Indians win third straight

No time for anything but quick hits:

• The Indians have followed up their seven-game losing streak with a three-game winning streak. Yes, seven is a much bigger number than three, but still, it's nice to see them put a few W's together. Fausto Carmona pitched well, Kerry Wood slammed the door for the save, and Matt LaPorta homered in the 6-5 win over Toronto.

• Here it is, the last day of June, one month from baseball's non-waiver trade deadline. The Indians have a few pieces that could be attractive. In case you missed it, the trading has already started, as Russell Branyan got shipped off to Seattle over the weekend for a couple of OK prospects. Outfielder Ezequiel Carrera hasn't done much in AAA this year and is in fact currently on the disabled list, but won the Class AA Southern League batting title last year, hitting .336. He's only 22, so let's hope he develops. Shortstop Juan Diaz is hitting .295 with seven homers in high A-ball, at age 21. I'm looking forward to seeing what he's doing in a couple of years.

• Other players that could bring attractive prospects include Wood, Austin Kearns, Jhonny Peralta and Jake Westbrook, all of whom are in the last year of their current contract. (In Kearns' case, it's the only year of his contract.) None of those guys figure to be hugely expensive next year, but this team's not going anywhere right now anyway, and might as well try to get some players who could help build something for 2012 or '13.

• The Cavaliers have said they will have a coach in place by the time LeBron James becomes a free agent. That happens less than 12 hours from now, so we'll see. It's looking like it'll be either Brian Shaw, who has no NBA head coaching experience; or Byron Scott, who took the Nets to the NBA Finals a few years ago but has a sub-.500 record in 10 years as a head coach. And the reports are overwhelmingly that Shaw is the guy. In fact, though the most recent news story I can find says the Cavs haven't made an offer to Shaw, his Wikipedia page has been edited to say he's the current head coach of the Cavaliers. Take that with a grain of salt, because any idiot can make a Wikipedia page say anything, but still.

• I have no idea what to make of Shaw at this point, but he's been an assistant of Phil Jackson with the Lakers since 2004-05. Jackson, who has now won 11 titles as a head coach, would be any organization's first choice for head coach. But he's not available, so maybe his top assistant really is the best guy out there. It's hard to say what kind of head coach he'll be, but oddly enough, that's almost beside the point right now. The only thing that really matters is what coach will entice LeBron to stay in Cleveland. So the question isn't whether he'll really be a good coach, but whether LeBron thinks he'll be a good coach. It seems ridiculous to look at it that way, but the fact is, a player like James matters a lot more to the team's prospects than any coach ever could.

• Reports on where LeBron will end up have been flying like mosquitoes at dusk. I've read that he's leaning toward Chicago, that he's giving strong consideration to Miami, and that Cleveland still has the inside track—all in the same day. It's obviously not possible that he could go all three places. So who the hell knows.

• With the U.S. out of the World Cup, eliminated by Ghana for the second World Cup in a row, I initially decided to root for Mexico. Our neighbors to the south were eliminated the very next day. Out of the eight teams remaining, I think I'll pull for the Netherlands. I'm not sure why. Maybe because Dutch people wear wooden shoes and smoke pot in public and have names like Stijn Schaars and Demy de Zeeuw (both names of players on their squad). Either way, they're up against Brazil on Friday, after which I'll probably have to pick a new team to root for.