One Cleveland starter pitched pretty well, coming an inning short of a Quality Start, and he lost.  One Cleveland starter pitched really terribly, and it wasn’t Ubaldo Jimenez.  The Indians won a game in which they hit 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position.  Yan Gomes hit his first career triple.  Mark Reynolds hit his 7^th home run and his .737 SLG does not lead the team.  Does all of this make sense?  Not really.  But what is really “sensible” when contemplating the Houston Astros? 

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The three best biggest elements to winning a baseball game. The Indians somehow got the first one, had a good amount of the second, and of course, the third was a given.

Especially after Friday's game, it became really necessary for the Indians to find whatever it was that was bugging them (especially offensively) and win this series.

Well, they did that on Saturday in a huge way, as you probably saw. But you can score 50 runs in one game, and it still only counts for one win. So the task was simple. Come back on Sunday and win the game, win the series, and hold back the pitch-fork wielding mob that would be charging forward.

One man did that in particular, at least for four days. 

INDIANS - 5 | ASTROS - 4

W: Cody Allen (1-0)

L: Hector Ambriz (0-1)

S: Chris Perez (2)

[BOXSCORE]

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With a runner on second base, Ryan Raburn did not get a hit.  With a runner on third base, Mike Aviles did not get a hit.  With a runner on second, Bob Phelps did not get a hit.  With a runner on third, Drew Stubbs did not get a hit.  With runners on first and second, Asdrubal Cabrera did not get a hit.  With runners on second and third, Nick Swisher did not get a hit.  Carlos Santana got a hit.

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An unseasonably cold April isn’t uncommon. Particularly in Cleveland, where winter customarily spills over into the other seasons like a long Friday lunch hour. Consequently, once May finally arrives bright, warm, and breezy, a frosty April is quickly forgiven. And forgotten.

But even when we’re confronted with an extended string of absurdly low temperatures when we should be watching flowers bloom and blossoms pop, we know it’s only temporary. For as impatient as we may get, deep down we know it will pass. We remind ourselves that the nonsense will soon cease and reality will eventually settle in - just as it always does.

We understand that sometimes April isn’t ordinary. And 25 years ago this April, neither were the Indians.

That’s not to say there were high expectations going into the 1988 season. If you remember anything about the Indians of the Gordon Gecko/Ronald Reagan decade, you know optimism was scarce. After losing 101 games in 1987 while posting a team ERA of 5.28 - the highest in Major League Baseball in more than 30 years - hope wasn’t exactly springing, and it certainly wasn’t eternal. 

To their credit, the Indians recognized their primary problem and addressed it, albeit like a Sam’s Club regional manager. Finding pitchers from every nook and cranny of the Western Hemisphere, they shipped them to Tucson in bulk. A total of 45 were invited to camp, but none brought any reason for optimism with him.

When the desert dust settled Easter weekend and heavily-moustached (but as yet unfamiliar) Doug Jones narrowly won the final spot in the bullpen, the Tribe broke camp with a starting rotation that would not be confused with the great Indians’ staffs of the 1950s. Nor with the milquetoast, below-average staffs of the 1970s, for that matter. After sifting through a flatbed truckful of candidates, the Tribe brass settled on five familiar names who had all been a part of the 1987 intestinal virus: Tom Candiotti, Greg Swindell, John Farrell, Scott Bailes, and Rich Yett.

This was a staff put together not to excel, but merely to survive. To expect this group to lead the team to national prominence was like expecting Rick Astley to build a lasting pop career.

And yet, that’s precisely what happened.

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