Sunday's baseball notes

The Indians are sitting on a 5 game losing streak and have fallen into 4th place in the AL Central. It is getting a little late in the season to brush off the standings by saying it's early. The middle of this coming week will mark the one quarter mark of the season. I'd feel more confident in claiming they will turn it around if there was one element of the team playing poorly to fix. Unfortunately, the losing has been a team effort. If they're hitting the pitching fails. If the pitching does well like Sabathia did last night then the hitters take the night off. You'd be complimenting the defense if you said the fielding was average. You'd find less baserunning mistakes in a softball league full of drunks. Something needs to change and releasing Danny Graves on Friday wasn't enough.

Jon Lieber flirted with perfection last night. When I first heard on the radio that he had a perfect game going it struck me that the on and off rain made the day seem similar to the night Tom Browning threw a perfect game. Lieber went into the 7th inning without allowing a hit or a walk. Appropriately, on a night where the Reds were giving away Adam Dunn dolls, Dunn broke up the perfect game with a single with two men out in the 7th. My guess is Dunn remembers striking out to end the game more than he remembers the single.

Here is a link to Hal McCoy's Baseball Insider column. He always has something you won't find elsewhere.

If the Indians are considering dumping an underperforming starting pitcher, Jeremy Sowers is making a case for a shot.

Jeremy Sowers allowed one unearned run in seven innings to lead visiting Buffalo past Ottawa, 3-1, in Class AAA International League action Saturday. Sowers (5-1) gave up five hits and two walks while striking out three, lowering his ERA to 1.21 in eight starts.

Ken Rosenthal asks why pitchers are stilled scared of Barry Bonds.

Barry Bonds is batting .222. Yet he's second in the National League with 36 walks. When will opposing managers stop treating him as if he's the Bonds of old, and start confronting the reality that he's nearly broken down at 41?

I could understand if opposing teams decide not to give Albert Pujols anything decent to hit, but teams should go ahead and challenge the 2006 version of Barry Bonds.

Hideki Matsui has to be one of the classiest players in professional sports. In an age when we usually only hear negative stories of players behavior it is refreshing to hear one make a heartfelt apology. Why was Matsui apologizing? He actually apologized for breaking his wrist while trying to make a great catch.

Immediately following surgery Friday to repair a broken wrist that will sideline him for at least three months, Hideki Matsui apologized for getting hurt.

"Due to this injury, I feel very sorry and, at the same time, very disappointed to have let my teammates down," Matsui said in a statement. "I will do my best to fully recover and return to the field to help my team once again."

Yankees manager Joe Torre wasn't surprised by the apology. "It's all about responsibility — what he thinks his responsibility is to this team, this organization, because the Yankees committed to him and he feels it's a two-way street in that regard," Torre said.

Other players could learn a lot from Matsui. Even though he is a Yankee, I'm rooting for a complete and speedy recovery.