Indians are on fire! But nobody put them out!

Our lousy baseball team (the Indians, duh) swept a four-game series against the Blue Jays this week, culminating in yesterday afternoon's 6-1 triumph, keyed by a three-run homer off the bat of Matt LaPorta and a fine performance by starting pitcher Justin Masterson, who got his third win of 2010 after failing to win a single game the first two months of the season.

First, let's talk about LaPorta. At 25, he's getting his second shot to play every day in the bigs, thanks to the Russell Branyan trade. His first shot came at the beginning of the season, when he was the everyday first baseman for a while, but he knew he'd be losing his job when Branyan came off the disabled list. Now, he's in no one's shadow. Whether that explains this week's power surge, I cannot say, for I am not a licensed therapist, and I have never spoken to him anyway. But facts are facts, and it's a fact that he entered the series against the Blue Jays with just one home run in 123 at-bats at the major league level this year. He has now gone deep three games in a row, and since the start of the Toronto series, his average stats have jumped from .211/.281/.268 to .228/.300/.353. His minor league numbers (56 home runs in 884 at-bats, including five dingers in 69 at-bats at Columbus this year) suggest this is closer to the LaPorta we should expect to see, and I hope they're right. Don't lie to me, Matt LaPorta's minor league numbers.

Now, on to Masterson, who has been up-and-down the last few weeks, after being pretty much just down in April and May. He was bad in his last outing going into yesterday's game (six runs in five innings in a loss to Cincinnati), but was very good yesterday, giving up just one run in 8 1/3 innings, on eight hits. He struck out five, didn't walk anybody, and kept the ball in the yard. And while he's still not consistent enough, he's really turned his season around. On May 24, after giving up five runs in four innings of a loss to the White Sox, Masterson was 0-5 with a 6.13 ERA, and appeared to be about ready to lose his spot in the starting rotation. He's now 3-7 with a 4.85 ERA, and though he's not likely to pitch in any All-Star games anytime soon, he's obviously a highly serviceable starter right now.

Masterson did get into trouble in the ninth, the inning in which the Blue Jays got their one run. Masterson left with the bases loaded, just one out, and the one run in, and rookie Frank "Extra Consonants" Herrmann came in to face Jose Molina. It was a save situation, because the Jays had the tying run on deck. After getting ahead of Molina 1-2, Herrmann got him to hit a routine double-play ball to shortstop, ending the game. Not only was it Herrmann's first major league save, he became the third Indian to save a game in three days. I'm sure that's been done before, but I can't remember ever hearing of it. That's pretty cool, if you're into that sort of thing. Which I am. If that makes me a nerd, then I guess I'm a nerd.

The Tribe opens a three-gamer tonight against Oakland at Progressive Field, and comes in riding a season-long five-game winning streak. Can they keep it going? Tune in tonight to find out!