Live Blogging

Aaron Laffey took a no-hitter into the sixth but gave up two dinky infield hits, a line drive single to left, a hit batter and two choppy ground outs. Then he left and Jensen Lewis gave up a single to Morgan Ensberg that didn't reach halfway to the mound. Needless to say, it was an unfortunate series of events that turned Laffey's outing from a shutout or one allowed to a final line of 5 2/3 innings, four earned, three hits and one strikeout.

The good news is that Laffey looked really strong in his outing, despite the likelihood he's going to take the loss. Before the game, manager Eric Wedge announced Laffey would get at least one more start in the rotation. That seems well deserved and should give the 23-year old more confidence as he develops into a quality starting pitcher.

Onto the blogging:

(8:40 CT) Johnny Damon is pinching hitting for Alex Rodriguez., which can't be good news for Yankee fans. Rodriguez has struggled a little this season and has driven in just 10 RBIs. He'll come around sooner than later, but that touchy hamstring might be playing a factor in A-Rod's swing.

(8:42 CT) Damon walked to bring up Jason Giambi, who's at first base again tonight. Giambi hit two monster home runs off Paul Byrd in the first game of this series. Jensen Lewis needs to be careful here and hopefully induce a ground ball.

(8:44 CT) BREAKING NEWS on the bottom of ESPN's broadcast. The Giants have moved Barry Zito to the bullpen. Is it more shocking the Giants took Zito out of the rotation or that they haven't cut him yet? He's 0-6 this season, making him the third pitcher in major league baseball history to lose six games in April. Yikes. That's easily the worst signing of all time. And we're only at the beginning of year two of the contract.

(8:45 CT) Giambi flied out to right center, bringing up porn-loving Hideki Matsui. Apparently, it's been reported that Matsui has an extensive porn collection of which he's quite proud. I guess we're all proud of something.

(8:46 CT) Jason Michaels has two hits tonight and a great diving catch. But he just took an awful angle at Matsui's gap shot. Instead of cutting the ball off and saving a run, Michaels allows the ball to roll all the way to the wall and Damon easily scores from first. It's 5-2 with Joba and Rivera coming pitching the 8th and 9th. Crap.

(8:48 CT) Pitching change. You know the Tribe is losing when Jorge Julio is summoned from the bullpen. He's not very good. In fact, I'll be surprised if he's on the team by season's end.

(8:49 CT) Julio induces Morgan Ensberg into a pop out. We're headed to bottom of the 8th with Joba coming in. Chances of ESPN showing footage of the Bug Game from last year's playoffs? 1,000,000%.

(8:52 CT) Now the announcers are obsessively talking about the bugs and how the game might have been stopped and how the series could have been changed. It's annoying. Everyone talks about Joba's struggles with the bugs, but people forget Fausto Carmona had just as many bugs all around him in the top of the 8th and he pitched just fine. Joba blew it. It's over. Let's move on.

(8:55 CT) And that was a quick inning. Joba takes the Tribe down 1-2-3 and we're headed to the 9th.

(8:56 CT) I'm disappointed if the Tribe ends up splitting this series, since they did win the first two games. But overall Cleveland is playing much better. The starting pitching is coming around, the bullpen is better and the bats are slowly waking up. Both Detroit and Cleveland are going to recover from slow starts to fight for the Central Division title.

(9:01 CT) Jorge Julio does his best Joba impression and mows down the Yankees in order. Now the Indians just need three runs off Mariano Rivera to tie the game. This should be easy.

(9:02 CT) Franklin Gutierrez steps in. Rivera looked awesome getting the save yesterday with his cutter moving hard and sharp. Gutierrez looks overmatched and falls behind 1-2.

(9:03 CT) Predictably Gutierrez strikes out on a high fastball. He really needs to cut down on his strikeouts.

(9:04 CT) Michaels is up and looking for his third hit. With Grady Sizemore missing the past two games with an injury, Michaels has faced some righties which he's not used to doing. Usually Wedge uses Michaels primarily for lefthanders.

(9:05 CT) Michaels battles but flies out to deep right. It's up to David Dellucci. Not good.

(9:06 CT) Dellucci grounds out to second and the Tribe drops to 12-14. Poor Laffey gets a hard-luck loss to drop to 0-1. Seattle comes into Cleveland tomorrow for a three-game set.