Tribe delivers an opener to remember

April 4, 2014 - Tribe Home Opener

It doesn't get much better than Friday night as far as home openers go. The Indians sent a potential future ace to the mound, there was an incredible atmosphere downtown, Indians' legend Carlos Baerga was in town, and the Indians took on the Twins on the 20th birthday of one of the nicest ballparks in baseball; right after adding Jason Kipnis to their list of young talent locked up for the long-term.
At the end of the day, win or lose, this game was a victory for the people of Cleveland regardless. A win would have been fantastic - a crazy come-from-behind victory was just icing on the cake.

Salazar started the game a bit shaky but was able to settle in and pitch 6 innings, limiting the damage to 2 runs. His breaking pitches were not working for him Friday but luckily for the Tribe, his fastball is setllar. The Indians hung around long enough for their offense to get going and boy did it. Gomes started things off with his towering home run to dead center. Soon afterwards Nick Swisher made sure he didn't get off to the slow start that plagued him last year with a 2-run shot to right field putting the Indians ahead for good, 3-2.

If Swisher returns to form in an offense that was the 5th best in baseball despite he and Cabrera both having down years, there's no telling how good this team could be.

Starting Pitching Struggles

Salazar is showing some mental toughness so far this year and was able to stabilize the boat. Carassco is off to a rough start, giving up 5 earned runs today, but he has also shown flashes of the talent that makes the Indians keep taking chances on him. If he can ever learn to pitch he has the stuff to be dominant, but if he doesn't get it together within 3 or 4 starts, it will be time to bring up Tomlin, whose biggest strength is his accuracy, and has added several MPH to his fastball post-TJ surgery.

Justin Masterson struggled mightily in his second start, but I don't find any alarm here. Just like Kluber, McAllister, and Salazar all struggled a bit so far this year, I think this will all balance out over time. The encouraging thing is that the Indians' offense looks like they've shaken any remaining rust off and are off to a scintillating start. Swisher has so far avoided his slow start and looks like he has picked up right where he left off late last season, David Murphy is doing some good work so far in the limited time we've seen him, and Lonnie Chisenhall is off to a great start despite the fact that he hasn't even grown in his handlebar mustache yet. When he does - watch out.

The Tribe took one out of three against the lowly Twins but with even remotely decent outings by their starting pitchers in games 2 and 3 they would have swept the series. Overall the offense is ticking and with the exception of Pestano and Wood I think the bullpen is all set. The jury is still out on those two, and maybe even on Axford yet.

3 Wins down, 92 to go! Roll Tribe!