The Tribe Makes a Statement

I had been preparing a post ripping the Tribe and anyone who rooted for them. I have since deleted that post and I'm writing this one instead. The Tribe just throttled the Mariners 10-1. This after two disappointed losses in the series. There are lessons to take away from this:

1. Pitching was good enough to win all 3 games against Mariners
2. Scott Kazmir is for real
3. Salazar would be a slight gamble with potentially huge payoff if he were called up for the remainder of the year
4. The Tribe needs a bat more than a starting pitcher or even a reliever

The lack of consistent offense has haunted the Indians all year. They only have two-three hitters who have hovered around the .300 range - Brantley, Kipnis and Bourn. The unfortunate thing is that this offense can easily go off for 20 runs or not score at all and there isn't all that much consistency. One more solid bat would probably go a long way to successfully challenging Detroit for the Central. The other option is to trade for a pitcher and just hope that Reynolds, Swisher and Stubbs get going again. At least Cabrera seems to have come out of his early season struggles.

Verlander is still struggling, maybe even getting worse with each start and the Tigers are about to lose Peralta for what might potentially be the rest of the season, if the recent suspension of Braun is any indication. The Indians have one of the softest schedules of any team in the second half of the season. They're one trade plus a call-up of Salazar away from taking this division. Once they get in the playoffs, they have enough potential to go on a small hot streak and win it all. When you have a team that has 12-14 home run hitting threats in the stable anything is possible. They could use an upgrade at DH or first though for sure.

The tribe still has a great differential in runs scored vs given up. They are still among the lead leaders in home runs and runs scored. These will all lead to more wins in the long run if they can maintain this and I don't think they have even achieved at the level they're capable of so there is reason to believe they'll at least maintain these statistics.

In some other news, Tomlin continues to make more progress and the Indians have received several strong reports on him. There is some speculation that his fastball has added 3-5 mph. If this is all true, we could have another ace in our hand.