Doppleganger!! DOPPLEGANGER!!! MUJICA!!!

Just when you thought you've reached a point with Ed Mujica where you don't think you can take it anymore.... He goes out and sucks again.

To illustrate my frustrations, I've created the Mujica Meter, which you can view right here.

As you can see, there are three basic levels of Mujica.

There is the Bad, which is represented by the yellow area... We've far surpassed that point.

Then as the color starts to turn orange we enter the area of Awful.

What constitutes awful?

Well when making up this meter, I decided that Mujica won't ever get to a place where he isn't bad, so bad is bad and awful is pretty much the state he's been at.

So to answer your question, Awful is basically the worst you can possibly be without actually losing your job.

As the color starts to red we get into an area that is presumably unfathomable.

I simply named it DIE because I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT ELSE TO CALL IT OTHER THAN DIE!

Mujica is teetering on the brink of DIE.

What's sad is he actually LOWERED his ERA!

I know, how is that possible?

The Indians and Royals played to a 9-9 tie yesterday and as you can guess, Mujica didn't really help those matters.

Mujica is brought into a tough situation, of course. I don't expect many people to handle coming into that spot well all the time.

But damnit Mujica! He gives up a grand slam? Freaking Guy...

Kirk Saarloos also sucked, but I don't really care about the Double AO..

Do you?

And anyone who doesn't give up a run, I don't care about!

Anthony Reyes though, I do.. But because we have some things riding on him. Reyes went 2 innings with three hits and no runs.

You can read more about Reyes and what he did over the offseason with Tom House, the USC pitching coach.

"I went back and saw my guy, and he changed me up a little bit to the way I used to pitch," said Reyes, who worked two scoreless innings against the Royals on Tuesday. "I got away from the bad habits I've picked up the last few years."

"He showed me I was flying open way too early," Reyes said. "When I do that, I put all the pressure on my elbow."

Hopefully it works and we've got not one, not two, but three pitchers who've righted themselves in Reyes, Pavano, and Carmona.

Tony Sipp, also looking to right himself from injuries was perfect in his debut, striking out one.

Richie Rundles, Vinnie Chulk, and Jack Cassel pitched the final four innings, giving up two hits and striking out three.

Mujica's outing was horrible. A grand slam followed by a solo-shot, he just doesn't have it.

It's time to cut him.

I'd rather keep Andy Marte, honestly. Honestly!

I mean even Marte knocked in a run today.

Trevor Crowe went 1-6 with FOUR strikeouts.. Yikes.

Josh Barfield went 2-3 and Carlos Rivero must have caught whatever it was Jhonny Peralta was breathing because he continued the shortstop thinging mabob with a 2-3 day himself, run scored and run knocked in.

I mentioned Peralta. He went 3-3 with a run scored and FOUR RBI. YEAH MAN! Peralta went with a 3-run homer and Kelly Shoppach hit a solo-shot.

Ryan Garko also knocked in a run with a 2-5 day. Mike Aubrey was 2-2 with a run batted in.

So in summation, Mujica needs cut.

Moving swiftly along.

Jamey Carroll was in centerfield for the game and while he's only got six starts in the outfield in his career, he's sure to see some outfield starts at some point this year.

"I've got to have that mind-set that I'll be playing out there [regularly]," Carroll said. "I have to work at it and go about it the right way."

He probably won't see all that much time in the outfield, considering that when they want to give someone a day off, they'll probably stick DeRosa in right and put Carroll at third.

Speaking of, look how I did that.

Mark DeRosa is with Team USA and it seems like everywhere he goes he's the most important guy.

"I call him my 'trump card,'" said Watson. "He gives [manager] Davey [Johnson] all kinds of flexibility in playing him in the infield and the outfield, and plus he can hit.

"He's more valuable than anybody on the team."

That's saying a lot when you have the Superstars they have on the team like David Wright and Jake Peavy.

Side note as I'm writing this. I might have complained about the U of A library in the past, I might have not. But it is friggin freezing in here! That wouldn't be a problem with me if they DIDN'T HAVE THE AIR CONDITION ON!

It's more frustrating than Ed Mujica! In fact, I might just rename the word frustration as Mujica.

I'M SO MUJICA RIGHT NOW! It's still kind of winter and for the past few months it has been winter. WHY IS there cold air coming out?! I couldn't find a place that wasn't directly under an air vent so I'm getting blasted with cool air. How does this even make sense?

As noted, tomorrow is the Indians off-day, no games, no worries, just like the regular season. So Cliff Lee is going to spend it like he would spend any other ordinary off day.

In a Jet.

Wait what? He didn't want to pitch in the WBC, but he's going to be in a jet?!

"I'm sure [Lee] will throw up all over the place, but other than that, we'll see what happens," manager Eric Wedge said with a smile. "He'll be all right. I don't know those guys, but I trust those guys."

So the lesson to be learned here is. Davey Johnson can't really be trusted, even though I'm sure Eric Wedge knows him somehow. Yet, some fighter pilots that he doesn't know can be trusted.

Ah well.

Late news here from Tokyo.. Shin-Soo Choo has some soreness in his TRICEPS. Not his left elbow as the AP and CPD have said. His left eblow was the one that underwent the TJ Surgery. It's actually his triceps that are sore as confirmed by Castrovince.

I wonder if they'll ship Lonnie Soloff to Tokyo to check him out.

That would suck for Lonnie, at least he's closer to Tokyo in Arizona than he would be if he were in Cleveland.

I'm of course making a joke, no way they ship Lonnie to Tokyo to do that......

"Right now, we're in the process of getting the complete info as to the problem he's encountered," general manager Mark Shapiro said this morning. "From there, we'll determine whether or not we object."

Hopefully he's alright.

Also noted, Kerry Wood will pitch a bullpen session today.

Adam Miller's status is still uncertain.

Joe Smith is still playing catch and no timetable yet for when he's going to be pitching.

And it looks like previous reports of Travis Hafner making his debut on Friday are now true. He will DH in Friday's game, the same one that Lee will make his first start in.

David Dellucci is ALSO expected to play in Friday's game and instead of throwing him out there today, Wedge will give him two more days off and put Grady Sizemore at DH on Friday. So it looks like Hafner and Sizemore will split the DH duties on Friday.

"Where [the groin] gets to him is running the bases and in the outfield," manager Eric Wedge said. "At DH, he can control his effort. Or, at least, I think he can."

Why is it so damn COLD IN HERE?!

Anyway, today's lineup looks like this.

2B Josh Barfield, SS Asdrubal Cabrera, CF Ben Francisco, C Victor Martinez, DH Beau Mills, 1B Tony Graffanino, RF Matt LaPorta, 3B Wes Hodges, LF Michael Brantley.

First is probably like the 50th different spot Tony Graffanino has played in this spring.

Carl Pavano on the mound to build off his first start. Following him are some bigger names and one who is in the final rotation spot battle: Fausto Carmona, Scott Lewis, Jensen Lewis, Juan Salas, Vinny Chulk, Rich Rundles and Ryan Edell.

Obviously Fausto is pitching because of the day off tomorrow and Lee's debut on Friday. As it was pointed out earlier, innings are going to get up and with guys like Lee and Reyes now having to go out there, that will happen.

Finally.. We are off and running at Baseball Digest. Check out my first entry, a chronicle of Andy Marte and how much he sucks.

I tried to leave out my opinion, but can I just say.. Looking at his minor league numbers.. Why did everyone get excited about him hitting 30 home runs at the major league level? He never did it in the minors in one combined season, wasn't even close.

Sure he'd get older and he was relatively young. But the average too.. I can't believe I fell for him reaching that potential everyone said he was going to reach. Sure I don't think many people realistically thought he'd bomb, but jeeze.

I've got LOLTribe pictures saved up and I'll be back with a few later. I'm going to sprinkle them in as Spring goes on instead of one big post.

[BOXSCORE]

* I feel I need to explain Doppleganger. It's a fancy German word for look a like. In other words, Mujica is the doppleganger of a good pitcher. It may not make much sense, but it seemed good at the time.