A Trade from a Dying Team

It appears that the Indian's run last year into the playoffs was a one-time thing, and it saddens me to see this team fall so far from the glory and grandeur of last year's team. While they could still technically produce a winning season, at 15 games under the .500 mark at 37 and 52 it seems extremely unlikely. The trade of C.C. Sabathia seems to confirm this, since this trade leaves only Cliff Lee to give us consistent starts. Until Westbrook and Carmona return from there stints on the DL, as well as Hafner and Martinez, it is highly unlikely that the Indians will play like we all know they are capable of playing.

Even when they do return, it will take a complete change in the way the Indian's appear to be playing baseball to make the second half of the season enjoyable for the fans. Right now, from what I have seen, it does not look like a team playing out there. Instead, I am reminded of a little league team where glory only comes from personal accomplishments and a victory for the team is second. Of course, everyone on both sides of a little league game still has fun so does it really matter? They aren't getting paid millions, or at least hundreds of thousands, to play a game. I apologize if I sound a little frustrated, but I am. After watching the heartache of the ALCS last year, I came into this season looking forward to a season of wins not losses. I, like many of my fellow Indian's fans, believed that this just might be the year and that we would finally get the ring that was stolen back in '97 against the Marlins.

I certainly didn't expect this monstrosity of a season, where I have seen one of the most potent offenses of last year fail to score more than three runs in half of the games. This is ludicrous for a team comprised of major league hitters. Absolutely ludicrous and it has become an exercise in futility to even watch them these days. I seriously get depressed watching them, after having lived through the team that brought us to the series twice in the nineties and annually made it to the playoffs. In a year where the Tampa Bay Rays, though I still think of them as the Devil Rays, are in first place over the Red Sox and the Yankees no amount of excuses are enough for this high-profile Indians team. In many ways, it is teams like the Rays, who seem to genuinely enjoy the game and play like there is no tomorrow, that keeps me coming back to the sport. I need to see an Indians team that doesn't appear like rich old men sitting back in lawn chairs while they sip at their wine and talk like Thurston Howell III. They need to, I believe, remember what it is about the game that got them playing in the first place. If they can't do this, I am afraid there is no hope for the current incarnation of the Cleveland Indians.