Smoke signals

• Antonetti, whose lone move prior to Wednesday's non-waiver Trade Deadline was reeling in lefty Marc Rzepczynski from the Cardinals, emphasized that August presents another chance to add players via trade. As more teams fall out of contention, players could become available through the waiver process.

"It's another opportunity," Antonetti said. "I do think, because we're earlier in the season, there's still a lot of teams that are clustered and competing for a playoff spot. As more of the season goes on, typically some of those teams will fall away and may be open to moving some of the players that they were reluctant to move earlier."

• Having two Wild Cards in each league has created a situation where more teams are considered in contention through the end of July. That fact, along with latest Collective Bargaining Agreement's stipulations involving Draft-pick compensation for traded players, has Antonetti of the opinion that the non-waiver Trade Deadline should be later than July 31.

"There are a lot of considerations that go along with that," Antonetti said. "But there's a lot of merit to that."

• Cleveland's four bench players (Mike Aviles, Jason Giambi, Yan Gomes and Ryan Raburn) entered Wednesday's action with a combined 31 home runs, 71 extra-base hits and 112 RBI in 678 at-bats. The group was averaging 6.1 at-bats per RBI. To put that in perspective, Angels slugger Albert Pujols ranks 14th in the American League with a rate of 6.1 at-bats per RBI.

• The Indians entered Wednesday as the only team in the Majors to have five players (Aviles, Giambi, Gomes, Raburn and Lonnie Chisenhall) with at least six home runs and 20 RBIs in fewer than 240 at-bats. The Padres were the only other team in baseball to have at least four players meet that criteria.