The Cleveland Indians are in the playoffs!
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by Wizardman
Finally, the Cleveland Indians have returned to the promised land, first time in the playoffs since 2001, and first division title since 2001. A great day in Cleveland, certainly. The Indians took a 6-2 lead to the ninth inning and kept Rafael Betancourt on. He gets Jack Cust swinging, then gets to face Mike Piazza. Piazza pops out and we have 2 down. Now it's just between Raffy and Mark Ellis. Everyone's on their feet, and Ellis has no hits on the day. The first pitch is fouled off, Betancourt throws a powerful breaking ball for strike 2. Another fall ball is hit off... and he gets him swinging!!
Final Score 6-2, and at 9/23, 4:01 PM, the Indians are in the playoffs. Congrats to the Tribe. The first team to win the division this year!
It has been 6 years in the making. After 2001 we had to rebuild, who knew when we were gonna get back here. We traded Bartolo Colon, the ace at the time, for some young prospects, one of them named Grady Sizemore. C.C. Sabathia came through our farm system, and by 2004 we has a decent core of Sabathia, Lee, Westbrook, Sizemore, Hafner, and some others. However, after just missing the 2005 season and having a poor 2006 season, this had such a great feel to it. After all the the Tribe went through this season, the snowed out games, the revival of Fausto Carmona, the decline of Cliff Lee, the struggles of Travis Hafner, the solidity of Rafael Perez and Betancourt, the "exciting" save situations of Joe Borowski, and of course, the pie antics of Trot Nixon... with all this, this really was a great season to be an Indians fan.
Now if the Browns lose no one will notice, we're celebrating in Cleveland tonight!
