Tomorrow is the Rest Day Of Your Life, Jerk!

I begin work tomorrow. It's going to be great. No really.... 7 in the morning (meaning I'll get up at 6) to at least 5 in the evening.

All spring break too...

So obviously the blog is going to be a little sporadic this week, so bear with me. No lineups in the afternoon or morning posts. But I'll be around at night to recap the day, because I'll be out of the loop if I don't.

Also... Pray for good weather... Please.. No coldness, damnit..

So... Scott Lewis eh?

Lewis tossed four innings, three hits, no walks, and an earned run with a strikeout. He also hit Prince Fielder with a pitch.

The man to blame for that run, TROT NIXON!!!!!!

Lewis overall was good though and he's still very much in this rotation race. Wedge said Lewis has been a cool customer this spring, something Aaron Laffey and Jeremy Sowers probably didn't do last year.

"What we've seen from Scott this spring is that he's picked up where he left off last
season," said manager Eric Wedge.

Anthony Reyes meanwhile was okay in two innings, he gave up a Prince Fielder home run and a walk and while he could have gone three, Wedge decided that they wouldn't push him because Reyes is battling the flu.

Kerry Wood was awesome of course. He went an inning and gave up just a hit in his second spring inning. AC gathered this quote from Wood.

"I feel I'm back to where I need to be, and I still have plenty of time to get the rest of my innings in. My body feels good. It's just a matter of getting the innings in an fine-tuning my offspeed pitches."

Tony Sipp was lights out and you'd be hard pressed to not say he's in the bullpen battle the way he's throwing. Sipp gave up nothing and got two strikeouts in the 9th inning.

Kirk Saarloos wasn't very good. He gave up three hits, two walks, and four runs in his inning of work. Not the performance he needed to put himself in position to claim a roster spot.

The Tribe only had three position players no play the entire game, Grady Sizemore, Kelly Shoppach, and Tony Graffanino. Grady was 1-3 with a run scored and a triple, Shoppach hit his third home run of the spring, a solo shot, and Graffanino was 2-3 with a run scored and a stolen base.

Seth McClung was reportedly upset with the way Shoppach flipped the bat after his home run.

Wes Hodges and Jamey Carroll both went 1-4 with a run knocked in, and Andy Canizaro went 1-2 with a walk.

Jamey Carroll had an outfield assist, at first base, and Beau Mills committed the error.

Anthony Castrovince's latest up on Indians.com is about Carl Pavano. I get real interested in the mentality of players and this is the type of stuff that I want to read.

"When I get up in the morning, the last thing I think about is how I feel," he said. "I'm thinking more about game plans and [game] visualization."

As opposed to thinking about your health.. That's really what you want out of a pitcher. If he's not thinking about the game and if he's worried about his injuries, then he isn't focused and he's not confident.

"When you're younger, you're pressing to establish yourself," Pavano said. "There are a lot of variables to being in a big league clubhouse -- the media, the fans, the atmosphere -- and it's tough getting used to all those things. You're pitching not to lose and you're defending yourself, instead of pitching to win and being aggressive."

This is the type of stuff that really interest me about players. This is the stuff I want to know because to me, this is the stuff that matters.

Freddy Garcia is one guy I wanted, instead of Pavano.. Reports are he's throwing 86 on his fastball.

Pavano says he feels better than he has in awhile, he's got his health under control and he's ready to pitch. For me, I'm SO GLAD that Shapiro got Pavano instead of Garcia at this point in time. It really looks like he made a good decision.

"I've always been a guy who gets stronger as the year goes along, and that's not gonna change," he said. "I take care of my body. I eat well. There might be adjustments I have to make, but if you work smart, you eat smart and you keep your body strong, you'll be OK."

So maybe I'm in spring training optimistic mode, I don't know, maybe I am, but I feel really good about this Pavano signing. If anything, the risk makes a lot more sense right now and I'm feeling like the Indians might have stumbled upon a great thing.

It could blow up, but I'm begining to put a lot of faith into Pavano, more than I would a 86 MPH fastball from Freddy Garcia.

A minor league weekend update from the Indians Prospect Insider, make sure you keep up with the prospect countdown as it ends this week. You probably have an idea of how things shake out if you've saw Tony on STO the other week though.

Finally...

I got this e-mail in my inbox and I always give love to the people who e-mail me. If you post a comment, unless I think you are genuine, I probably won't acknowledge your link. So if you got something to tip me off about, like the following, shoot me an e-mail with it.

I've never heard of Paul Sullivan, or any of his work, but he said he does a show on HBO. I definitely IMDBed him to see what it was about and he's legit.

He has a baseball blog and he's put together this outstanding list of home-grown Cleveland Indians. He assembled the 25 best home-grown Indians on one team and also did one for the best acquisitions. It's very in-depth and very well done, so give it a look-see.

Ooooh, I can't believe I didn't mention this earlier today.

Cheer on the Zips this week in the NCAA Tournament! We're going dancing for the first time since 1986 and it's exciting! Also a huge shoutout to Cleveland State's big win as well. Great year for Northeast Ohio college basketball with both of them making the dance. I feel really good about the Zips against the Zags (that's cool), it won't be easy, but I think it's a lot better than facing a team like Syracuse or something like that.

That bad thing is the fact that we probably won't be able to get the Rowdies up to Portland for the game. They're a big part of the Akron team (they were the big white-shirted group jumping around if you watched the game on ESPN2) and really provide a lot of fan support. Oh well, as long as we give the Zags a run for the money.. It's still HUGE for the Akron sports program.

Adam Dunn just hit a monster shot to center field, thank god the US won't lose to the Dutch. Phew... Tom Green better not get kicked off the apprentice tonight!

[BOXSCORE]