Victor Martinez's absence from the cleanup spot in the season's first week has only exacerbated the issue. The man known as Pronk is counted on to carry the load, and he's the first to admit he's struggled to do so.

"I need to do a better job controlling the strike zone," Hafner said before Sunday's series finale against the A's. "I'm just swinging at some pitches out of the zone that I normally don't swing at. That's kind of getting me behind in the count."

Remember, it's only five games, but Hafner and manager Eric Wedge both see areas the slugger needs to address.

"I'm sure he'd like to be more consistent," Wedge said. "And we need him to be more consistent."

Hafner came into Sunday's game, in which he moved back to the No. 3 spot to make room for Ryan Garko at cleanup, with five hits in his first 19 at-bats, including a monstrous solo homer Friday night and an RBI double to the opposite field Saturday.

The general lack of hits for Hafner isn't a concern as much as his lack of walks is. Pronk had just two walks in his first 21 plate appearances, against nine strikeouts. Opposing pitchers, understandably, haven't worked around him nearly as much as they did a season ago, even with Martinez out of the picture.

As much as he did struggle last year, Hafner still drew 102 walks in 661 plate appearances, which is a respectable average of .155 walks per plate appearance. In the first week of this season, that average was .095.

"I'm not taking my walks," Hafner said. "I need to do a better job of that. Pitch selection is a big thing for me right now."

Hafner might not be as frustrated if Martinez, who was out of the starting lineup for the fifth straight day Sunday, was around to take some of the burden off.

In general, the Tribe bats have been laboring without one of the lineup's leaders in tow. Over the last three games, the Indians had hit .181 (15-for-93), dropping their season average from a league-high .324 to a near-worst .230.

"We're not really executing our game plans very well," Hafner said. "Overall, there's not a lot of consistently good at-bats. We might have one good at-bat an inning, but we're just not consistent overall."