From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal's Tom Haudricourt:

I just spoke with general manager Doug Melvin who told me he's waiting to see if the Cleveland Indians will accept his trade proposal for left-hander C.C. Sabathia.

"Mark said he'd be in touch with me," said Melvin, referring to Cleveland general manager Mark Shapiro. "I'm sure they've got to think through everything."

[snip]

Several names have been included in trade rumors involving the Brewers but their offer is thought to center on outfielder Matt LaPorta, their top minor-league prospect. LaPorta, currently playing at Class AA Huntsville, was the Brewers' first-round draft pick in 2007.

[UPDATE]: Buster Olney with more information on the talks:

The Brewers and Indians have had extensive talks about Sabathia, and if a deal is made, it is likely that Double-A outfielder Matt LaPorta, who has 20 homers for Huntsville, would be in the middle of the package sent to Cleveland. According to sources, the Brewers have been reluctant to part with two of their best prospects, preferring the Indians fill out the trade from a group of players not considered to be at LaPorta's level. The Brewers' Double-A team at Huntsville is loaded, from shortstop Alcides Escobar to third baseman Mat Gamel to catcher Angel Salome.

More updates/commentary to follow.

via www.fangraphs.com

Games like last night are opinion shifters. You see CC Sabathia dominate a game a day after Cliff Lee did the same and think "you know, who cares if the Indians don't have an offence or a bullpen?" Even without Fausto Carmona and Jake Westbrook, the rotation has been one of the best in baseball (3.68 ERA).

But even though the Indians are just 7.5 games out of first, they'd have to catch and pass three other teams (four if you include the Royals). The schedule after the Reds leave town is set up so that the Indians can make up ground quickly:

June 30-July 2: @ Chicago

July 4-6: @Minnesota

July 8-9: @Detroit

The key to this stretch are the two off days on either side of the Minnesota series, which should allow Sabathia and Lee to make two starts apiece. If the Indians can run off 6 of 8, Mark Shapiro probably isn't going to listen to offers for Sabathia. But if they drop 6 of 8, the season's essentially over.

via www.fangraphs.com

This was an important win for several reasons. One, it got them to within a game of second place. And more importantly, it, along with a White Sox loss, stopped at least for the moment the precipitous advance of Chicago's lead in the AL Central. The Indians are in survival mode now, with not a whole lot separating them from falling out the race, for even though there's still time left in the season to erase an 8 or 9 game deficit, some key player decisions have a shorter time frame in which to be made.

As the WPA notes, Sabathia essentially won the game himself. The Indians scored a run in the bottom of the first, and the offense disappeared after that. Sabathia went the rest of the way with no real problems. The last Minnesota batter to reach base was Joe Mauer to lead off the fourth inning. He was erased by a Justin Morneau double play. It was an easy 1-0 shutout, if that's possible.

Josh Barfield, who was playing in just his second major-league game of the season, had to leave after straining a finger while swinging. Judging by Josh's comments after the game, he shouldn't have to go on the DL.

The series:  Visited the White Sox (loss, loss, loss) and hosted the Rangers (loss, win, loss).

The big story:  We sucked.  After climbing to the top of the division in the middle of last week, the Indians went 1-8.  The pitching snapped back to reality, while the hitters produced the same 19 runs this week that they had over the previous six games, only more poorly distributed.  In response, Wedge fumed, while Francisco and Aubrey added to the idea of slump by contagion, hitting far better in Cleveland than they ever have in Buffalo, seemingly immune to the rest of the team's two-month struggle.

The Indians are the worst-hitting team in the league this season, and they have also been, by far, the worst-hitting team in the majors in the month of May, more than a full run below the major-league average, and nearly a half-run per game worse than the worst team in the National League — again, that's the league where the pitchers are batting maybe three times a game.  The offense has occasionally broken out for a big game, but that has only obscured how bad the offense really has been — the average is 3.4  runs per game, but the median is a solid 3.0.  Week-long power outages have been the most notable feature of the 2008 season:

• April 3-9, 20 runs in seven games, 2.9 average, 2-5 record
• April 24-29, 16 runs in six games, 2.7 average, 3-3 record
• May 1-8, 16 runs in six games, 2.7 average, 3-3 record
• May 12-25, 41 runs in 14 games, 2.9 average, 5-9 record

We actually have a better than expected record in those games, of course, because our starting pitching has been so outstanding over most of those weeks.  Incredibly, our Pythagorean record is actually 27-23 despite the awful hitting, but a half-dozen ninth-inning blowups have us at 23-27 instead.

The biggest tragedy here is the missed opportunities within the division, which directly impact our ability to make the playoffs and cannot be recouped.  The Indians have been 32 runs better than the Tigers but have only a two-game edge to show for it rather than six or seven — should both teams have any kind of bounce back after this point, those games will make a difference.

Worse yet, the Indians surrendered three straight games to the White Sox, who may well turn out to be the only other team who can over 85 wins in a deeply disappointing division.  Head-to-head records and BIP luck were the entire difference between these two clubs in 2005, when they ended the season with 99 and 93 wins respectively, and so far, history is repeating.

In other news:  Fausto Carmona went to the Disabled List with a hip injury and is expected to miss a full month — yet nobody panicked, as Jake Westbrook was completing a successful run of rehab starts in Akron even as Carmona's season was getting ruptured.  Westbrook was already scheduled to return on the exact day of Carmona's next would-be start, and even if he weren't, the Indians have other fine options waiting in Buffalo.

The Indians shuffled up the bullpen part of the roster pretty good, returning Joe Borowski to his old closer job late in the week and demoting Jensen Lewis, in the hopes that he can regain his old velocity in Buffalo.  The team put rarely used lefty Craig Breslow on waivers while claiming Oneli Perez, a talented but struggling young reliever, from the White Sox and sending him to Buffalo.  Scott Elarton and Ed Mujica were promoted from Buffalo to fill out the staff.

Post of the week:  AngG gets her Rick James on (or is it her Wayne Brady?) as part of a hilarious sequence of rants.  Other nominess: jhon (summing up Wedge disgust nicely),  mjschaefer (replying to zempf),  gte619n (replying to supermarioelia), drerikbrady (tremendous attention to detail), jakesinger777 (expanding on Cisco's Buckner moment).

Who fed it:  C.C. Sabathia and Ben Francisco led a very slim list of candidates for this week, both of them continuing strong runs.  Sabathia gave up three runs, all on solo-shots, over 14 innings, striking out 13 with three walks.  He has a 1.63 ERA (and RA) over his past seven starts, averaging 8 strikeouts and 1.6 walks in 7.2 innings.  Francisco pounded out five doubles and a home run while batting .320, and in playing every inning of the team's last 11 games, he's put up a stunning line of .395/.422/.721 — contributing more than 25% of the total bases and less than 8% of the outs.  Rafael Betancourt bounced back from three horrendous weeks (16.20 ERA) with three scoreless innings, all in the 8th, although he did allow an inherited run.  Absolute Best:  Francisco.  Relative Best:  Francisco.

Who fed it breakdown:  Relief pitchers are hard to evaluate based on box scores, considering the incredibly blunt instruments used to assign earned runs.  Masa Kobayashi gave up an earned run, an unearned run and an inherited run this week but actually pitched pretty well.   In the first game, he relieved Laffey with no outs and a man on first, facing the top of the Chicago lineup.  He got a strikeout and a deep flyout, with a very speedy pinch-runner advancing to second base.   He then allowed a single on the ground through the gaping Blake/Peralta hole, scoring the inherited runner, and finally his only earned run of the week on the only legit line-drive hit.  In the second game, he faced the Rangers' 2-thru-5 hitters, getting a strikeout and two groundouts, allowing just a single on the ground to Josh Hamilton — a damned fine inning.  In the third game, he faced the Rangers' 3-thru-1 hitters, and he got three groundouts including a double-play, plus a strikeout and a flyout.  He allowed only a walk, a single on the ground and one line-drive single.  Had that one line-drive not followed the walk, or had there not been two outs, or had the ball not rolled under the right fielder's legs, we're looking at another fine shutout inning.  So while it may seem like Masa had a bad week, I'm not so sure.

Who ate it:  Where to even begin?  Blake, back to playing every inning, responded by slugging .143 — over the last two weeks, he's had one great game (2-4, 6 TB), four decent games (4-14, 0 TB) and eight awful ones (0-25, 0 TB).  Dellucci continued his atrocious month, using his 14 PA to generate just 3 total bases, against three double-plays, three strikeouts, and at least three awful throws from left field — his May OPS is just 444, and even worse, it's just 482 against lefties alone.  The Platoon Of Despair®, meanwhile, crushed any hopes we might have had for them last week, combining for .156/.282/.188, and yes, that's a 470 OPS, and yes, they are slugging a combined .361 for the season — thanks for asking!  Not to be outdone, catchers Martinez and Shoppach combined for an empty 3-for-23 with a 297 OPS.  Jensen Lewis gave up three runs on three walks, three singles, two doubles and one HBP, en route to Buffalo.  Jorge Julio stepped into two budding trainwrecks (from Byrd and Carmona) and made both of them much worse (more below).  Absolute Worst:  Julio.  Relative Worst:  Considering positional OPS differences, it's just too close to call among Martinez (267), Blake (360), Dellucci (445) and Hafner (459).

Who ate it breakdown:  Unlike Masa, Jorge Julio's bad week was even worse than it appeared — and with an 18.00 ERA, it appeared pretty bad.  In the first game, Julio relieved Byrd with men on first and second and one out.  The run expectancy here is 0.97, but Julio was facing the bottom third of Chicago's lineup and had the platoon edge on two of the three.  He gave up a deep flyball double to the righty Crede, scoring one inherited runner and advancing the other to third base with only one out.  He walked the lefty Swisher intentionally, then gave up a long sac-fly to righty Alexei Ramirez, who just-by-the-way is terrible, scoring that other inherited run, then got the leadoff hitter Cabrera to ground out to end the inning.  He started the next inning with strikeouts to Chicago's 2-3 hitters, then the home run to Jermaine Dye — Julio's first earned run allowed in five weeks — at which point he was pulled.  So against five right-handers in that game, he got a strikeout and a groundout but also three very hard-hit deep flies, each of which drove in one run.

Of course, that game was just a warmup for the major gas-can emptying he would do two nights later.  Relieving a struggling and injured Carmona in the 3rd, with men on first and third and no outs — but again, he's facing the bottom of the lineup, so he really should get out of this with minimal damage.  The sequence:  walk, walk, grand slam, line-drive double, line-drive double — so already, that's six runs, two inherited and four earned, and there's still no outs.  Julio finally gets a groundball, but it goes for an infield single, then a strikeout.  The inning ends with two more deep flies that get caught — but the adventure wasn't over!  Julio starts the next inning by allowing two more scorching line drives, but it's just his good fortune that the second one is hit straight at Peralta, who catches it and then doubles off the first guy — so that's two outs, bases empty, despite not one batter really beaten by Julio.  Next it's a walk, and then a double on a groundball to right, and at that point, he gets pulled with men on second and third, two outs.

So even though his ERA for the week was 18.00, it doesn't begin to describe how bad he really was.  Outside of those earned runs, he allowed all four inherited runners to score, while the two runners he left behind did not score.  And while he did get some legit outs, he also pitched into some very good luck, and he totally failed to keep the ball in the infield, even with the platoon edge against the other team's worst hitters.  He was, all things considered, about as bad as a pitcher can possibly be while getting nine outs — charged with just 6 ER, he pitched badly enough to allow 12.

It is time to bring back everyone's favorite bit of cathartic therapy. Two years ago, the Indians were so disappointing that a lot of us wanted to just blow up the whole thing and start over. Yeah, it didn't make a lot of sense, but it made us feel better.

Well, the time has come to dig up this irrational concept again. And where better to direct the wrecking ball first to than the rotation?

(For contract details, see Cot's Contracts' Indians page )

C.C. Sabathia

2008 Salary: $9.0M

Signed Through: 2008

Controlled Through: 2008

PRO: Most of the contenders' General Managers would be willing to crawl over two miles of broken glass while having Barney the Dinosaur piped directly into their temporal lobes just to have Mark Shapiro listen to their proposal for Sabathia. For those with deep pockets, they'd have 4-5 months to try to get Sabathia to sign an extension, and for any team, they'd add one of the best pitchers in baseball to their rotation. So no prospect would be off-limits to the Indians, and even players normally not even talked about would at least come into the conversation.

PRO: The Indians aren't going to keep Sabathia past this season, and the major reason didn't trade him was because they thought they would contend again. So if we remove that little impediment, why wouldn't you trade the best pending free agent in baseball?

PRO: Even if a tiny part of you thinks that Sabathia would re-sign with the Indians, and if the Indians found room on their payroll, wouldn't a Santana-like deal be too much a risk to take for team that's already sunk a lot of coin into extensions for Travis Hafner and Jake Westbrook?

CON: There's still a chance albeit a tiny one, to keep CC around, and most fans wouldn't look too kindly on the Indians punting on Sabathia this soon.

CON: As bad as the Indians have played, they're only 4.5 games back in the division race.

Cliff Lee

2008 Salary: $3.75M

Signed Through: 2009

Controlled Through: 2010 (Team Option)

PRO: Perceived value probably won't get any higher after a magical run to start the season.

PRO: Has a ridiculously team-friendly contract, so any team not named the Marlins would be in the running for him, driving up the asking price.

PRO: Recent history has been mediocre to terrible, so now may be the time to sell high.

CON: Has a very reasonable contract, and the Indians are probably losing two of their starters to free agency after the season.

CON: Why trade him now just when he's finally figured things out? He's had no history of arm problems, and has always had pretty good stuff.

Fausto Carmona

2008 Salary: $500K

Signed Through: 2011

Controlled Through: 2014 (Team Options)

PRO: Did I say Cliff Lee's contract was ridiculously team-friendly? Whoever trades for Carmona could have another six dominant seasons without having to negotiate a thing with Carmona's agent. And while a team willing to give up value enough to for that pitcher/contract combination may not exist, it only takes one GM and one moment of insanity to give the Indians an entire farm system.

CON: OK, back to reality. Carmona's got the best sinker in baseball, a great attitude, and he's just 24 years old. And did I mention the contract?

CON: There is no package of players out there that could get the Indians full value for Carmona and his contract.

Jake Westbrook

2008 Salary: $10M

Signed Through: 2010

Controlled Through: 2010

PRO: It may sound like a broken record, but even at a quasi-market salary, Westbrook's contract is very friendly. The remaining length of the contract is just about perfect for a trading club; there's only two years left, so the risk isn't that great, but you'd still have two years until he could become a free agent. 

PRO: Westbrook's now been on the DL for two straight seasons, and he's probably at his peak right now. Those two years left on his contract may be for at best a slowly declining and injury-prone pitcher with a low strikeout rate to begin with.

CON: Westbrook has been a very reliable innings-eater for five seasons now, and he just signed an extension that was a bit below market-value. And he likes it in Cleveland, something that hasn't been a commonplace happening in recent years.

CON: Other teams may not think Westbrook is that good, and those are the GMs you want to be talking to.

Paul Byrd

2008 Salary: $7.5M

Signed Through: 2008

Controlled Through: 2008

PRO: Even if the Indians get back into the race, they'd have to think of Byrd as a nice trading chip. Even if they don't bring back Sabathia, the Indians probably aren't going to make a huge fuss of re-signing Byrd, at least not at what the free market will dictate.

PRO: At this stage in his career, Byrd is living off preparation and pinpoint control. There's not a whole lot separating Byrd from a starting spot and being out of baseball. And the longer time frame the Indians begin to think in, the more risk keeping Byrd around brings.

PRO: With Byrd being linked to the PED scandal, keeping him would be a bad example to the children of America. And no amount of plush hot dog giveaways would overcome the stain of devastation the children of Northeast Ohio would have burned upon their minds if the Indians would even think about bringing Byrd back.

CON: He's one of the best 5th starters in baseball.

CON: Now that Carmona is on the DL, the Indians still need him in the rotation.

Aaron Laffey

2008 Salary: $393K

Signed Through: 2008

Controlled Through: 2013 (assuming he stays in the majors from now on)

PRO: Young left-handed ground-ball machine that's had some success but still with less than a year of service time? This time even the Marlins are interested. He may not be worth Garret Atkins, but then again, who is?

PRO: As with any young player, will he survive the first wave of adjustments teams will make to him? Perhaps once hitters stop trying to pull his sinkers, he'll quickly become a lot less effective.

CON: Even if the Indians would undergo a 2002-style rebuild, he's the type of player the Indians would be trying to stockpile.

In General: The Indians are facing the loss of both Byrd and Sabathia, so those two would definitely be on the table if the Indians fall out of the race. If the Indians get some semblance of an offense and if they aren't down 10 games by the All-Star Break, they'll hold on to Sabathia, though there could a couple scenarios where they'd deal Byrd,.

And because Sabathia and Byrd probably won't be here next year, the other four guys mentioned above won't likely be traded. The Indians don't like to use free agency to fill holes, and especially don't like filling a rotation hole with a free agent.

via www.fangraphs.com

Sometimes you have to laugh when getting angry just won't do. Sometimes you just have to throw up your hands and walk away, though I wouldn't do it in front of Bill Hohn.

CC Sabathia pitched seven strong innings, his only blemish a high fastball to Ian Kinsler. Didn't matter, for the offense couldn't do anything worth a damn. I guess you could praise Doug Mathis' tenacity if it makes it feel you better, but those anecdotes of great pitching performances against the Indians are kinda piling up.

The bottom of the eighth was a microcosm of today's ineffectual offense. Michael Aubrey, who hasn't with the team long enough to catch whatever has infected the rest of  the hitters, walked on four pitches. Jhonny Peralta was then asked to bunt. Whether you agree with the move or not is immaterial: Peralta should have been able to put the ball down in fair territory. After he took a strike, after he bunted a pitch foul, and after he struck out chasing a ball out of the strike zone, David Dellucci grounded into a double play, one of the things a correctly executed bunt would have taken away.

Then came the surreal tenth inning, when Ben Francisco let a rather routine single to right through his legs, and advancing both runners an additional two bases. The gaffe came at the absolute worst situation: Masa Kobayashi had just walked a batter, and the Rangers would have needed another two-out base hit to score the go-ahead run.

So, what is to be done with this team? The obvious answer is to trade everyone...well, at least within the Let's Go Tribe universe. Stay tuned.

via www.fangraphs.com

The word of the day is...

listless adj. Having or showing little or no interest in anything; languid; spiritless; indifferent

Related forms: listlessly, listlessness

[Origin: 1400-50, late Middle English]

Examples:

1. The Indians' offense was listless; their only run of the game came on the most listless of scoring plays, the ground out.

2. C.C. Sabathia was not listless, striking out eight White Sox in seven innings of work.

3. Andy Marte sat listlessly in the dugout, knowing that even with the entire lineup trapped in a vortex of suck, he wouldn't get a chance to play.

The series:  Hosted the Athletics (win, win, win) and visited the Reds (loss, loss, loss).  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  The Indians rode an absurd run of exceptional pitching to the division lead, devastating the A's to cap off an 8-2 run, only then to get swept by the not-really-even-kind-of-good Reds.  How many weeks see a team move from 1.5 behind one team, to 1.5 ahead of everybody, to 1.5 behind a different team?

The big story:  The team's most senior and best pedigreed relievers continued to fail in the 9th inning, raising the question, why are we picking our closers this way, anyway?  A week ago, Betancourt followed nine innings of shutout pitching from Cliff Lee with a three-run, game-losing 10th against Toronto.  A few days later, he appeared ready to repeat the performance against Oakland, loading the bases while attempting to close the door on a three-run victory.  Incredibly, Wedge then pulled his closer — something he refrained from doing in well over a dozen similar situations with Joe Borowski on the mound — in favor of Kobayashi, who had "backed into" his first career save two nights earlier.  Kobayashi loosed a run-scoring wild pitch but slammed the door with two strikeouts — and the controversy was on.  Wedge said several guys might share the closer role until Borowski returns.  Kobayashi was inserted into the next save situation a few nights later and promptly blew the game — bloop single to left, hit-by-pitch, and a three-run walkoff homer to Adam Dunn, who should have been wearing a giant cape with the words "Don't Give This Guy Anything Good To Hit" emblazoned on the back.

Many stupid things have already been written about this, and many more will be written in the coming weeks.  We've already heard the brainless drumbeat starting against closer-by-committee, and no doubt much more will follow.  You will hear that Bill James invented closer-by-committee (not true) and thinks it's a great idea (not true), that the Red Sox tried closer-by-committee a few years back (true) at James' urging (not true), and that that Red Sox bullpen failed (true) because closer-by-committee is such a terrible idea (not true, it was because they didn't have any good relievers).

Mind you, I don't really care for closer-by-committee much myself, but I like dumb, superstitious baseball commentary even less, and for some reason, the Holy Role Of The Closer seems to bring out the village idiots like little else.  As you suffer through it, try to hold firm these simple facts:

• Betancourt has not been steady all season.  When Borowski went on the DL, Betancourt had given up two home runs in his last four games.  In fact, Betancourt's best stretch of the season came in the two weeks immediately following his being annointed the closer — allowing just one single (and that was the only line drive) and one walk over four games.
• Kobayashi, despite a very impressive career in Japan, is an older pitcher who has never established any level of performance, good or bad, in the U.S.  And similar to  Betancourt, he had given up two home runs in the five games preceding his first career Save in the U.S.

So there's no reason to think any of this has anything to do with the 9th inning being "different."  We've got two veteran relievers struggling, getting inconsistent results in any inning — but we also have a number of younger relievers thriving within limited opportunities.   And for whatever it's worth, Betancourt looks to have been extremely unlucky on balls in play (.380 BABIP, compared with .287 career and .240 last season) and is still not giving up any walks (only two unintentional in 72 PA).

In other news:  The starters ended a historic run of more than 44 scoreless innings when Aaron Laffey threw a ball into right field while attempting to field a lame squib in front of the mound — even that it was only an unearned run — leading to the curious ESPN headline, "Indians starter gives up run".  The streak spanned seven days in seven games, and over that span, the Indians entire pitching staff gave up just six runs — aside from Betancourt, only two runs over 62.2 IP, one unearned, with nine pitchers combining for an insane ERA of 0.14.  Over that span, Sabathia and Laffey gave up two runs in 30 innings, and Carmona and Lee pitched 18 scoreless innings in a single day.  Byrd contributed another 7+ scoreless innings, and four relievers contributed six scoreless appearances as well.

Cliff Lee ended his own historic run with his first poor start of the season, allowing more runs in that one start (5) than in his first seven combined (4) and nearly as many extra bases.  Lee's historically good launch to the season got heavy press coverage, and he still leads the AL by a significant margin in both ERA and FIP.

The offense continued to struggle to stop continuing to struggle, but the problem shifted as some hitters showed some at least signs of recovering (Hafner, Garko), others showed at least an up-and-down tendency (Peralta, Dellucci), while still others displayed an increasingly chornic-looking awfulness (Cabrera, Gutierrez).  Jason Tyner was ditched out of a need to summon Jeremy Sowers for a spot start.  Sowers was demoted and replaced the next day by Michael Aubrey, a highly touted prospect around 2004 who has been chronically injured ever since.  Aubrey made contact in every plate appearance and sent his first major league hit over the Cincinnati fence, and to nobody's particular surprise got more playing time than Andy Marte.

Post of the week:  Should we talk about it?

Who fed it:  Despite disappointing results, many Indians had a great week, none moreso than Ben Francisco, who piled up five singles, three doubles and a home run in just 18 at-bats, good for a 1359 OPS.  Sabathia delivered the club's best start of the week and arguably the whole season, a complete-game shutout in which he faced 32 batters, only two of whom even reached second base, in both cases with two outs.  Carmona, Byrd and Laffey each contributed a seven-inning gem, combining to allow only one run, one walk, one HBP and one extra-base hit (a double).  Rafael Perez added four more scoreless appearances and hasn't allowed a run in more than three weeks, spanning 11 games.  Jorge Julio continued his march on the Circle of Trust, retiring all four batters he faced, two on strikeouts; he's now retired 21 of his last 25 batters, allowing just two singles and two walks.  Peralta chose feast over famine with a 1038 OPS, including two doubles and two home runs.  Jason Tyner exceeded our wildest expectations, getting released before he could make our wretched offense any worse.  Absolute Best:  Francisco.  Relative Best:  Tyner.

Who fed it breakdown:  What if Travis Hafner rebuilt his swing and nobody noticed?  With half the week's games in the NL, Hafner had a limited role but still produced a home run and three walks — and in fact, he has a very healthy .318/.483/.545 — that's 1028 — over his ten games, which included seven starts and three pinch-hitting shots.  It's far too soon to announce that he's back, or even to have any real optimism, but considering his OPS was well under 600 for a month of games before that, it's at least an encouraging sign.  Garko, meanwhile, slugged 700 this week with two doubles and two home runs but drew no walks, and he's drawn only two walks in 75 PA over the past four weeks.

Who ate it:  Gutierrez is playing himself out of a job completely, or at least into a significantly reduced role, and this week, he failed to reach base even once in ten trips to the plate, which included five strikeouts and a GIDP.  His OPS for May is 328, and it's just 545 for April and May combined (that is, the whole season except for his heroic Opening Day act on March 31).  Dellucci was also terrible this week, managing just a single in 16 at-bats; he's also having a terrible May (444 OPS) but at least had a good April (871).  Cabrera managed just two singles in 17 at-bats (285 OPS) and is carrying a 492 OPS all the way back to April 6.   Betancourt retired just one batter out of four and ominously did not appear in any other game.  Absolute Worst:  Dellucci.  Relative Worst:  Gutierrez.

Who ate it breakdown:  As noted above, the weakness of our offensive attack was nowhere near as widespread this week as it was at the start of the month — the team hit just .232 and slugged .423, but if you exclude AbaCab, Gutierrez and Dellucci, the other 11 position players hit .278 and slugged .523 — more than respectable.  This is not to prescribe just leaving those three out of the lineup, as this is just a tiny slice of the season.  But it is nice to know that based on this past week's numbers at least, it is possible for us to field a lineup that can produce good numbers.

The other guys. false alarms and open questions:   Will be posted later.

Designated OF Jason Tyner for Assignment

Recalled LHP Jeremy Sowers

Tyner  was utterly superfluous, a speedy outfielder on a team that has much better speedy outfielders. So on the same day he ripped the team that gave him two years of extended playing time, he goes onto the waiver wire, impeccable timing on his part. If I were him, I'd consider myself very fortunate to get over 1300 major-league at-bats despite a career OPS+ of 70.

Fun fact: Jason Tyner was selected in the 1st Round (21st pick) of the1998 Draft by the New York Mets, one pick after CC Sabathia.

via www.fangraphs.com

CC Sabathia obviously was embarrassed by actually giving up a run in his last start. So tonight he pitched the best outing of an Indians starter in the past four days (which is saying something), shutting out the Athletics on five hits and striking out 11. And with that shutout, all five starters in the Cleveland rotation have pitched at least seven shutout innings in their last starts, an amazing feat. The Indians as a team now have seven (!) shutouts. Cleveland starters have now gone 43.1 innings without allowing a run. The run prevention has been such that despite an offense last in the league in batting average and slugging, they could wake up tomorrow the leaders of the AL Central.

The offense tonight didn't need to do much, but could have done a whole lot more. Grady Sizemore lead off the game with a home run, and Ryan Garko added a homer in the fourth. They could have ended all doubt in the fifth, when Joe Blanton loaded the bases with nobody out with two walks after a Ben Francisco double, but Jhonny Peralta swung weakly at a pitch on the outside corner and topped a grounder right back to Blanton, who started a 1-2-3 double play, That turnabout seemed to rejuvenate Blanton, who was probably one hit from hitting the showers. Blanton went on to pitch through the seventh.