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Sabathia attempts to give Indians another strong start

May 14, 2008 - 12:53 PM Oakland (23-17) at Cleveland (20-19) 7:05 pm EDT

CLEVELAND (Ticker) - C.C. Sabathia will look to give the Cleveland Indians another solid start when the club hosts the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday.

Indians' starters have pitched scoreless ball over their last 34 innings, including Tuesday when Paul Byrd went 7 1/3 innings during a 4-0 win over the Athletics.

The impressive streak by Cleveland's starting rotation has included big games from Fausto Carmona and Cliff Lee, who each turned in scoreless nine-inning performances - although Lee's resulted in an extra-inning loss. Aaron Laffey recorded seven scoreless innings in Saturday's 12-0 over Toronto.

Sabathia (2-5, 6.55 ERA) continued his rebound from a terrible start on Friday, allowing one run and six hits with nine strikeouts over seven frames in a 6-1 win over Toronto.

After starting the season with a 0-3 record and 13.50 ERA through four starts, the lefthander has been much better since, going 2-2 with a 1.98 ERA over his next four turns.

Joe Blanton (2-5, 3.82), who has dropped three of his last four decisions, will get the start for Oakland. The righthander did not factor into the decision in last Wednesday's 6-5 win against Baltimore when he permitted two runs and eight hits over 5 2/3 innings.

Blanton has not received much help in his nine starts this season, as the Oakland lineup is averaging 3.2 runs in games he starts.