Bay Area Butchery

The Drive for the .500 season became a pipe dream today with loss #82. This has to be one of the most frustrating seasons in recent memories, with the unfulfilled high expectations.

A quick barrage of Tomahawks:

• Do you think that Peralta is in the Atomic Wedgie’s doghouse? This quote came after Thursday’s non-play that contributed to a 4-run inning:"[Peralta] should have made the play," manager Eric Wedge said, clearly frustrated with a season's worth of watching his defensively challenged infield. "I'm tired of talking about the guy. We've challenged him in about every way you can -- in terms of his pregame work, in terms of his first step and just what he needs to do out there. He's going to have to do better for him to be the defensive shortstop that we need him to be."
  
• The way this bullpen audition is going, it’s apparent that there’s a LOT of work to be done in the off-season to cure the ills.
  
• How about this nickname for the perpetually sleepwalking Hector Luna? Lunesta.
  
• During Wednesday’s game, the camera showed Carmona in the dugout talking to Victor. Suddenly Garko appeared in the foreground. It took a while to figure out what he was doing, pacing around the dugout, bending over, walking somewhere else, bending over. Then I saw it – the stack of used cups in his hand. He was picking up TRASH in the dugout! It made me think of the beginning of “Dazed and Confused” when O’Bannion says to Melvin, “What are you doing? Picking up trash?!?”
  
• How sweet would it be if the White Sox got hot, climbed back into the WC race, only to have the Tribe keep them out of the playoffs in the last weekend? On second thought, who cares who puts them out of the playoff race, so long as they’re sitting the same place as me on October 2nd – at home.
  
• In case you missed it, Wickman re-upped with the Braves for next year for a little over $6M. Meaning he isn’t retiring, he isn’t coming back to Cleveland for a swan song, and the FA closer market for 2007 just got a little thinner. Guys with real closer experience still out there are down to Octavio Dotel, Francisco Cordero, and Eric Gagne. No sure thing there.
  

Since it looks more and more like the additions to the 2007 Tribe are going to be coming via trade, I’ll take a look at the players that may be out there at the positions of need that would be attractive to the Indians.