Grady Sizemore Placed on Disabled List

For a man that's only 26 years old and has only spent four years in the major leagues, Grady Sizemore has accomplished quite a lot. He had a fantastic 2008 season, one that many thought warranted an MVP award, and had a lot of people thinking the Indians were going to be the team to beat in the AL Central this season.

Well, as Grady goes so goes the Tribe, and it's no coincidence that with Sizemore struggling at the plate in 2009 the Indians find themselves at the bottom of their division. One of the reasons Sizemore may be having trouble is a sore elbow that's been bothering him all season and has caused him to play a lot of DH lately. Well, since the elbow doesn't seem to be getting any better the Indians have decided to introduce Grady to the disabled list for the first time in his career.

Sizemore, getting treatment on the elbow, was not available for comment Sunday morning. When asked about the elbow last week, he said he wouldn't use it as an excuse for his subpar performance at the plate this season. Sizemore is batting .223 with nine homers, 31 RBI and a .726 OPS and had been dropped from the leadoff spot to No. 2 earlier this month. Sizemore did hit a solo homer off Sabathia on Saturday night.

With Sizemore unavailable for the next few weeks that means that Indians fans should get used to seeing plenty of Trevor Crowe for a while along with Ben Francisco and Chris Gimenez who was called up to fill Sizemore's spot on the roster.

To make matters worse for the Tribe their other offensive stud, Victor Martinez, fouled a ball off of his knee on Saturday night and had to be taken to a nearby hospital for X-rays. They came back negative, but Martinez isn't sure when he's going to be able to get back in the lineup. Combine those two injuries with Travis Hafner already being on the DL, and I'm not sure where the Indians are going to get their runs.