Is There Hope?

So, here, we are, the end of May. The only thing keeping most people from paying attention to the Indians has gone away, the same way that most good things go away for Cleveland fans: painfully. There's no more shiny thing to distract us. In a few days, most of us will get over the latest in a long line of Cleveland sports miseries and focus will be placed squarely on our baseball team.

It's the end of May, the Tribe is 22-30, 8 games under .500 and 7.5 games out of first place. Oh, and that's not even the worst of it.

No, the worst of it is this:

Victor Martinez
Grady Sizemore
Travis Hafner
Joe Smith
Rafael Betancourt
Scott Lewis
Aaron Laffey
Jake Westbrook
Anthony Reyes

That is the list of players who are currently injured (although Martinez is day to day and not on the DL). The bottom third of our order today is hitting .211 or less. The (arguably) three remaining faces of our franchise since C.C. left -- Victor, Grady, and Pronk -- were no where to be seen. And there are now SIX pitchers on that list.

This all begs the question: how the heck do we win?

The truly frustrating team about this team is that, as bad as they've been, they're not yet completely out of it. All the teams in the division have flaws and one good winning streak against division rivals could put the Tribe on top. But you really have to wonder how that's possible when we're missing our RBI leader, our home run leaders, and we only have two dependable starters? How do we win more than 40% of our games with Fausto Carmona's continued problems and the back of our rotation made up of Jeremy Sowers and David Huff?

I don't know that we can. But here are some rather hopeful ideas.

First, we have to pray that Victor Martinez is only out for a few days. We're done without him. There's no way around that.

Second, we need to make a deal for a starter. We don't need an ace (we have one) or even a #2 (as Pavano has stepped it up). We need a back of the rotation guy who can give us a fight chance every five days and who can keep us competitive through the month of June. A guy like Brad Penny is a good option, but there's probably going to be a bidding war for him (I would guess, at this point, that it would take at least Kelly Shoppach to get him -- which I'm fine with).

Grady going on the DL isn't as bad as it seems. He's been ineffective so far this year and hasn't played outfield for a few weeks now. With Pronk need yet MORE rehab, this means we finally have a shot of getting Ryan Garko in the line-up. So we're going to need him to produce.

It's time to call up Jordan Brown. Wedge seems understandably hesitant to go with a young outfield, so it seems like DeRosa will get more time there. Brown has also gotten some time in the outfield recently, or he can play first when Garko is DHing, or even DH if need be. But, as of right now, if we have DeRosa in the outfield and Garko at first, we have no real hitter available to DH, at least no one with power. Brown's got a higher SLG in Columbus than LaPorta.

I stand by my "second starter" theory and, while Vinnie Chulk has been performing well in Columbus and is a righty, Zach Jackson can give us more innings. He just can't ever start for us again. Bring him in from the 'pen for three innings every three days or so, but no more.

Here's something to think about:

Cliff Lee
Carl Pavano
Jake Westbrook
Aaron Laffey
Scott Lewis

That's assuming Fausto doesn't get his act together (and it doesn't look like he will). But THAT is a rotation that can win the Central. But it's going to be another month before that's even a possibility.

Do we have anything in our favor that could get us to that point, to the All Star break? Well, no, not really. We're not facing any of the other bad teams in the AL until we get Oakland 4th of July weekend. In the meantime, we face six series against Central teams and then interleague play against arguably the best division in baseball right now.

That does mean, however, that if we manage to stay close by the All Star break, we have a much easier schedule in the second half, including a second series against Oakland and two each against Seattle and Baltimore, not to mention 9 games against Detroit, who seem to be the the best team in the division right now (and 12 against Minnesota, who could be right there as well).

So there IS hope.

How long it sticks around, though, should be evident in the next 30 days.