Indians rally late

Going into the 7th inning yesterday the Tribe hadn't scored in 17 innings and were in danger of a second consecutive shutout loss. Then with Ronnie Belliard on base, Ben Broussard stepped up to the plate and hit a homer to center to tie the game at two. One inning later, Broussard got another opportunity with runners on first and second and he hit a towering fly to right field. Must have been a favorable breeze because instead of being caught by the rightfielder the ball fell in the second row of seats to put the Tribe in front. Here is a description of the second homer:

This time Broussard worked the count, going to 3-1 before lifting a rain-making drive toward right field. No one in the park thought it was going out, but right fielder Nick Swisher kept going back. When he reached the wall, jumped and came down empty, the crowd of 21,564 gasped and cheered at the same time. "It hit it good, but I hit it straight up," said Broussard, who has 18 homers. "I didn't know if it was going out or not."

That game was a perfect example of how in baseball you can go from goat to hero in minutes. Broussard has been slumping terribly at the plate (batting .138 in September) and had made two errors at first base earlier in the game. His past failures are forgotten for a while (at least until 7:05 PM tonight) as he basks in the glow of recent success.