Domination!

Just when you thought it was time to forget about the Indians and spend the rest of your summer doing crossword puzzles and waiting for football, they go out to Seattle and slug the bejesus out of a pretty decent team in three straight, outscoring them a combined total of 31-6. Baseball's a funny game, isn't it? The Mariners entered the series at 51-44, thinking they were contenders for the AL West crown. The sweep at the hands of our Tribe knocks them back to 7 1/2 games behind the Angels, and four behind the second-place Rangers. And it probably means the M's will be sellers instead of buyers at the trade deadline. That's what the Indians did to them this past weekend. And the Tribe now finds itself back in fourth place, ahead of the slumping Royals.

Here are some fun little observations about the series that just ended:

• The two runs Cliff Lee gave up in the first inning of yesterday's 12-3 blowout were the only two runs surrendered by an Indians starter in the entire series. Lee held them scoreless over the next six innings to pick up his seventh win of the season. He is 3-0 with a 1.44 ERA over his last three starts, the previous two of which were complete games.

• Jeremy Sowers, fresh off a stint in Columbus, went seven shutout innings in Saturday's 10-3 whitewashing, his best start of the season. It's been well-chronicled here and many other places that he's been absolutely crushed his third time through the batting order, but not this time, Biff. The Mariners went 1-for-8 with a walk the first time through the order, 3-for-9 the second time through, and 0-for-8 with a walk the third time through. Sowers even retired leadoff hitter Ichiro Suzuki in Ichiro's fourth trip to the plate before heading for the showers. (And try saying "Sowers showers" five times fast.)

• Aaron Laffey shut out the M's for seven innings in Friday night's 9-0 laugher, giving up three hits and three walks while striking out seven. It was also Laffey's best outing of the year, though it was only his seventh start in the majors, as he's battled injury and spent time in the bullpen. If Laffey can stay healthy going forward, he figures to have a bright future. He's only 24.

• The three starters' combined ERA for the series was a sparkling 0.88. Contrast that with Mariners starters Ryan Rowland-Smith, Erik Bedard and Jason Vargas, who gave up 12 runs in 14 combined innings, for an ERA of 7.71.

• The bullpen ... Well, the relievers didn't have any tight leads to protect, and did well enough with the huge, gaping leads they were given. They combined to give up four runs in six innings in the series, which works out to a 6.00 ERA. Yeah, the bullpen still sticks out like a sore thumb. But at least it was better than Seattle's bullpen, not that that's saying much after this series. (The Indians scored 17 earned runs in 13 innings against the Mariners' relievers, for a series bullpen ERA of 11.77. I sure am glad the Indians' bullpen was better than that.)

• Indians pitchers kept the Mariners' hitters in the yard the entire series, which you just don't see much these days. On the flip side, the Tribe hit 11 home runs in the three games, capped off by the four they hit yesterday, including Jhonny Peralta's grand slam. The Indians also outhit the Mariners by a combined total of 39-20. They dominated this series by any measure you can come up with.

• The Indians have now won four straight, their longest winning streak since May, and their longest road winning streak of the season. The sophisticated computers at coolstandings.com recently gave them a 0.2% chance, or one in 500, to make the playoffs. They now say it's a 0.7% chance, or about one in 150. Still not great odds, but quite an improvement.

Our boys open a three-game set tonight against the first-place Angels. I'd be very surprised if they can keep this kind of streak going, but maybe they can stay hot and finish this road trip strong.

Sowers sours again

There's not much to say about Jeremy Sowers' outing last night against the White Sox that I haven't said already about his last few starts, but it's truly amazing how it seems like he flips a switch when the batting order comes up the third time. Sowers sailed right through the first five innings, his only blemish a solo home run by Paul Konerko in the second inning. Then, in the sixth, Scott Podsednik came up for the third time, and Sowers fell apart. Again. He got Podsednik on a ground ball, and that was the last hitter he retired.

Of course, the bullpen fell apart too, as it has so many times. Chris Perez came in and immediately gave up a grand slam to Konerko (the second of his three homers in the game), and Winston Abreu, making his Indians debut, gave up a walk, a single, and two two-run homers while only retiring one hitter. Tomo Ohka came in and retired all five hitters he faced.

The Tribe offense showed signs of life, and it was good to see Grady Sizemore hit two four-baggers. But with pitching like this, this team is going nowhere.

Aaron Laffey, fresh off the disabled list, starts tonight's game, his first big-league action since May 22. I hope he's feeling good. He's had two rehab starts in the minors, both of which went badly, but got called back up to Cleveland anyway. You can tell me what that says about this rotation as well as I can tell you.

Hey, at least we're better than the Nationals

Following this week's three-game sweep at the hands of the Chicago White Sox, the Indians are now on a five-game losing streak, and at 31-49, have the worst record in the American League. They are 13 games behind first-place Detroit, and 3 1/2 games behind fourth-place Kansas City. Many of had hopes as the season dawned that the Tribe would contend for the Central Division crown this year; it's pretty obvious that isn't going to happen. The Indians have been a bit unlucky — they do have a better run differential than the Royals and Orioles — but let's face it, this is not a good team.

With Jeremy Sowers on the mound, last night's game went about as might have been expected. As we've discussed previously, Sowers has lights-out the first two times through the order this year, then run into serious trouble when hitters started coming up the third time. And when White Sox leadoff hitter Scott Podsednik got his third look at Sowers with two out in the top of the fifth, Sowers and the Tribe were hanging onto a 1-0 lead. Podsednik reached on an infield single, setting up a first-and-third situation; and Alexei Ramirez followed with an RBI single, then got thrown out trying for second, ending the inning.

The Indians went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the fifth, and then came the sixth. The top of the sixth went like this: Fly-ball out, single, single, three-run homer, double, RBI single, double-play groundout. And a tie game was now a 5-1 White Sox lead. The third time through the order, the White Sox went 7-for-9 against Sowers, with two runners getting thrown out on the bases. Obviously, Sowers either needs to figure out why he can't get hitters out the third time through the order, or stop pitching to hitters three times in the same game. Because this just can't be allowed to continue.

Our Tribe opens a three-game set at home on Friday night against the 33-44 Oakland A's. Maybe they can take a game or two. But they way they're playing, I'm not holding my breath.

Attaboy, Jeremy!

It sure was good to see Jeremy Sowers finish the seventh inning and only give up two runs in last night's 9-2 win over the Reds. Sowers is now 2-5, and he lowered his ERA to 5.44. And for once, the bullpen didn't make it interesting, as Jensen Lewis got all three outs in the eighth (albeit after walking two), and Tony Sipp pitched a perfect ninth. Sipp, who turns 26 in a couple of weeks and has been up and down between Cleveland and Columbus this year, now has a 3.38 ERA. With a bullpen as bad as this one, it's kind of a mystery why he hasn't gotten more of a chance. If he keeps pitching like this, he will.

But the story last night was Sowers. I recently saw some numbers about how Sowers has done each time through the other team's batting order, and unfortunately I don't remember where I saw them and can't find them right now, but basically, he's been mowing them down the first time through, getting a little bit more reachable the second time through, and then getting absolutely battered the third time through.

The same thing happened last night. The only difference is, Sowers was almost totally untouchable the first two times through the order; the Reds' only hit until the third time through was by Jonny Gomes, who singled in the second inning. The third time through the order, they were 4-for-9, and the last pitch Sowers threw was the one Reds leadoff hitter Willy Taveras smoked for a double to score Chris Dickerson, who had singled to start the inning.

But hey, Sowers struck out six in his seven innings of work and only walked one, and kept the ball in the yard. Any pitcher who can do that on a regular basis will win a lot of games.

Three weeks until opening day!

Baseball blogger Joe Posnanski previews the AL Central in rhymed couplet form here. He did the AL East in haiku form, and the AL West in limericks. Here's what he says about our Tribe (and yes, the 2 means he predicts they'll finish second, behind the Tigers):

2. Cleveland Indians

The best pair of pitchers East of Arizona?
Must be Sabathia and Fausto Carmona
Travis needs to find that home run trot
The slogan this year: Hafner or Have Not

I've been remiss in following the Indians in spring training, in their last year in Winter Haven. My excuse is that the Cavaliers have been going through such an interesting period, and it's not until about mid-March that guys really start to round into shape. It being March 10, I'll try to do better, starting with yesterday's split-squad split against the Nationals.

In a 5-2 win in Winter Haven, Jake Westbrook pitched pretty well over three innings, and reports his arm is feeling good after he rested it to overcome some tightness. The Indians will need him to step up this year, after an off-year in '07. And fellow could-be-busts Josh Barfield and Andy Marte homered on consecutive pitches, which is a good sign. It's hard to find spring training stats online, though, so I don't really know how they're doing overall.

In a 9-0 loss to the Nats in Viera, former phenom Jeremy Sowers got lit up for six runs in two innings. I like Jeremy Sowers a lot -- how could you not like a pitcher who reads books in front of his locker? -- but I'm doubting whether he's going to be the great starter we thought he'd be after his impressive '06 showing. But I'm rooting for him like crazy, and not just because he's wearing my team's uniform.