Cleveland Sports Forum

Dillon Howard not absolutely miserable last night. 6 K in 3 2/3 innings vs only 1 walk, but 5 hits and 2 runs in 3 1/3 innings. Eric Haase 2 hits.

McFarland rates the highest "game score" anywhere in the minors, by a long shot; he scored an 80 beating the field by 11 points.

Good grief, on Saturday I found out that MHV was in VT on W, Th, F. I hadn't even looked at the schedule, just assuming that it being an even-numbered year, the series would be out west this year. Dumbass!

Well at least last night I got to see Marte hit a 400-foot bomb over everything. Miguel, not Andy.

"Out west" here in Trumbull County. We don't usually think of ourselves as Westerners, other than in the "western reserve".

Well in the universe of the NY-Penn league, that's pretty darn west.

We both stretch the definitions of New York and Pennsylvania.

Indians' DSL righty Nivar suspended

Summer Leaguer banned 50 games for using Boldenone

By Danny Wild / MLB.com08/06/2012 5:36 PM ET

Indians Minor League pitcher Juan Nivar was suspended on Monday after testing positive for a banned steroid.

The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball said Nivar, a right-hander with Cleveland's Rookie-level Dominican Summer League affiliate, received a 50-game suspension without pay after testing positive for metabolites of Boldenone, a performance-enhancing substance in violation of the Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.

The suspension is effective immediately.

Nivar, 19, was 4-1 with a 1.36 ERA in 10 starts for the DSL Indians after signing with Cleveland as a free agent last February. He appeared in 10 gamess out of the DSL Tribe's bullpen last season.

Nivar is the 58th player to be suspended for violating the Minor League drug program this year.


Danny Wild is an editor for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or its clubs.

58 players suspended this year???

Guess 50 games ain't enough.

How about a 1 year suspension?

Nivar had the best stats of any of our DSL pitchers. The only name I had started to pay any attention to. Nivar again.

Cord Phelps hit his 13th homer last night. No use for him in Cleveland since he only plays 2nd base. Probably not worth much in the trade market, but at least we can deal from strength. And then Kipnis will probably get hurt the day after any such trade.

Matt Packer AAA debut not too pretty. 5 2/3 innings, 4 runs on 8hits and 3 walks.
Lars with his first Columbus hit plus a walk. Canzler 3 ab's, 3 k's.

Captains win in 13. 3 hits for Myles (282); 2 by JOrdan Smith (309) and LuigiRod (268) and Lavisky (238) and Jose Ramirez (347) plus 2 walks
NIck Pasquale a 2012 draftee 3 innings scoreless to get the win. 1 run in 10 innings 5 K total.

2012 draftee Jacob Lee with 4 scoreless for Scrappers. Total 38Kin 31 1/3 2.30 era. Naquin still out.

Vizcaya era drops to 0.92 for Dominicans but only 20 K in 49 IP

Paulino left Sunday's game. Didn't play Monday. Anthony Santander, another promising 17 year old, an OF, with a pair of hits now 277/345/436.
Lugo, who we've read is the most impressive pitcher in Arizona based on stuff not on his record, fans 5 in 4 13, 3 runs on 2 hits and 2 walks. ERA 5.53. 32K in 27 2/3. He's a 6-5 200 LHP, age 18.

Fabio is quite a K machine,(391 in 297 career innings) as well as a walk machine.

On the 40-man roster and this year in his first in High A his ERA is about the same as a typical Indian starter in August

Fabio Martinez turns out to have been a very high-rated prospect for 3 years with the Angels, rated 6th in 2010, 8th in 2011 and still 14th in 2012. He is said to obsess with the radar gun. Has great stuff, terrible command and not a good pitcher. Originally they projected him as a top end of rotation starter. Now he projects as an unreliable power reliever.

We;ve done OK fixing E. Rogers. Maybe Fabio, too.

BA notes these lines from Monday from preseason Top 30 prospects:

CLE AAA Anderson, Lars 1B 2 0 1 0 .255 BB (58)
CLE AAA Phelps, Cord 2B 3 1 1 1 .271 HR (13), BB (53)
CLE LoA Lindor, Francisco SS 6 0 1 0 .263 BB (50)
CLE LoA Myles, Bryson RF 6 0 3 0 .282 2B (15)
CLE LoA Rodriguez, Luigi CF 5 0 2 0 .268 2B (19), BB (42)
CLE LoA Smith, Jordan DH 7 0 2 2 .309
CLE AAA Packer, Matt 5.2 8 4 4 3 5 6.35 L (0-1)
CLE MAJ McAllister, Zach 1.2 6 9 2 2 3 3.60 [sic] L (4-4)


also FWIW:
OL AAA Putnam, Zach 1.2 3 0 0 1 1 4.79 W (2-2)
COL MAJ Pomeranz, Drew 4 3 0 0 3 7 4.76

The Indians announced that they released right-hander Jason Knapp (Twitter link). Knapp was a key part of the 2009 trade that sent Cliff Lee to the Phillies, but injuries have sidelined him, and he hasn't pitched since 2010. The 21-year-old had a 3.63 ERA with 12.0 K/9 and 4.1 BB/9 in three professional seasons from 2008-10.

Damn, I really liked Knapp from the few videos I saw.