The Indians are going through a power shortage. Travis Hafner is on the disabled list. Jhonny Peralta, Austin Kearns and Russell Branyan were traded. As was Baltimore's Luke Scott, a former Tribe farmhand who has developed some impressive power.
View full sizeShin-Soo Choo leads the Indians with 14 home runs this season.CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Indians don't have a lot of power in their lineup. They had 91 homers entering Thursday night's game against Baltimore, tying them with Detroit for 10th place in the 14-team AL.
Shin-Soo Choo leads the team with 14 homers. No one else has hit 10. The last time the Indians went a full season without a player hitting 20 homers was 1983 when Andre Thornton and Gorman Thomas hit 17 each.
When manager Manny Acta looks at his future lineup, he sees power and production coming from Carlos Santana, Matt LaPorta, Choo, Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner. It's a good thought providing Santana and Sizemore recover from their knee operations and Hafner finds a way to drive the ball despite a chronically sore right shoulder.
Then again he could have played the what-if game and checked out the Orioles' lineup the past three nights. First baseman/DH Luke Scott, who entered Thursday night's game leading the Orioles with 21 homers, used to belong to the Indians.
The Indians drafted Scott in the ninth round in 2001 out of Oklahoma State as a senior and paid him $10,000. They sent him to Houston on March 31, 2004, for left-hander Jeriome Robertson. It turned out to be a bad deal for the Indians and a good one for Scott.
"My experience with the Indians was very good . . . awesome," Scott said. "The Indians really took care of their players as far as giving them every tool at their disposal possible to be successful."
Scott spent parts of the 2005, '06 and '07 seasons in the big leagues with Houston. The Astros traded him and four other players to Baltimore in December 2007 for Miguel Tejada. In the past three years, he's hit 23, 25 and 21 homers for the Orioles. He has 97 for his career.
"I'm very thankful that I was drafted and brought up through the minors with the Indians," said Scott, a left-handed hitter. "It set me up for success. They provided the resources for me to better myself.
"Guys like Torey Lovullo, Ted Kubiak, Brad Komminsk and Lou Frazier were awesome. Frazier was most influential to me. I was not a high-bonus guy. Willie Upshaw, the roving hitting coach, would come down and he would give the big bonus guys all the attention.
"Lou explained the politics of the game to me. He said, 'If you want to learn how to hit, I'll teach you everything I know.' He took film of the power hitters of the day -- Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Larry Walker, Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire. He broke them down and said here are three things they all do that are the same and you're inconsistent on. Then we'd go to the cage and work on it every day.
"The Indians had so much available. Going from that organization to Houston was a big difference. It was like going from the top to the bottom."
Frazier worked in the Indians' minor-league system as a hitting and baserunning coach.
Talk, talk: Hafner will take batting practice today to see how his sore shoulder responds.
"Then we'll sit down with him and see about the possibility of him going down and getting a few at-bats [on a rehab assignment]," Acta said.
Aaron Laffey, recovering from a tired left shoulder, will throw a bullpen session today. If he responds well, a rehab plan will be set in motion. Finally: Would the Indians consider signing another DH this winter if Hafner doesn't show improvement when he comes off the disabled list?
"The first thing is to see how he is healthwise," Acta said. "I think you guys know our situation. We're not in the position to get out there and spend a lot of money to bring another DH in here. That's not the case.". . .
It's been two straight rocky rehab starts for Anthony Reyes, but Acta doesn't seem concerned.
"It's just like Jake Westbrook," Acta said. "The last thing to come is command."
Reyes is trying to come back from Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: phoynes@plaind.com, 216-999-5158