The Tribe went back to work Sunday afternoon at Progressive Field, and the end result was all too familiar.

A 5-3 loss capped a three-game sweep suffered at the hands of the Tigers and dropped the Indians to 11-21 on the season. That's the fewest wins in all of baseball, in case you haven't noticed.

The players have noticed. Victor Martinez, in particular, admits something's missing from this club.

What's missing?

"The energy," Martinez said. "And the fire. That's what we're all missing."

The fact that Martinez, the closest thing the Indians have to a team captain, publicly stated that those qualities are missing with the season very much on the line will no doubt lead some to wonder about the manager's role in the team's struggles.

When the question was presented to Martinez, he said that shouldn't be the case.

"It's not his fault," Martinez said. "It's not Wedgie's fault. We take all the blame. He's not the one playing. We are the ones playing the game."

And to put it bluntly, they're not playing well.

The Indians have lost four straight and eight of 11. While the bullpen has received much of the blame for what's transpired this season, the three-game sweep suffered here was proof that the Tribe's problems run much deeper than that. The bullpen had a strong weekend. The other key elements were the issue.

On Friday, it was a lack of offense and a misplayed ball by second baseman Luis Valbuena that spelled a 1-0 loss.

On Saturday, it was another unimpressive offensive effort against Edwin Jackson and Fausto Carmona's walks that dictated a 4-0 defeat.

In this latest loss, it was right-hander Anthony Reyes putting the Tribe in an early hole, left fielder Ben Francisco contributing to Reyes' woes with a mistake in the field and the offense doing little to nothing to bail its starter out.

"It's been every area of our club at one time or another," Wedge said. "We have yet to click at one time."

The Tigers clicked against Reyes with a four-run second inning. Jeff Larish got the Tigers on the board with a solo homer, and the Tigers loaded the bases on Magglio Ordonez's double, Brandon Inge's single and Gerald Laird's walk. Adam Everett lifted a sacrifice fly to left, and Francisco made the mistake of throwing a high fly home rather than hitting the cutoff man.

"He air-mailed it," Wedge said. "You've got to throw down through the cutoff man. You can't do that."

That allowed the two remaining runners to advance to second and third, setting up Curtis Granderson's two-run single to cap the big inning. The Indians responded off Rick Porcello in the bottom of the inning with Grady Sizemore's RBI single, ending a stretch of 19 consecutive innings without a run. But they went quiet again, only to be heard from in the ninth. They tried to put together a two-out rally against closer Fernando Rodney and got a pair of runs, but Shin-Soo Choo popped out to right to end the game with a pair of runners aboard.

The Indians have scored just three runs over their past 28 innings of play.

"We're not squaring up pitches we need to square up," Wedge said. "There's a lot of just-missed foul balls or popups that we need to square up and throw a few more line drives out there."

Don't forget the strikeouts. The Tribe whiffed nine times in this game and 29 times over the course of the series.

"I'm a big believer in making good outs," Wedge said. "Of late, we've had some bad outs. Strikeouts are always going to be part of it, but the consistency of what you're doing around those strikeouts and how you strike out is what you have to be concerned about."

The Indians obviously have plenty to be concerned about these days. They are slipping further into the darkness of the American League Central basement and showing few signs that a sustained winning streak is on the horizon.

"When things aren't going the way you want, sometimes we get down on ourselves," Martinez said. "We try to do too much at one time."

Wedge always preaches to his players not to do too much, and the message clearly isn't hitting home right now.

"It's tough," Wedge said. "You wear it. You wear it here, you wear it at home. That's just part of it. I care about all these players, and I really care about the fans. I know how discouraging and disappointing this is. I know we're a better team for this. It's my responsibility, and I take full responsibility for it. We're trying to help them get better. This is a gut-check for us."