Remember a few years back when Stephen Strasburg was being called up and he made one of his first starts in Cleveland? The Indians countered with their stud-call up of Carlos Santana and the two went head-to-head on Sunday. It was called Strasburg-Santana Sunday and honestly, I barely remember that the Nationals won or if the Indians even won that series.
What I do remember is that Travis Hafner hit a home run of Strasburg. It was the lone run the Indians scored in the game off Strasburg. The game turned into more of a slug-fest from there, with part of the problem being that David Huff started for the Indians. This game on Sunday, in which Strasburg made his return to Progressive Field, and from the disabled list, was yet another one-run effort. This was a bit of a different type of game, and of course, outcome.
NATIONALS - 0 | INDIANS - 2
W: Corey Kluber (5-4)
L: Stephen Strasburg (3-6)
S: Vinnie Pestano (1)
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks in the McPeek residence. Soccer galore, volleyball galore and a newly graduated high school senior have dominated the time that would have otherwise been devoted to condensing all the Cleveland sports action into a weekly column for the past two weeks. This weekend will be no different as the previously aforementioned recent graduate gets a party in her honor. But there are a few things I wanted to talk about and touch on so, with all due respect to the legendary Hal Lebovitz, here’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that before the weekend actually arrives…
When the Cleveland Indians built their outfield of center fielders, most of us were thinking about defense, and how it would benefit the pitching staff.  On Friday, at the corner Carnegie and Ontario, a couple of those center fielders did all they could to reward Justin Masterson, Cody Allen, and Joe Smith for their efforts, but not necessarily with their play in the outfield.  With Jason Kipnis at the plate, and two runners on in a one-run game, the table was set for a walk-off of a dirtier variety than the long ball.
If you are like me, you cannot help it- you mentally catalogue people by the iconic images of them that you hold. When particular individuals come to mind, those images are what you ‘see.’ Sometimes they are like still photos; speaking for myself, the images are often the mental equivalents of .gif files, or short video clips.
You have to think that something might be wrong with your baseball team when a first inning home run, let alone two back-to-back, spells doom for your club like no other 1-0 or 2-0 lead in baseball history.ÂÂ Once upon a time, Scott Kazmir was supposed to be what David Price ended up being, a top-of-rotation southpaw that shys away from the word "crafty".ÂÂ These days, the former Sugarland Skeeter is just trying to hang on to his job in a Major League rotation, and serving up two 1st inning home runs to the Nationals on Saturday did nothing to help his cause.ÂÂ However, Kazmir was spared his fifth loss of the 2013 season when the bats bailed him out in the middle innings of Saturday's 7-6 loss to the visiting Washington Nationals.