Morning Rundown: It's Good to Beat the King

You can call the first inning a little fluky, which it was, but that fourth inning when they chased him was a thing of beauty.

Choo: Singles on 3rd pitch slider

Kipnis: Doubles on 6th pitch cutter

Hafner: Doubles on 7th pitch curve

Santana: Doubles on 2nd pitch change

Brantley: Singles on 6th pitch slider

Each approach was different. Shin-Soo Choo was aggressive all night, he swung at the first pitch offered up by Hernandez on the night and got a hit. And the 'changeup' that Santana hit was 90 mph on the gun, so it was far from your standard changeup and it was the same pitch Choo hit in the first inning.

Speaking of the first inning... All you can really say is wow. It was created once again by some aggressive play. With Santana on first and Cabrera on third, Manny Acta probably thought he needs to put the pressure on Felix early. He could settle in after the first and cruise to an eight inning, two run beauty after a shaky first. And with Jimenez pitching, he probably thought, we need runs.

So with two outs and the stage set to be aggressive, he called for a double steal. It worked better than he could have ever thought it would. You've seen the play by now, but if you don't understand, it was a product of Montero just second guessing himself. Cabrera was delaying his steal until Montero would throw through to second base in an attempt to get Santana. But Montero thought he had Cabrera far enough off third that he panicked a little. Would he have nabbed Cabs at third on the pickoff with a better throw?

Who knows because the throw he made was that awful. It of course led to one run, but it was Chone Figgins throw that complicated things. It wasn't even a horrible throw, it was more less Montero not being able to corral it and simply losing track of it that allowed Santana to score from second and if you think about it.

Santana scored all the way from first on one play.

He'll probably never do that again, especially in that fashion. But man did it really dictate a lot of things. Did it unravel King Felix? Probably not, he was doing a good job of simply not hitting his spots and getting the Indians to swing at his garbage pitches because he couldn't throw strikes.

But the pressure, the pressure early on may have done good things for Ubaldo in that he might have been able to relax a little and settle in.

It also gives you a swagger. Hey look, Felix is on the mound, and after one inning, we lead 4-1. Look at us. As Acta said though, you don't want to let Felix get into a comfort zone, which is exactly why he called for that aggressive play. It almost backfired, but the point is it didn't and it worked better than he could have ever wanted and it was perhaps the catalyst for this win.

"When you get opportunities off a guy like that," Indians designated hitter Travis Hafner said, "you never know how many opportunities you're going to have, so you want to be able to take advantage of them and at least push a couple across."

And they did just that.

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Johnny Damon had a perplexing night. In addition to getting a hit off a pop-fly and walking twice, he swung at a pitch, tried to hold up and uh, lost handle of his bat. He ditched his bat and started walking to first only to turn around and shake his head that a Felix Hernandez pitch was called a strike, not ball four. It was of course in response to a strike (clearly) called a ball earlier in the count. That just makes the ump look bad if you ask me, but Johnny's night, although much more successful than one's in the past, was a rather strange one.

Travis Hafner should/could be 3/5 with four RBI instead of what he finished with, but he isn't. He hit the ball well enough for his groundout to Dustin Ackley in the first inning to be a hit and knock in a pair of runs, rather than just one on a groundout. But Ackley was in the right spot and made a great play. He learned from his other two hits though, clearly. A great night for Pronk.

Shin-Soo Choo in the leadoff spot, 6-for-13 with a HR, 2 RBI, BB, but look at this, four runs. Creation is the key and he's doing that up there. Whatever approach he takes, it doesn't matter, he's getting the job done.

Jason Kipnis may be benefiting from it more than anyone as with Choo there, he'll probably continue to get good pitches to hit. If Choo heats up, pitchers will not want any part of him, letting Kipnis pretty much choose what pitch he wants to hit.

Successful debut for Jeremy Accardo as he pitched a real clean seventh inning with a strikeout. He threw 11 pitches, seven for strikes, got three outs, and did it quickly. You got a fan in me so far.

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And... Grady Sizemore watch is officially on, not because Johnny Damon's scuffling at the plate or the lack of offense, or anything really other than the fact that Sizemore is swinging a stick and just the thought of his impending arrival gets people in this town buzzing. Sizemore took a round of live batting practice and he had his own manager doing the tossing.

"He looked good for the first time," Acta said. "He swung the bat good, but it's just a start. We're not going to rush anything. He's going to continue his rehab, and I'm anticipating that he's going to go on a rehab assignment where he's going to have plenty of at-bats before he comes up here and plays." 

This is a very Indians-controlled rehab for Sizemore. They have planned it and will no doubt stick to the very regimented blueprint of how and when Sizemore will hit his spots. One thing is for sure, Manny Acta says that he won't be ready by that June 3rd date that he'll be eligible to come off the 60 Day Disabled List.

Coming a lot sooner, hopefully, is Josh Tomlin from his unknown wrist injury. It was originally thought that he'd only miss a few starts, but now that is in question as he's set to undergo an MRI today for an injury that he isn't really sure a whole heck of a lot about. Right now he's wearing a brace on his right arm but doesn't believe surgery will be neccessary.

"Hopefully we'll get some more answers," Tomlin said on Wednesday afternoon. "That's maybe the most frustrating thing. There's not one particular thing that I did that I can say, 'If I didn't do that, we could've prevented this.'"

Acta went on to say that they'll know more after the MRI, but that if it was what they originally thought, he may not miss a whole lot of time and will not likely spend any more having to rehab or go on outings or anything like that.

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