Greek Easter at the Jake: Holiday Bonus Pick

Of course, the principles applied in our analysis of Friday night's game in Friday's post are generally applicable to the entire series between the Tribe and the Yankees in Cleveland this weekend. It was Tribe time again today at the Jake with a walk-off bases loaded single by Victor Martinez sealing a 4-3 win for the good guys with the bad logo. After a slow start, the Tribe is now 12-12 with today’s victory bringing their winning streak to five games. This streak might be the start of one of the sustained good runs that we’ve become accustomed to seeing from the Tribe over the last few years. It feels like one of those weekends at the Jake, with the home team feeding off a crowd that’s energized by the winning streak and the presence of the overblown and overpaid Yankees. And the Indians aren’t the only ones on a five game winning streak. Despite our concern over big C.C., we’ll join forces with the home team to see if we can’t both extend our streaks to six, together. The pick: Cleveland Indians at 105/100.

Also, we have mixed feelings about the name of the ballpark changing from "Jacobs" to “Progressive" Field. We like Progressive as a company -- our friends who work there tell us that it's a good place to work. We also like that the ballpark's named after a good company that's headquartered in Cleveland and employs a lot of people here, and that the Tribe will collect some millions of dollars for the naming privileges. But "the Pro," "Pro-Field," and everything else we've heard or could think of all sound dumb so we’ll keep calling it “the Jake” for short until someone comes up with something better.

UPDATE: One hour before game time at the Jake and 85% of the point spread action and 67% of the money line action at sportsbook.com is on the Yankees. I don't get it. The below photo of Joba Chamberlain says it all about the Yanks at the Jake these days. My favorite thing about the photo is that Joba is choking on fruit flies at the same time he is choking away the ballgame, and the series. The expression on his face clearly reflects all three ways in which he's choking. We wish we were at the Jake today. Also, we don't care much if the Cavs lose today because part of us wants LeBron to go home, rest his back, and go see a yoga expert.

Seven Percenters

The Yankees are in town tonight and through Monday for the only time this season. These Yankees ruin baseball by causing things like the unbalanced schedule and dumb interleague match-ups like the two yearly series between the Tribe and the Reds, who don't have a meaningful rivalry between them, but have had one contrived for them to justify the lucrative Yanks/Mets and Cubs/White Sox series. Why should the rest of us suffer? If those teams want to play each other so much they should make the g*ddam World Series. Because of such injustices wrought upon good baseball fans by the Yankees, their ilk, and their enablers, we think that the Baseball Gods are more likely than not to restore some balance to the universe in favor of Tribe Time tonight. Plus, the big bad Yanks should be haunted by the memory of how the bugs scared them in the playoffs last year while the Lake Erie Warriors gamely pressed on. Amazingly, a whopping 93% of the action on sportsbook.com is on these freaking pansies tonight. We’re happy and proud to join the 7% who will be ca-cawing for the Byrd-man tonight. The pick: Cleveland Indians +124 over New York Yankees.