Cleveland Sporting Team @ Dodgers June 30, 2014: LOLHanley

Last week, when the Dodgers were in Kansas City, I remember writing about how long it had been since the two teams had last played, all the way back in 2005. But I remembered that series without having to look it up, coming as it did in the midst of the high point of Hee-Seop Choi‘s career.

	Indians			Dodgers
	7:10pm PT			Los Angeles, CA
CF	Bourn		2B	Gordon
SS	Cabrera		RF	Puig
LF	Brantley		1B	Gonzalez
1B	Santana		LF	Kemp
2B	Kipnis		CF	Ethier
3B	Chisenhall		3B	Uribe
C	Gomes		C	Ellis
RF	Murphy		SS	Rojas
P	Kluber (R)		P	Haren (R)

I can’t say the same for the Dodgers against the Cleveland Indians, and yeah, even though I made the joke in the title and I really do dislike their terribly racist mascot, I’m still using the name here. I have no recollection of the two teams ever meeting outside of spring training, though it’s happened six times. The Dodgers swept a three-game set in Cleveland in 2003 and haven’t been back since; the Indians took two of three in Los Angeles in June 2008. Apparently I wasn’t paying very close attention to the strange American League team in town at the time; on the final day of that series, I was writing about one of the scariest trade rumors of the season, which was Ryan Theriot, which came true. (And also someone named “Luis Maza,” apparently.)

Anyway, that may all seem like it was a very long time ago, and it was, but only a few days later, we saw a trade that would come to somewhat define the Ned Colletti era: Carlos Santana for Casey Blake. (For the record, I hated it at the time, so much so that I interrupted a tour I was on to find terribly slow internet in upstate Wisconsin to register my disgust.) Now in his fifth year in Cleveland, Santana has developed into one of the more dangerous hitters in the American League, with a 127 wRC+ career mark, even if he really can’t catch at all. (A plan to move him to third base this year dissipated when Lonnie Chisenhall decided he finally wanted to hit; Santana has done nothing but play first or DH this entire month.)

But anyway, that’s all bitter, bitter, bitter, bitter, bitter, bitter grapes from years ago. In the here and now, the Indians are a middle-of-the road team with the shockingly productive Corey Kluber on the hill. Since I named the thread after this, I suppose I have to at least note that Hanley Ramirez is yet again not playing, because of course he’s not, but since Don Mattingly insists he’s not going on the DL, expect Ramirez to be placed on the DL just as soon as his full 10-day backdate period has expired.

Oh, and the whole business from yesterday about Red Patterson being held out in Triple-A because of some undisclosed issue in the big league rotation? It’s not tonight’s starter Dan Haren, as we thought; it turns out that it was “general soreness” with tomorrow night’s starter, Josh Beckett. Beckett is expected to start tomorrow, has been very good lately, and looked nimble enough in trying to light Scott Van Slyke on fire in the dugout this weekend, so I think you know what “general soreness” means as much as I do: it’s the phantom DL coming to life, as the team tries to find any way to extend Beckett’s performance through an entire year. We’re on to you!

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