The series:  Visited the Yankees (win, win, loss) and hosted the Blue Jays (win, win, win, loss).

The big story:  The team put together a strong week behind a dominant rotation, but the daily lineups wore the strange hue of a series of odd decisions — moves that occasionally excited but more often puzzled, or even smelt of desperation.

Newly promoted Ben Francisco was used in all seven games, including five starts, performing similarly to (and not demonstrably better than) the man he replaced, who was traded to Pittsburgh for (we can guess) something in between a bag of balls and a case of bats.  Slight-hitting Jason Tyner was also promoted, adding to our already overstocked cupboard of weak-hitting outfielders, or perhaps more accurately subtracting by addition.  Even more strange than Tyner's promotion was his being given a start immediately upon his arrival.  We have four better-hitting outfielders — five if you count Blake — most of whom are also good or great defenders, so what was the point of this?

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it, unless it was to send the other players a message, something along the lines of:  "You guys suck so bad, we might as well be playing Jason freakin' Tyner.  That's right, you guys, it's that bad.  Our hitting is as pathetic as the goddam Twins now."

And then there's Andy Marte, long buried at the end of the bench, who shockingly got three starts this week — and yet already has fewer at-bats this season (22) than Ben Francisco (25), who has been on the roster only 11 days compared to Marte's 43.  Some guys just have to play, apparently, and some guys don't.  (See full screed.)  It's a good thing we don't have to understand these decisions, because who could?

In other news:  Cliff Lee ascended to a new level of other-worldly Chuck Norrissitude, leading a rotation that allowed just nine runs in seven starts, including five games allowing one run or zero.  Five!   Five starts allowing one run or zero!  This week alone!  Since April 17, Indians starters have allowed just 35 runs in 23 games, good for a 2.07 ERA.  Sabathia even managed to climb out of the ERA cellar, having needed four excellent starts to get his ERA down to 6.55 — still awful, but good enough to surrender the "lead" to Nate Robertson at 6.64, of our alleged rivals the Detroit Tigers.  (Happily, the bottom five also includes two other Tigers, Justin Verlander at 6.43 and Kenny Rogers at 5.82.)

Asdrubal Cabrera delivered a stunning series of defensive gems in a two-game stint at shortstop, but he made history when he returned to second base last night, turning just the 14th unassisted triple-play in the history of major league baseball.  Rather than save the ball for himself or for the Hall of Fame, AbaCab casually flipped the ball to some fans sitting behind the Indians dugout as he jogged in from the field — just another routine play, I guess.

Post of the week:  Okay, maybe let's start using that recommend-until-it's-green thingy.  And no, I'm not eligible, thank you.

Who fed it: Cliff Lee pitched 16 scoreless innings, starting a new streak perhaps to rival his previous 27-inning tear.  Carmona and Laffey provided another 16 scoreless innings, Carmona's in a complete game shutout, the quartet of Perez-Lewis-Julio- Breslow contributed eight more, and man, that is just a lot of scoreless innings.  Julio has been pounding on the door of the Circle of Trust, having retired 22 batters since the last time he allowed a run (April 16) while allowing just two singles and two walks.  Breslow meanwhile was fighting just to have his existence recognized, appearing in just his second game in the past four weeks.  Casey Blake had the best offensive line of the week with a 912 OPS, though that was more of a reflection on the team's hitting than anything else.  Sizemore hit another two home runs, matching his pair from last week, and has a 1063 OPS over his last dozen games.  And, well, that's about it for the hitters.  How did we ever score 12 runs in that one game?  Absolute Best:  Lee.  Relative Best:  Lee.

Who ate it:  Garko was the worst-hitting starter this week by far, with just two singles, a double and the obligatory HBP to show for 19 trips to the plate.  He bears an atrocious .140/.219/.175 line over his last 16 games, with as many strikeouts, double-plays and sac-flys (14) as times on base (also 14).  I can't tell if we're supposed to consider Francisco a bench guy or not, but if we assume that he isn't one, then the bench (Carroll, Shoppach, Marte and Tyner) was unbelievably awful this week — 4 for 43 awful, .093/.152/.093 awful — often frustrating Wedge's attempts to shuffle the lineup and give extra days off to his  struggling sluggers, i.e., half the roster.  You know who else sucks?  Rafael Betancourt, whose ERA is something around 9 since being anointed the closer, I can't even stand to look it up.  Absolute Worst:  Garko.  Relative Worst:  Betancourt.

The other guys. false alarms and open questions:   Will return next week; I kind of got sidetracked by the whole Marte thing.

via www.fangraphs.com

I guess it would figure that the Indians come back to win a game after the starter barely got through five innings.

Fausto Carmona's frequent walking spells, which would have sent a pitcher with lesser stuff to the minors by now, shortened his outing tonight. Even though the Yankee lineup tends to chew up starters before their normal finishing point, I don't really think it was their patience that forced Fausto out. It was Fausto's mechanics that acted up; like most of his starts, he'd be in the strike zone for several batters at a time, then his pitches would go off the radar. Carmona has now walked 30 batters in almost 40 innings, an astounding number, especially if you consider how low his ERA remains.

Victor Martinez was a late scratch, making Jhonny Peralta (.216/.276/.392) and Ryan Garko (.242/.361/.354) the #3 and #4 hitters. The scary thing is that those were the proper choices, unless you wanted to move Sizemore down. Ben Francisco was in the lineup, just up from Buffalo, not to mention one of Andy Marte's rare appearances. (Side note: If you throw out Jamey Carroll, every one of those in tonight's lineup either made their major-league debut with the Indians or still had rookie eligibility when they debuted with the Indians. And that includes all the pitchers who made appearances in tonight's game as well.)

But despite another shaky outing from Carmona, despite not doing much against Andy Pettitte, the Indians won the game. The offensive production came on two swings of the bat. The first swing was Jhonny Peralta's home run to right-center in the fourth. The second came in the eighth inning off Joba Chamberlain when pinch-hitter David Dellucci flew out to the short porch in right field. Dellucci's home run came after Ryan Garko seemingly let Joba off the hook by weakly flying out when ahead in the count.

For a game in early May, this win was pretty significant. The Indians haven't been the only team struggling early this season, and even with a below-.500 record, they are now just 1.5 games behind the first-place Twins. For all the trials and tribulations April brought, the Indians don't really need to make up much ground.

Cleveland at New York, 7:05 PM (WKYC)