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I’m a bit worried at the level that this team relies on the long ball for runs. The PD today notes that the Tribe’s home runs are scattered more evenly throughout the lineup than in the glory days of Belle, Thome, and Manny. But still….it bothers me that the team almost seems to need a home run, sometimes multiple home runs, to win. Just look at this from the PD’s story…

The latest example: Ronnie Belliard’s three-run blast that broke a 3-3 tie in the seventh inning of Wednesday night’s 6-4 victory over the Oakland A’s. The Tribe has homered in 12 of its past 13 games, hitting 24 during this span. Other games over the last two weeks when the home run ball was key to winning: Ben Broussard hit two, driving in all five runs, of a 5-2 victory over Oakland on Tuesday night. Three home runs — one each by Belliard, Victor Martinez and Grady Sizemore — accounted for six runs in a 12-4 victory over the Twins on Sunday. During a recent stretch of three wins over Detroit and one over the Twins, home runs accounted for 16 consecutive runs.

Yeah, I love how the whole lineup is a threat to homer, but geez. It’s very easy for a home run swing to turn into a reckless at bat under the pressure of a playoff chase, or in the playoffs. That could be contagious, especially with a young, playoff inexperienced lineup. They might not all start swinging like idiots at the same time, but then again, they might. It’s the only thing about this team that worries me.

Yanks beat the Rays. A’s beat the Sawx. Tribe just needs to keep on winning. Oh, is that all!

Ranked #3 in CBS Sportsline Power Rankings. Eric Mack breaks down Tribe pitching, and mentions Cliff Lee for Cy Young!

Cliff Lee (16-4, 3.69) looks to be as good a pick as any for AL Cy Young, taking a page out of the Johan Santana book on how to put together a dominant second half. Lee, a 27-year-old lefty — gotta love that age — is 7-0 since the All-Star break and 30-12 combined in two seasons, a .714 winning percentage that is second to Santana (.717).

If the Indians get to the playoffs, NOBODY will want to face this team.

Save #41 last night. The guy is approaching Mesa’s 1995 record of 46. Cleveland should start embracing this guy, if only for one reason. He IS Cleveland.

Like Bernie Kosar, who succeeded spectacularly depite being so obviously NOT an athlete, Wickman embodies everything that is Cleveland. He’s been down on his luck. A lot. His career was written off when he needed Tommy John surgery. He spent a year struggling to return to form. He came back, a bit chubbier, no less awkward. He looks like a guy you’d run into standing in line at Slyman’s waiting for a corned beef sandwich. He waddles to the mound with a layer of stubble, a mouth full of chaw, and the look of a guy who just woke up after a night of shots and beers with the fellas. Even looks like he’s got a hangover, that grimace, that “oh, man, my head hurts” visage.

And then he gets it done. Like Bernie, it ain’t pretty. He makes you sit on the edge of your seat, knowing he’s gonna stumble here and there, put a guy on base, or like last night, give up a home run. But he gets the save, overcoming every obstacle, including the cancerous oppression of low expectations and strangely silly criticisms that talk him down in the face of his almost flawless bottom line record this year. He may win ugly, but damnit, he wins, all the while surrounded by naysayers who seem to get a bizarre joy out of the rare occasions that he doesn’t.

Sometimes I think Cleveland’s low self-esteem pathology often treats people like Bob Wickman so poorly out of self-defense – we can’t win, we can’t succeed, so we might as well accept it. Well, that’s fine. But leave Bob Wickman out of it. His performance this year, in the face of the longest of odds, is nothing short of incredible, and a lesson for Cleveland itself.