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Cleveland's incredible run of starting pitching is the first sign that anybody is capable of taking control of the AL Central, which has featured three clubs that can't hit -- the Indians, Detroit and the White Sox -- a supposedly rebuilding Minnesota club that is contending for now but probably isn't deep enough for the long haul and another club in Kansas City that is improving but probably a year or two away yet.
The Indians still have issues with incredibly shrinking production from Travis Hafner, but the rotation's scoreless innings streak -- which finally ended Thursday at 44 1/3 -- catapulted them into first place and might have reestablished Cleveland as the team to beat in the division.
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| Cliff Lee has given up zero runs over 16 innings in May. (AP) |
As for what C.C. Sabathia, Fausto Carmona, the amazing Cliff Lee, Paul Byrd and Aaron Laffey are doing, well, as Paige himself once said, "Ain't no man can avoid being born average. But there ain't no man got to be common."
As Sabathia says, they're all just trying to keep up with one another. And in doing so, they're keeping up with a tepid AL Central -- moving from third Saturday into first this week.
Cleveland's starters ranked first in the AL last season with a 4.19 ERA and right now are well on their way to repeating that. At midweek, they owned the lowest ERA in the majors at 2.96. Sabathia, after a rocky start, has a 1.49 ERA over his past five starts.
And Lee has yet to allow a run in the month of May, working 16 scoreless innings.
Two other significant numbers unearthed by Elias:
• Lee is 6-0 with an 0.67 ERA. Since 1948, only two other pitchers have had a lower ERA after seven starts: The Dodgers' Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 (0.29) and Oakland's Mike Norris in 1980 (0.45). Lee next starts Sunday against Cincinnati.
• The streak by Cleveland's starters is the longest since Baltimore's Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, Dave McNally and Ross Grimsley worked 54 consecutive scoreless innings in September 1974.
More hops
• One veteran scout's very early take on the AL Central as the preseason favorites try to get themselves unraveled: "Minnesota has the best team in the division. They may not have the best talent, and they're not the deepest, but they're the best team in the division." Translation: The Twins hit, run, move runners over, play defense, play heads-up ... you know, the usual stuff you expect from the organization.
• The Twins appear to have uncovered another gem in Nick Blackburn, a 6-foot-4 rookie right-hander who is 3-2 with a 3.93 ERA over eight starts. "He's for real," one scout says. "He's got all kinds of pitches, and he handles himself real well. His slider can be top-of-the-scale. It isn't all the time, but when he needs it to be, when he's got two strikes, it can break sharp." The Twins picked him in the 29th round of the 2001 draft.
• The riveting statistic that explains, albeit in a twisted way, that Detroit is getting neither enough pitching nor hitting: After suffering their major league leading sixth shutout of the season Wednesday night in Kansas City, the Tigers are 0-21 in games in which they score fewer than four runs.