Who is that near the upper right hand corner of the photo with his arm raised and no hat?

I was guessing Hannahan.

VT'er- That would have been my guess.

BTW- Since his trade last season to the EE, Kearns is batting a nifty .183 over 175 ABs with an SLG of .246.

Horrid numbers for a corner outfielder with no redeeming defensive skills.

Just looking around, I see Jake Westbrook is having a terrible 2011. ERA 6.91. 39 innings, 51 hits, 20 walks, 23 strikeouts.

Even worse numbers posted by Corey Kluber, the awful pitcher we netted for Jake. ERA 8.04 in Columbus. 28 innings, 35 hits, 17 walks, 23 K, and 5 homers.

OC doesn't have good offensive numbers, but it sure seems to me that he has been involved in several plays, both at bat and in the field, that have led to good immediate results and wins.

The offensive woes of immediate concern would be Kearns and Hannahan.

I retain my faith in Carlos.

Oye como va.

That HR last night by Hafner was the biggest hit for a Tribe player in a couple of years.

One swing totally changed the vibe of everyone following the game, including ticket buyers. Give fans repeated examples of why they should be paying attention to this team.

And , maybe, the front office will have a bit of revenue to ADD a piece around the trade deadline.

Ride, captain ride on your mystery ship,

Be amazed at the friends you've got there on your trip.

Ride, captain ride on your mystery ship,

Be aware of the things others just might have missed

Indians OF Trevor Crowe, rehabbing from right shoulder surgery, has been doing some light non-baseball workouts with the team.

I suppose he'd be better than Kearns, although yet another left handed hitter. Expect a major deal involving Trevor.

Expect a major deal involving Trevor.

Where's the poker game?

Yeah, didn't expect to see the phrase "major deal" and Trevor Crowe in the same sentence.

To Hannahan's credit he's hitting .282 with runners on and .350 with RISP.

Both Hannahan and O-Cab have been solid for the team this year. I'm amazed at how quickly people want to throw them under the bus.

Carlos Santana has seen more pitches than anybody else in the AL (according to Pluto).

Since hitting .373 last April, Kearns pretty much hasn't done jack since.

In 402 at bats since May of last year he's hitting .236/.331/.341

When we signed him I hoped he'd be a solid RH bat off the bench but he doesn't seem to be doing much for us in that department.

IMO, Hannahan and O-Cab represent what is working with this team.

Defense! Especially in the infield, with our groundball pitchers.

The offense they have contributed is a bonus.

gotta bring Pronk into this conversation. We are not in first without him. Haven't looked in a while, but is he still the only one batting over 300?

IMO, TFIR is correct. The defense those two play makes up for their limitations on the offensive end. And as I stated earlier, OC's leadership seems to be beneficial as well.

Another thing to keep in mind is that offense in general is way down. Tribe is 5th in the AL in runs scored with 181 but the top five are all bunched up with Detroit and KC at 187, NYY at 185, Texas at 183, and the Tribe at 181.

Tribe is also second in the AL in OBP with .334 (first is NYY with .335), second in BA at .264 (first is LAA at .269), third in SLG at .420, and tied for second in OPS at .755.

The Tribe's .264/.334/.420 is well above the league averages of .250/.319/.391

So, while our offense as a whole does not seem that impressive, offensive numbers are down and pitching and defense are where it's at.

I'll also argue that Orlando Cabrera is the kind of guy whose offensvie contributions get lost in this age of statistical analysis.

First his downside - his power is zilch and he draws very few walks which means he'll never post a high OBP.

However, he does have good qualities. He hits for a decent average, but more important than that he keeps the strikes outs down and just puts the ball in play. We're talking about a guy whose season high from strike outs is 71 and those were in years where he had over 650 at bats. I know the term professional hitter is cliche but that's what he is - a guy with bat control who can put the bat the at the ball when you need him to and that has real value when it is the bottom of the 10th inning and there is a man second. You don't need a HR there, just a single into right field and the game is over.

I think that is part of the reason he is currently second on the club in RBIs and has more than once in his career put up decent RBI totals despite being a fairly weak hitter. I also think this is part of the reason Acta likes him, because he knows O-Cab is a guy who quietly contributes to the offense in ways that are not immediately apparent in this age where we (me as much as anybody) are obsessed with OBP, SLG, and OPS.