Look no further than underperforming Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore if you're trying to find out why the Indians are struggling.
Cleveland, Ohio -- Hang around any Northeast Ohio sports bar long enough during the summertime and you'll hear the question, "What's wrong with the Indians?" 
Travis Hafner's subterranean numbers get a large share of the blame for the Tribe's current voyage to the center of the earth.
Usually, such an interrogatory (look it up) is good for an entire evening of elbow-bending conversation. So fie on TD, writing for the Waiting For Next Year website, and taking away the need for all that in-sip-id discussion:
We all have kneeds
If the Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore we saw during their four-year runs of greatness (Hafner '04-'07, Sizemore '05-'08) played the way they were supposed to, the Indians organization would not be what it is today.
You tell me how thing would have worked out if Grady's 2008 season went in tandem with a Hafner .300/35 HR/120 RBI season? Think they would have been better than 81-81 and contended in a weak AL Central that the White Sox took with 89 wins? If that goes down, no way the Indians trade C.C. Sabathia in early July, Casey Blake in late July, and Paul Byrd in August. They ride it out and hang around in the race.
You can say, "Well, then the Indians wouldn't have Carlos Santana, Michael Brantley and Matt LaPorta." I say maybe they could have played in October again and built off that momentum for 2009. After all, they did think they were a contender during that winter, signing (closer Kerry) Wood and trading for (infielder Mark) DeRosa.
Not to mention, with Brad Grant now running the draft, watching C.C. and Blake leave would have netted them first-round compensatory picks. Grant's first two drafts look promising with Lonnie Chisenhall and Alex White.
One of the guys attacked by TD will have surgery tomorrow, and it could cost Grady Sizemore his season, according to Plain Dealer Indians beat writer Paul Hoynes. Associated Press.
A little perspective
Indians center fielder Grady Sizemore will undergo surgery Friday on his left knee. The surgery, which could end Sizemore's season, will be performed by Dr. Richard Steadman in Vail, Colo.
Sizemore bruised his knee sliding into a base in April. He re-injured the knee diving back into first base against Baltimore on May 16 and was placed on the disabled list. Lonnie Soloff, Indians head athletic trainer, said he'll miss at least six to eight weeks.
"I hope and pray that when Steadman goes in it's not so bad and he can do the simplest procedure," said manager Manny Acta, "and have the kid back as soon as possible healthy for his own good. Then he can play for us whenever he's ready."
Soloff said the Indians won't know the extent of Sizemore's injury until Steadman begins the procedure. He said he should have an update on Sizemore's condition by Friday or Saturday.
Yeah, Jim Joyce blew the call. Yeah, Armando Galarraga in effect pitched the first 28-out perfect game in Major League Baseball history. But let's think about something: Stipulate that the game was a perfect one. What does that mean?
It means, at least according to bugandcranks.com blogger Andy Smith, that no-hitters and perfect games are becoming almost commonplace:
We have, for all intents and purposes, really just seen the second perfect game in the last five days, and the third this season. Combined with the perfect game Mark Buehrle threw last summer and that's four in one year. Prior to Buehrle's, the last four perfect games were ten years apart (1994-2004). After Halladay's performance on Saturday, Joe Posnanski had an interesting comparing the act of pitching a perfect game to Roger Bannister breaking the four minute mile. In Bannister's case, once he removed the mental barrier that the feat was impossible, countless runners broke the mark, and perhaps now the same thing is happening with perfect games. And that was before Armando Galarraga happened.
I don't know if the Galarraga's near-miss tonight signifies the end of perfect games being something particularly historical and magnificent. A lot of me hopes that this is just a part of a phase or a statistical oddity, both of which baseball as a sport is more than capable of. Still if the perfect game has entered a new era, well, I enjoy this trend more than the single season home run record falling every other year, even if the all the record-setting hitters were clean.
I will also add that if the mystique of the perfect game really did end tonight, then it's very fitting for me as a fan. The knowledge that no-hitters and perfect games were something special was drilled into me in the summer of 1990, when Pirates starter Doug Drabek came within one out of no-hitting the Phillies. The manager of that Pirate team was, of course, Jim Leyland.
Tonight, it's quite possible the aura associated with the no-hitter and perfect game disappeared for me. The Tigers' Armando Galarraga came within one out of tossing a perfect game, and the image I'll take away is Detroit's manager, the same Jim Leyland, springing from the dugout to argue the painful safe call that took it away from his pitcher.
OK, Starting Blocks acknowledges everything Smith wrote, but points out that it raises a question. It's true that we became desensitized to home runs flying out of the park as quickly as women at a bar when Ben Roethlisberger walks in. We later discovered the reason for those long flies had more to do with juiced hitters than juiced baseballs.
So, we have to ask, is it just good pitching or . . .?
From The Plain DealerColumnist Bill Livingston notes that baseball Commissioner Bud Selig compounds the error in umpire Jim Joyce's blown call denying Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game Wednesday by refusing to reverse it.
Beat writer Paul Hoynes talked to Jason Donald about the "hit" that spoiled Galarraga's perfect game, and got word from General Manager Mark Shapiro that the Tribe's abysmal record doesn't mean veterans are headed out the door right away.