Tribe is sliding, and not in a good way

There's a lot going on with the Cleveland Indians these days, and not much of it's good. Consider the following pile of facts:

• After having lost their last four in a row, the Indians are now 16-24, in last place in the American League Central. Their season run differential is -42, which is worse than all but one other AL team (the Orioles). They are on pace to go 65-97.

• The Tribe just suffered a two-game sweep at home against the Kansas City Royals. The Royals have won six of their last eight, responding well after Ned Yost replaced Trey Hillman as their manager. Nonetheless, it's the first time they've swept anybody this year, and only the fifth time they've won two straight all year.

• The Indians are playing without their top two hitters in the batting order, shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera, who is out for eight to 10 weeks after undergoing surgery on his fractured left forearm — broken in a collision with third baseman Jhonny Peralta as they both went for the same ball; and center fielder Grady Sizemore, who was having a crappy year anyway, but regardless, is on the DL with a knee.

• In their place are two players who quite recently were plying their trade in Columbus. Manny Acta has Trevor Crowe leading off and Jason Donald hitting second. Donald just made his major-league debut on Tuesday and got two hits, but has oh-fored since. Crowe is at least holding his own with a .333/.385/.458 line in six games, but he was in AAA for a reason.

• Russell Branyan, who a couple of weeks ago hit three home runs in two days, is now in a 1-for-22 slump. That one hit left the yard, naturally, and we've known Branyan was an all-or-nothing kind of hitter for a long time; still, he's now got an ugly .197/.284/.424 line.

• Kerry Wood, who is being paid eight figures to save games, hasn't saved one yet. To be fair, he's only had one opportunity since coming off the DL, but he blew it spectacularly on Wednesday against the Royals. He pitched to seven hitters and only got one out, giving up five runs on four hits and two walks in what turned from a 4-3 lead into an 8-4 loss. His ERA now stands at 18.90. Being fair again, Wood had been good in his last three outings before that, allowing just one hit and one walk in a combined 2 1/3 innings. Still, that was an epic implosion.

• Justin Masterson, installed as the third starter out of spring training, has yet to win a game. He hasn't pitched that badly, but he does have an ERA of 5.65 and a WHIP of 1.81. That's not a good way for a young pitcher to stay in a starting rotation. If only they had other options.

• The Tribe is last in the AL with 23 home runs, 12th in the AL in runs scored, 13th in slugging, and 12th in on-base percentage.

This is a bad Indians team, ladies and gentlemen. We all knew they'd be bad, but I sure hoped they'd be better than this. Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of reason for optimism right now.