AL Central

An hour and forty-four minutes is the time it takes to go from beleaguered AAA pitcher, to a man who nearly flirted with perfection.

Let’s retract that.

An hour and forty-four minutes is the time it takes to go from beleaguered AAA pitcher, to a man who threw a perfect game.

And don’t let Jim Joyce try to tell you otherwise.

In fact, he won’t even tell you otherwise.

Paul Konerko has had his bags packed to head to the Los Angeles Angels on more than one occasion.

Now, however, it seems as though Konerko could actually be getting on the plane.

With Kendry Morales celebrating a walk-off grand slam by breaking his leg, the Angels could use another first baseman. 

With the White Sox "grinder"/Ozzie ball/don't score runs and have awful defense experiment putting the team in a battle for third place in the American League Central division, it could be time for the White Sox to look toward 2011...or maybe 2012.

It looks like Max Scherzer's brief stint with the Detroit Tigers' Triple-A affiliate the Toledo Mud Hens was just what he needed.

Scherzer dominated while in Toledo, and he looked to be in top form against the Oakland Athletics on Sunday.

Somewhere, sometime in the history of the baseball world, it was deemed that the Fourth of July holiday should be the benchmark to determine whether your team had a snowball’s chance in Hell of waving the pennant at the end of the season.

Not sure why July 4. Why not Flag Day, June 14? Seems appropriate; the pennant is sometimes called the “flag."

Labor Day is cheating; there’s less than a month left, so that’s hardly a step out onto the limb.

After what could be construed as a successful west-coast road trip, the Detroit Tigers came home Friday to face the Oakland A's.

And lost 5-4.

Miguel Cabrera supplied all of the offense for Jim Leyland's club.

Yes, all of it.

To call Max Scherzer’s first eight starts of the 2010 season disastrous would be an understatement.  When you are carrying a 7.29 ERA and 1.67 WHIP, there is no one word to succinctly describe just how bad you’ve been.

Photo by Reuter Images

I know last night’s loss to the Twins was a bit deflating, but let’s not overlook the fact that the Yankees took two of three on the road from a very good Twins team. 

Welcome to Tribe Talk, where Bleacher Report's Tribe fans weigh in on the ups and downs of the Indians each week throughout the season.

This week, we argue for why Carlos Santana should be brought up to the majors now, make some early trade predictions, and share our best methods for distraction during a disappointing season.

Welcome to the Cleveland Indians Trading Post, a weekly segment meant to help my fellow Tribe fans sort out which of the few familiar faces left on the team won’t be around much longer.

This week’s potential trade bait is Mitch Talbot.

The basics

A second-round pick in the 2002 amateur draft, Talbot was acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays last winter in exchange for Kelly Shoppach.

I wrote an article the other day hoping that the Tigers would have interest in Roy Oswalt, so you know I am glad to hear that the Tigers may in fact have an interest.

It has been reported that the Tigers have contacted the Houston Astros about his availability, and I want to take that as a sign that Mike Illitch has answered my question with at least a maybe.

Maybe is a very good answer right now if the question was, can Illitch find Dombroski a spare 10 million or so?