A Live Look At Cleveland After Shane Bieber Threw 9 Shutout Innings And Called Out The Indians Doubters Last Night:

Live look at all of Cleveland right now:

Shutterstock Images.

A lotttttt of people rejoining the bandwagon this morning. And let us please set the record straight right now that I was in the "hoping we compete for a wildcard spot" camp at the beginning of the year. I didn't say we were going to be terrible. Fact check the preseason blog. However, with that being said, I am also officially flip flopping from a mindset of let's hang around in the playoff hunt to let's go win the whole damn thing. Our pitching staff is too damn good. From the starters to the bullpen to the back end, we are going to be in a whole lot of close ballgames this summer. Just need to find a way to win them. And after watching Shane Bieber throw his 15th straight game with at least 8 strikeouts, and seeing that he now has 35 strikeouts through 3 games (Nolan Ryan with the record at 37), I just don't see how we don't win at least 1 out of every 5. Now the rest of the team needs to figure out how to win 2 of the other 4. Winning 60% of your games wins the World Series. Fact check that one too. 

Side note: how long until Bieber's traded?? Okay, okay. I'm sorry. No negativity here today when you're sitting on top of the mountain by yourself just enjoying the view:

Well actually wait, one more problem:

The oneeeee teensy little concern here is that the Indians were also held scoreless through 9 innings. We can't hit the baseball. We have no one batting over .280, and we have 4 players getting regular at bats that are below .200. Last night, if we didn't score in the top of the 10th, Bieber would've thrown 9 innings of shutout baseball and not even picked up the win. Which is why what I wrote on Opening Day still rings true:

I truly feel bad for Shane Bieber. He's clearly one of, if not the best, pitchers in all of baseball. But he's allowed to give up 1 run per game if he wants to register any Wins this season. Honestly, as soon as he gives up his 2nd run, I think we should take him out and go to the bullpen. Maybe he can pitch every 3 or 4 days? Pitch until he gives up that deadly 2nd run, and then get him out.

I said it and I mean it. The man should get a 1 run cushion and then we need to get him out of the game on the 2nd. You think this lineup is scoring 3 runs in a game? Come on, get real. Because once again last night, our leadoff hitter that is hitting a whopping .000 on the season, went 0-4. And the grass is still green and the sky is still blue. No surprises here. No joke, my grandmother would have the same impact at the plate as Ben Gamel is having this season. But we keep tossing him out there. At least I can't say he's overpaid? Same with Jake Bauer. Our 1st Baseman is a crisp 1 for 16 this season, good enough for a .063 average, but he only makes like $600,000. That's the one thing I need to keep reminding myself about these hitters that suck. The only reason they're on our team is because they're so cheap and no one else wants them. 

Oh, and to the "It's only been 10 games" crowd, fine. Good math. My calculations show the same thing. But who in this division looks like they're going to win 95 games? The Indians are officially in this AL Central race. And we clearly have the best pitching. To quote the great Cy Bieber, "Whoever wants to count us out, go ahead and do that". Give me a number that will be an acceptable amount of games played to check back in at and I will get back with you guys then.