Now that's a first

 Our entire rotation, all 5 guys, decimated by injury or non-performance.   Don't remember seeing that as an Indians' fan before.   

To begin, let's talk about how we got here:

1. The sticky substance theory -   Did Civale and Bieber get hurt by trying to compensate for not being able to use sticky substances any more?   I find that hard to believe, really.   If anything, with Bieber, the Indians are just harvesting the abuse they have put Bieber's arm through the last 3 years or so.   He wasn't right at the end of 2019 in my opinion and we continued to abuse his arm, at times, in 2020 (the Sandy Alomar game comes to mind) and this year (121 pitches.  Really?).   As far as Civale, pitchers get hurt.  I think he is the least likely to be guilty of using sticky substances, really.   I am thinking that guys like Blake Parker or Eli Morgan with ridiculously large breaks on their pitches might be more suspect.   Ditto for James Karinchak.  

Also, I am pretty sure if Plesac was cheating he wouldn't have had to break his thumb in frustration after that bad start.

Let's talk, for a minute, about how Dolan and the FO got us to this point.   They left #4 and #5 open at the beginning of the year.  To save money they went cheap and hoped.   Dolan even admitted that he wasn't putting a very good team on the field due to a low payroll.   They didn't give us anyone who could fill those spots if the question marks McKenzie and Allen failed.   Plus, they really didn't have a backup plan if ONE of Bieber, Civale and Plesac got hurt, let alone all three.  Not like good, cheap starters grow on trees,  however.  Look how many teams are using openers.  Still, you have to have a plan where you have veteran guys in the minors who have a history of being relievers who can throw 2 or more innings, if needed (no, not Adam Plutko).

Maybe we could have traded one of our FIFTEEN minor league SS top prospects for a long reliever with some talent.

So, as always, bad luck plus a cheap owner gets us to this point.  A great manager keeps us afloat through the storm that is cheap ownership.

Who knows, maybe this will all work out and what we have here is just a forced hiatus for a bunch of guys who threw under 100 innings last year.   Maybe these injuries aren't serious and, at the end of the season, we will see them as a blessing in disguise.

Kudos to the players, the manager and the FO for giving us enouigh talent to not implode (so far) and for one of the greatest managers in baseball history for keeping the ship afloat during this hurricane.   Maybe we can win 90 games this year before other teams catch on that we really shouldn't!!!