I don’t know why I bothered writing this; I’m sure everyone was watching the same game I saw and not this LeBron guy, right? LeYawn (thanks to Carter Gaddis for that one)… Anyway, Thursday night saw the Tampa Bay Rays win the first of a four-game series against the Cleveland Indians on the strength of Carl Crawford’s bat, and I do mean strength. The second of Crawford's two right-field home run bombs damn near hit the back wall. In a game that turned out to be a home run contest, Cleveland struck first; everything about this long shot was first actually: Michael Brantley, the first batter of the first inning hit his first big league home run off starter Wade Davis. Ben Zobrist reached in the bottom half of the first on a base hit and then Crawford brought him home with the first of two towering home runs. The Indians' Andy Marte, the second hitter of the second inning, hit his team’s second solo shot (his second of the year… wtf?) to tie it up.
Well good ol’ CC wasn’t about to let these young punks show him up; he decided to teach them how a real pro does it and cranked his second meteor of the evening in the third inning, with Zobrist on second after hitting a double. Seriously, though, Carl, stop hitting home runs. Without you on base as a threat to run, Evan Longoria is actually being pitched to; he grounded out twice after your homers. Stop being so selfish with these monster shots and give poor Evan a break, man. I think it's very important to mention Zobrist's return to the leadoff spot; without him getting aboard twice in front of Carl, this would have been a 3-2 game after Pena's dinger. Food for thought is all. SuperCarl hit those two shots on his first two at-bats; Pena struck out after Longo’s grounder in the first so I figured it would be like instant replay: Zobrist hitting his way aboard and being homered in, Longo grounding out and C-Los whiffing. Pena had other ideas, apparently, and decided to go yard as well, stroking one opposite-field with an easy swing right through the ball, making it 5-2. By the way, thanks for such an awesome performance, Carl; it allowed me to reuse this graphic.
This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2010.