We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat.

Following is a complete list of Cleveland Indians who have had two 7-RBI games in the last fifty years:

Casey Blake

On July 5, 2003, Casey Blake went five-for-five in a 13-2 defeat of the Minnesota Twins. Two of those hits were home runs, his 9th and 10th of the season (one in the seventh off Grant Balfour, the other in the ninth off J.C. Romero). Of the other three hits, two were doubles. I have no doubt you can do the math, but allow me to save you the trouble: That's 13 total bases. He scored three runs, and yes, he knocked in seven.

That game was never in doubt; the Tribe scored four in the top of the first off starter Joe Mays (thanks in part to a Matt Lawton round-tripper), and later scored four in three innings against a young reliever named Johan Santana. Brian Anderson was the winner, and Milton Bradley also got four hits, one of which left the yard. Besides Blake, the only other Indian who played that day and is still on the team was rookie shortstop Jhonny Peralta, filling in for the injured Omar Vizquel.

Incidentally, the above information was all obtained quite easily from Retrosheet. If you've enjoyed reading this and have not yet visited Retrosheet, you've got to click that link RIGHT NOW. Well, after you finish reading this. The depth and breadth of statistical information there is mind-boggling.

Blake had never been a regular in the majors before that '03 season, and had spent most of the previous four-year period in the Twins' organization. So the Indians gave him the opportunity his former employer never did, and he took advantage of the chance to stick it to that former employer. God bless him for it. It had to feel pretty good.

Fast-forward to June 2, 2008. Casey Blake is in the lineup as the Indians' third basemen again, but only after spending a couple of years as a right fielder/first baseman in the interim. He moved off the hot corner to make way for Andy Marte. But Marte has shown few signs of being able to hold down a job in the major leagues, and so Blake has returned to his former position.

He has always been one of those guys who will do whatever his manager asks of him. Want me to play third? Fine, I'll play third. Oh, you want to put me in right? OK, who wants to fungo me some fly balls? Need a shortstop? I can do that. Want me to sit for two weeks and then pinch-hit? Hey, it's still the major leagues.

Casey Blake is a yeoman ballplayer, and I appreciate that. And wherever you put him in the field, he will do a yeoman's job. He's an above-average third baseman, he's an above-average first baseman, and he's an above-average right fielder. Check out the fielding stats. I'm not going to go to the trouble of looking them up right now, but trust me.

Blake has never been thought of as a great hitter, however. That's because he's not a great hitter, and I'm sure he'd be the first to tell you that. His career batting average is .261, and he has hit 113 home runs. So he's one-seventh of the way to breaking Barry Bonds' record. Blake entered last night's game hitting .225 with four home runs in 2008. Could he be declining, at age 34? It's possible. I know I started declining around age 34.

But last night in Arlington, Texas, Casey Blake was Barry Bonds, without the steroids and the surliness and the weak knees. And this time, the Tribe needed his heroics, as he was the key to a 13-9 victory. He hit a pair of two-run homers and a three-run double to post his second career 7-RBI game.

And that, my friends, is why I love baseball.

For the gol-dern of it, these are the Indians who have done it once in the last half-century:

Toby Harrah (7, 1980)
Chris James (9, 1991)
Manny Ramirez (8, 1999 -- the year he drove in 165)
Victor Martinez (7, 2004)
Ben Broussard (8, 2006)

The major-league record is 12, shared by two St. Louis Cardinals, decades apart. Sunny Jim Bottomley did it in 1924, and Hard Hittin' Mark Whiten did it in a four-homer game in 1993. But you knew that.