When I signed on to do this blog as the only Indians fan among a bunch of Astros and Cardinals fans, I thought it was going to be awesome.  “Self,” I said to myself, “you are going to get to gloat all summer about how your team is awesome and their teams suck more ass than an Amazonian butt leach. (Author’s note: I have no idea if such a creature exists, but, if it does, it is almost certainly Amazonian in nature.)

Fast forward to April 18, 2008.  Though the Tribe throttled the Tigers last night, 11-1, and moved out of last place in the division, Cleveland still finds itself with a less-than-stellar 6-10 record, matching the Astros start (despite being roughly 188361282456 times better than Houston).  Even worse, C.C. Sabathia’s ERA is climbing faster than his cholesterol and Joe Borowski’s inflamed vagina has already caused him to blow three saves.

Rather than dwell on the bad stuff, however, I am going to force myself to come up with ten positive things about this team.  Not sure if it can be done, but here we go.

1. Detroit is even worse right now, meaning that we are ahead of the one team in the Central that people thought might beat us.
2. My prediction that Cliff Lee would return to form is looking brilliant, as he is 2-0 with an ERA smaller than Miggy Tejada’s steroid-laced nuts.
3. Francisco Liriano is, apparently, not the second-coming of Johan Santana.
4. Ryan Garko is hitting the ball hard, hitting for average, AND not striking out much.  These things all make baby jesus smile.
5. While C.C. might suck suck, Carmona is still The Truth.
6. JoBo is on the DL, meaning I can rest easier at night.  I’d rather swim through a vat of used hypodermic needles than have to rely on that turd to get three outs.
7. The next six games are against Minnesota and KC, meaning we can make up ground quickly if we put together a little run.  I am already calling tonight’s contest (Lee v. Liriano) a win.
8. I did mention that Borowski would not be pitching any time soon, didn’t I?  Oh well, it warrants repeating.  He makes Jose Valverde look like the GOOD Brad Lidge.
9. Travis Hafner seems to have re-found the power that left him last season.  By which I mean steroids, of course.
10. Given the talent on this team, we can still honestly believe that we will win the division and make the postseason.  That’s a nice feeling to have.

Wow.  I actually did it.  Things must not be quite as bad as I was thinking.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am off to find some ebola to help CC drop weight.

St. Louis Cardinals (5-1) @ Houston Astros (2-5)

Round 1:

Todd Wellemeyer (1-0) 

v.

Wandy Rodriguez (0-0)

Well, it sure didn’t take long for all of us to jump into our first series match-up since we started this here thing we call WTP.  Luckily for me, I have the advantage of being able to gloat just a little as our teams sit at opposite ends of the NL Central standings going into tonight’s game.  5-1?!?  WOW!  What a start!  Yes, as I stated here, I truly believed that these Cardinals would fair much better than what most of the so-called experts were predicting–mainly because I believed that Rick Ankiel’s hitting from last year was no fluke, thought our middle infield would fair far better as a whole (y’all don’t realize the intense hatred I had for that little league “shortstop” we carried for far too long), still thought we had the best bullpen in the division, and really loved the way we competed and won game after game to close out Spring Training.  But this?!?  The best starting pitching in the league after Week 1?!?  Granted, it’s only Week 1 and the starters will eventually come back to earth, not to mention we had the luxury of opening our season at Busch II, but I certainly could not have dreamed of a better start to the ‘08 campaign. 

So, other than the phenomenal performances turned in by this makeshift rotation, who else has impressed?  Obviously, it’s Rick Ankiel.  This mancrush is just getting out of hand now.  The guy just continues to come up big in clutch situations, hit for power, and his success versus lefties is something that I didn’t see coming.  His outfield defense has even been far better than first advertised; his catch in the 8th inning yesterday was Jimmy Edmonds-esque (minus the bad first step).  Adam Kennedy, at least so far, looks much more like the guy that played in Anaheim, er, Los Angeles, er whateverthefuck (as opposed to the assclown that showed up last year).  Kyle McClellan, the local St. Louis product, is proving to have a lot of grit and guts coming out of the ‘pen as he offsets not having Russ Springer down there with Ryan Franklin setting up for Izzy.  And Brian Barton, the Rule 5 castaway from Matty’s Indians, has continued to hit and may have even bumped Skip Schumaker from the leadoff and starting outfield spot.  Hell, LaRussa even went with the same exact line-up yesterday that he used the day before!  All this Redbird talk and I didn’t even have to mention that Pujols guy.  Amazing stuff so far!

**Update: Troy Glaus is still a big flappin’ pussy, but at least he’s turned in some decent glove work the past two games. 

So, what’s up with those Stros besides injuries to Berkman and Wigginton, being completely owned by Derek Lee over the weekend, and Your Boy Roy giving up 21 hits in his first two starts?  The one-run losses have to be frustrating–looks like you guys have been in every game this year.  Any anal fissures updates?  Tejada is actually lookin’ good out there for ya.

Greetings from the one fan of an American League team here at WTP. [Author’s note: I would be concerned about being grossly outnumbered, but considering I am comparing the Indians to the Cardinals and Astros, I think it’s a fair matchup.]

As I write this, the Tribe just lost to the White Sox 2-1, giving the beloved politically incorrect mascot its first loss of the year. Shockingly, the juggernaut that is the Kansas City Royals looks to have another win today against the Tigers, meaning KC will be in first place all alone here in a matter of minutes. Of course, they will be mathematically eliminated from the postseason in a matter of days, so I say “bully for you, Alex Gordon.” Or something like that.

I’m rambling. Back to my point.

Simply stated, the American League is roughly 1,354,787 times greater than the National League right now. (I did the math.) Why is this? Well, according to assmasters like Joe Buck, part of the reason is that the two biggest spenders and five of the top six spenders are American League teams. Problem is, once you get past number six, the National League more than keeps pace with the American in spending, yet the AL keeps feeding its collective dick to the NL in the All Star game year after year.

Here’s where I would insert my own theory if I had one, but I don’t. Instead, I’ll open it up to comments and suggestions. Any comments that refer to last year’s ALCS, however, will cause me to mail a turd to the commenter.

In other news…I realize that I still owe the 9 of you who read this a new, fancy, baseball-related template.  I even have a couple cool pictures already picked out for the header.  But I am lazy.  Very lazy.  Amazingly lazy.  But it will come.