Oakland starter Esteban Loaiza returned from the disabled list to beat the Indians 4-1 Thursday afternoon. He baffled the Tribe, surrendering only four hits through seven innings. The Indians scored their lone run on a Ben Broussard home run. Jason Johnson gave up 11 hits but only allowed three Athletics to cross the plate. He was able to get out of a few jams with some double plays and kept the Tribe in the ballgame but Loaiza was too dominant for the Indian offense. Four of the Tribe’s six hits came from Broussard and Belliard. On the other side, Eric Chavez was the only one without a hit for Oakland.

“I don’t think getting one run on three hits off him is very good,” said Indians DH Travis Hafner, who went 0-for-2 with a walk off Loaiza. “We didn’t have many good at-bats and I didn’t have any.”

The Indians will now face a stretch of nine games on the road, including two key series against the White Sox and Yankees.

The Tribe’s strange season continues. For the fourth time in the last five series, the Indians have won the second game after losing the first game. The Tribe got a big three-run home run by Aaron Boone and Victor Martinez awoke from his slump to deliver four RBI as the Indians destroyed the A’s 11-2 Wednesday night.

In their last 13 games, the Indians have won four times by at least nine runs — 11-0, 9-0, 14-2 and 11-2 — and also lost by scores of 11-0, 10-3 and 14-2.

“We would like to keep going this way and eliminate the other ones,” Boone said. “It is bizarre. Every time we’re in one, I’m on the bench going, ‘Gosh, we’ve played in a lot of these.’”

Paul Byrd pitched very well for the Tribe and earned his first win since May 3, which was coincidentally against the A’s. The Indians pounded out 15 hits in the game, including four home runs. Victor Martinez homered off ex-Indian Steve Karsay in the eighth and Grady Sizemore homered for the third time in the last four games.

After a rough month of April, Paul Byrd has seemed to settle down. He has pitched pretty decent in his past seven or eight starts and is finally starting to look like the Byrd of 04′ and 05′. As far as these insane, lopsided games the Indians have been a part of recently, I wish I had an answer for it but I don’t. I’ve never seen anything like it. How do you get blown out in the first game of the series and come back to rout the same team the next day as many times as the Tribe has in the last few weeks? Totally mind-boggling.