So long, J-Mike.

Indians beat writer Anthony Castrovince has confirmed that Jason Michaels will be DFA'd to make room for Ben Francisco.

As The Diatriber has mentioned early and often, Jason Michaels has been pretty superfluous on this team, more so since he's not been producing.

What will this solve? On the surface, not a lot. Francisco has not exactly been lighting it up at Buffalo this year. Dellucci will likely still get most of the starts in left field, since right now he is the third-most productive hitter in the lineup behind Grady and Victor. I suspect that this also means that we see more of Dellucci at DH and Pronk on the bench against pitchers that have given Hafner fits.

This is a message move - even if you're a veteran, your job is not safe if you don't produce quality at-bats. I'm looking at you, Casey Blake. Will it work? Who knows? It worked last year when The Beaded One was brought up to supplant Josh Barfield. How many times can you go to this well?

The other question is - will anyone want J-Mike? Can we at least get a low-ceiling prospect for him? He has shown some signs of at least playing like a major leaguer lately (7 for his last 20), so there might be an NL team that could use him as a bat off the bench and willing to give up a little something for him. Stay tuned.

Today's Hero - Jason Michaels

The Indians snatched a 4-3 victory yesterday out of a game that started out looking like more of the previous day's blowout. Paul Byrd started off looking like he didn't have it, spotting the A's to 3-0 lead after two. Then he found it, stifling the A's over the next 5 innings, just long enough for the Tribe to come back with 1 run in the 5th and 3 runs in the 7th on a 3-run homer from Jason Michaels.

Rafael Betancourt slammed the door on the A's in the 8th and Joe Borowski closed the door ever so gently with much drama. In the 9th, the A's got runners to second and third with only one out in the 9th before JoeBo got Shannon Stewart to pop out to second base and Mark Kotsay to fly out to center field.

Pronk? Well, he walked once and got hit by a pitch (the Pronk Plunk?). Otherwise, he grounded out and hit a screaming line drive that, by the description I heard on the radio from Tom Hamilton, nearly decapitated Joe Blanton, who made a life-saving catch based on sheer self-preservatory reaction. However, I'm basing this entirely on Hammy, and I didn't see the actual line drive, so you can take it for what it's worth, since Hammy has a wee tendency to exaggerate at times. The end result - 0 for 2. It does seem that Pronk is continuing to smoke the ball, though not all of them are finding the grass or the seats.