes the series out against Chicago with Jake Westbrook on the hill against Jose Contreras. Westbrook’s ERA is closing in on 4.00, which doesn’t sound all that good until you consider the fact that at one point, it was closing in on 7.00. Sunday games are always scary, especially at the end of a homestand. Cleveland has an afternoon game at Minnesota on Monday, and just wonderful…we’ll be messing with percentages…another C.C. Sabathia vs. Johan Santana matchup. Let’s hope Wedge keeps them in the game TOMORROW.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 at 3:06 am and is filed under Casey Blake, Asdrubal Cabrera, Kelly Shoppach, Paul Byrd, James Pete, Kenny Lofton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.