Friday night baseball ACTION

Sowers gave up 4 of those 10 runs on July 7th.  He was matched up against Beurhle that night, too, who beat him with an efficient 7 innings pitched.  I think it's the other way around tonight, though, and here's my simplistic reasoning.  Prior to their last road game started by Sowers, the Indians had lost 12 straight times as a road dog behind him.  And they didn't just lose a dozen in a row, they got blown out in almost every game, with all 12 opponents covering the runline against Cleveland.  The last time it happened, in fact, was exactly one month ago when Beurhle and Sowers faced off, with the White Sox pounding the Indians, 10-6.  That latest losing effort earned Sowers a bus ticket down to AAA Columbus, where he spent two weeks before being called back up.  Once he reported to the team in Seattle, he was penciled in to start the next night on July 25th, and that's where Sowers finally broke through with a terrific winning road performance.  He shutout the Mariners for 7 innings in a 10-3 win.  He followed that up with a quality start last Saturday at home against Detroit, and at close to +200 tonight, I'm willing to gamble that he continues his improved play at the site of his last stinkbomb.

Meanwhile, few observers are giving the Indians any credit for winning 9 of their last 13 games, and that's fine by me, because there's few things I like more than catching a phat price on a bad team in the middle of a sneaky hot streak.