Indians Sour On Sowers For Slot on Opening Day Roster

Jeremy Sowers didn't make the Opening Day roster, another failure of the Mark Shapiro regime, another No. 1 pick who arrived with much fanfare but who never amounted to anything.

You might as well get used to calling Sowers a "former" Indian, a term that can be slapped on more men than just him.

But so much had been expected of Sowers, a left-hander with a college pedigree that did look impressive. With the Indians, Sowers, 26, showed glimpses of greatness, breaking into the big leagues in 2006 with a 7-4 record and a 3.57 ERA.

To some people that season, Sowers resembled a Northern-fried version of left-hander Tom Glavine, an artist who worked the edges of home plate with the precision of a heart surgeon.

Sowers had the smarts of a heart surgeon, too.

Yet he was overly aloof, often walking around the Indians clubhouse with a cocksureness that was off-putting. He appeared as if he held insights into the game that were his alone.

Whenever he spoke, Sowers was polite and thoughtful, although in what seemed a condescending sort of way. He had no reason for it, because he was never as good as he thought he was. Nor was he as good as Shapiro & Co. believed he would be.

For after his flirtation with success in '06, Sowers proved a work-in-progress that didn't progress.

Today, he is the same unfinished pitcher that he was in 2006. In the years since, he even became less than what he was. He piled three mediocre seasons on top of each other, putting up the numbers of a journeyman: an 11-26 record with an ERA like a bad mortgage rate.

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