Gooooooooood Morning Vietnam

Apologies for the second Michael Scott reference in one week... But I swear the fact that it's just past noon right now is baffling.

I went to bed pretty late last night, yet still managed to wake up before 8, and I've been sitting around this morning twiddling my thumbs.

Now I'm going to spend my afternoon doing the same thing... Typically I'm sitting around doing this every Friday, but with the added benefit of waiting for my next class.

Anyways... Here is today's lineup. For a game that is four hours away. Don't judge me... My free time is about to disappear, let me enjoy it.

CF Grady Sizemore, 3B Jamey Carroll, DH Travis Hafner, 1B Victor Martinez, RF Ryan Garko, C Kelly Shoppach, LF David Dellucci, 2B Josh Barfield, SS Luis Valbuena.

Grady Sizemore is sticking around in center and Travis Hafner is making another start. Remember there was a day off so while this is Hafner's third consecutive day, he's had some rest. Vic making a start at first so Shoppach can catch and we can see Ryan Garko back out in right field. A pretty normal lineup for now.

Laffey Taffey up on the mound today, looking to respond to Jeremy Sowers' good performance the other day. Zach Jackson will also try his hand in the battle for the rotation and bullpen spot... Some other guys might pitch and they are as follows: Vinnie Chulk, Masa Kobayashi, Tony Sipp, Ed Mujica, Tomo Ohka.

The A's might score a lot of runs in the last few innings. You know, with Ohka and Mujica pitching. I've got dibs on Ohka giving up less runs, but only because he'll be pitching later, which increases the odds he'll be pitching to the bottom of the lineup that is filled with scrubs. Or he might not pitch at all.

We'll see how many innings Laffey and Jackson can get through. I'm sure Chulk and Kobayashi will pitch to get their work in and it will be good to see Sipp again. Mujica hasn't pitched in a game in awhile if I remember correctly. Wedge must wants him to get his head straight.

The Plain Dealer has Hector Rondon as someone scheduled to pitch. Not sure what's up there.

Jake Westbrook is making some progress. But with Tommy John surgery, even though he's throwing from the mound in March, he still is months away from playing in a game.

"You learn not to get too far ahead of yourself," said Westbrook. "It's hard, but you've got to go day by day."

He says he feels no pain, but as they say, his elbow was mended with chewing gum by McGyver, it's going to take some time.

Jack will be throwing off a major league mound today, hopefully all goes well and he stays on track.

Mark DeRosa did not play in that loss to Venezuela the other night, much to my surprise. Well it turns out he is sick. Hopefully it's not bird flu.

I'm not sure if you saw the horrific image that AC posted yesterday on CastroTurf. No not the CC Sabathia one but the one that has Andy Marte in the starting lineup.

What's more scary is the fact that Marte is hitting .253... For it being the middle of April, I'd say that's pretty damn good.

The Yankees must think they are so hilarious.

I mean what other team is arrogant enough to suggest the middle of their order, will all be hitting .300 or better, especially when one won't even be playing. I can't see anything past the .3's so they could have Jeter hitting .350 for we know.

A New Indians Inbox up at Indians.com.

I will not take this opportunity to bash Hoynes like I normally do for answering questions like a jerkoff... But rather tip my hat to AC who manages to give us at least one piece of useful information in just one paragraph all the time. Which really makes these types of things useful.

The question about Asdrubal Cabrera was brought up and at the end of his answer, Castrovince threw in this little interesting factoid.

One last note on Cabrera: It might be worth it to the Indians to explore the possibility of having him bat solely from the right-hand side. The bulk of his struggles have come as a lefty. He has a .661 career OPS as a left-handed hitter against right-handers and a .957 OPS as a right-hander against lefties. I'd be curious to see what he does against right-handers from the right-hand side.

That's something I don't think anyone has ever brought up and its worth remembering.

Plenty of guys are told to stop switch hitting to help their development. It happens.

Hey... The Indians are also putting up an Ian Kinsler-like stolen base performance this spring, going 12-13. See.. Two lines, two interesting pieces of info.

And really, his readers are a much more up-to-snuff bunch.

What happened to Jake Westbrook? Why isn't he in the rotation?
-- Ryan F., Madison, Conn.

Eh... You can't win em all.. He's in Connecticut though, so we'll let it slide.

Oh and again with Winter Haven? I respect the fan love for it because it got them closer to the players, but really, who cares? This is more about meeting baseball players and all that... Let's forget our ideas and remember that the Indians are trying to win a World Series. Is a new spring training facility going to directly lead to that? No, but damnit it's a part of it.