Cleveland Guardians – Page 12 – Sports Radio Service

Starling Marte the Oakland A’s outfielder slugged four hits that help pave the way for an A’s win on Sun Aug 8, 2021 over the Texas Rangers is seen here gesturing to the A’s dugout in the bottom of the sixth inning after collecting his four hit of the game (AP News photo)

By Jerry Feitelberg

The Oakland A’s are going to Cleveland, Ohio, to start a ten-game road trip. The A’s, winners of eight of their last ten games, will begin with three against the Indians (54-55). The A’s will then play three against the Texas Rangers and finish the trip with four against the Chicago White Sox.

The A’s swept the Rangers over the weekend. The A’s improved to 64-48 for the year. They find themselves two games behind the Houston Astros in the race for the AL West crown. In addition, they are now 1/2 game ahead of the Boston Red Sox as the number one Wild Card team. If the season were to end today, The A’s would host the Wild Card game at the Coliseum.

The Indians, who will be known as the Guardians next season, are 54-55 for the year. Last month, the two teams met for three games at the Oakland Coliseum, just after the All-Star break. The Indians won the series two games to one. Two of the three games were decided by one run. The other game was won by Cleveland 4-2.

On Tuesday, The A’s will be sending lefty Sean Manaea to the hill to face the Indians. Manaea, in his last start, did not fare well against the San Diego Padres. Manaea’s pitched well in his two previous starts before the San Diego game.

A’s manager, Bob Melvin, hopes Manaea will get back on track. The Indians will counter with righty Triston McKenzie. McKenzie is 1-5 with an ERA of 5.89. On Wednesday, Frankie Montas will go for the A’s. Montas beat the Padres last week.

Montas is 9-8 for the year, and his ERA is 4.10. His opponent will be Cal Quantrill. Cal, the son of former Major League pitcher Paul Quantrill, his 3-1 and an ERA of 3.14. Thursday’s game will feature the A’s ace, Chris Bassitt (11-3, 3.19 ERA), going against Dan Plesac (6-4, 4.84.) Plesac is the nephew of Dan Plesac, who pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers.

The A’s will be facing a team that is rebuilding. The Indians’ star shortstop, Francisco Lindor, signed a free-agent deal with the New York Mets. Their star pitcher, Shane Bieber, is on the 60-day Il. Their manager, Terry Francona, has stepped away from the team for the rest of the season. DeMarlo Hale is the interim manager. The team has a lot of new players that are not familiar to A’s fans. The Indians roster is made up of a lot of young players and a couple of older players.

A’s fans should keep an eye on third baseman Jose Ramirez. Ramirez is hitting .254 with 24 homers and 65 RBIs. Shortstop Amed Rosario is batting .270 to go along with six dingers and 32 ribbies. The other big bat is designated hitter Franmill Reyes. Reyes broke in with the San Diego Padres in 2018. The Padres traded him to Cleveland in 2019. Reyes’ line is .275/20 HR/52 RBIs.

The Indians’ bullpen has all right-handed pitchers. They are using James Karinchak and Emmanuel Clase as the closers. Karinchak has 11 saves and Clase has 16. The veteran reliever, Bryan Shaw, has appeared in 55 games so far this season. Expect to see him pitch against the A’s this week. Hale will call Nick Wittgren, Trevor Stephan, Nick Sandin, Blake Parker, and Justin Garcia from the bullpen to shut down the A’s attack.

The A’s cannot afford to take the Indians lightly. They know the Indians can beat them. With the addition of Starling Marte, Josh Harrison, and Yan Gomes, the A’s offense has an entirely different look.

The A’s struggled to get clutch hits with men in scoring position before these three players arrived in Oakland. Marte had a walk-off home run against the Rangers Friday night. Yan Gomes, pinch-hitting in the ninth with two out and down to his last strike, came through with a single to tie the game. The A’s won that game in extra innings.

The A’s are playing well. Their starters have been pitching into the seventh innings. The bullpen has been outstanding—the A’s need to win the series against the Indians and the Rangers. They will have to be at their best when they play the White Sox. The Sox are in first place in the AL Central. They are cruising to the playoffs. The Sox will be gunning for revenge as the A’s eliminated them from the playoffs last year.

The A’s have momentum on their side right now. They know they are a good team. They know they can come back late in a game to win. They lead the AL in walk-off wins. Let’s hope they can have a successful road trip.

Illustrations of the Cleveland Guardians new home and away caps, uniforms and socks (image from spectrumnews1.com)

From Indians to Guardians

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

By Amaury Pi-González

The 2021 Cleveland Indians might not make it to the postseason this year. With 68 games remaining the Indians are in second place in the Central Division, today nine games back from the Chicago White Sox. Starting 2022 they will be officially the Cleveland Guardians.

Maybe as Cleveland Guardians they will be able to do what they have not been able to do in 70 years in the American League win a World Series (currently the longest span among all teams in major league baseball without a World Series title). For many years (some of us) we remember when Cleveland was the city for jokes.

The old park next to Lake Erie was “The Mistake on the Lake”. Comedians used Cleveland all the time as the city they would relate their jokes to. Ironically one of the most famous and successful comedians, Bob Hope was the owner of the Cleveland Indians in the 1950’s.

As a founding member of the American League in 1901, the Cleveland Indians franchise has a rich history in baseball and the American sporting landscape. The Cleveland Indians have won six AL Pennant and two World Series, 1920 and most “recently” 1948.

Just a few months after Jackie Robinson made his major league debut, the Cleveland Indians under owner Bill Veeck signed Larry Doby, the first African-American player in the American League. Already the first AL team to sign an African-American player, Cleveland made history again when it named Frank Robinson as the majors’ first black manager in 1975.

A player-manager, Robinson wore this jersey on that historic Opening Day when he smashed a homer to help defeat the Yankees, 5-3. Like the late NY Yankees great announcer Mel Allen used to say “How About That!” These Cleveland Indians have been inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York. Nap Lajoie, Tris Speaker, Cy Young, Jessie Burkett, Bob Feller, Elmer Flick, Stan Covaleski, Lou Boudreau, Early Wynn, Earl Averill, Bob Lemon, Joe Sewell, Addie Jones, Larry Doby, and Jim Thome.

In 1954 the Cleveland Indians won 111 games and the American League pennant, and were swept by the New York Giants (4-0) in that year’s World Series. More wins during a regular season: Chicago Cubs in 1906, 116 wins and the Seattle Mariners in 2001 also 116 wins.

Cleveland Indians current owner Paul Dolan: “We are excited to usher in the next era of the deep history of baseball in Cleveland,” Dolan said in a statement. “Cleveland has and always will be the most important part of our identity. Therefore, we wanted a name that strongly represents the pride, resiliency and loyalty of Clevelanders.”

The name of Guardians is a Cleveland favorite. The Guardians of Traffic are large art-deco statues that adorn the Hope Memorial Bridge which connects Cleveland west side with the east side. The name Guardians has nothing to do with the very popular movie of 2017 Guardians of the Universe from the popular fictional DC Comic books and characters like: Nebula, Groot, Rocket and others.

Other superheroes of notable fame: Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Iron-Man, Captain America, Thor, The Flash, The Hulk, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman. If you are wondering about the Atlanta Braves, the Braves logo has remained the same since 1990.

Their imagery of Native American stereotypes was removed. They added a tomahawk, originally a Native American tool, which symbolizes throwing accuracy and force. Often these name changes in our professional sports teams are not originated by the people that are allegedly “offended.”

A good example was a poll conducted a few years ago about the Redskins name for the Washington football team. A poll reveled that nine in ten Native Americans were not offended by the Washington Redskins name. Nevertheless, today that team Washington Football Team will keep the name through 2021 and will unveil new identity in 2022.

With new names, comes new logos, new uniform styles and of course, more sales. As fans love all that stuff, perhaps the ownership of the Cleveland Guardians could donate all the money they are going to generate with these new marketing campaigns, to Native American organizations that are more concerned about their communities and improving their lives, than with the simple politically correct name change of a team.

Starting 2022 the Cleveland Indians will be the Cleveland Guardians. But, who knows, maybe 20 years from today when, billionaires, Branson, Bezos and Musk had colonized a few planets the trend will be space names and then the only team that would be “in vogue” will be the Houston Astros and they will probably “offend” somebody.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Hall of Fame Museum and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com