Earlier today, Finnish martial artist and FanGraphs contributor August Fagerstrom submitted for the consideration of everyone a collection of reasons to believe in Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar. As Fagerstrom notes, Salazar’s eight later-season starts in the majors compare favorably not only to the eight starts he recorded earlier this season but also to the most recent eight starts made by basically every pitcher in the majors. His 54 FIP-, for example, is the ninth-best such figure among qualified starters over the last month.

Nor is Salazar the only one among Cleveland’s starting pitchers to have produced elite-type numbers of late. In fact, over the last 30 days, Cleveland’s rotation has recorded the best league- and park-adjusted xFIP and FIP and ERA — and also the best WAR figures, too, of both the fielding-independent and run-allowed variety.

Regard, by way of illustration, the top-five rotations over the past month, sorted by WAR:

It might be difficult for some, owing to the alarmingly large gap between Detroit’s fielding-independent and run-prevention numbers, to say that the Tigers have featured the second-best rotation over the past month. Regardless, the point remains: by any criteria one might choose to define pitching success, the Indians have been the best by it over the last month.

Here are the individual starters who’ve contributed to that cause, with their numbers from the last 30 days:

Before the current season, this group above had produced 7.6 WAR total over 882.0 innings in the entirety of their collective careers. As a group, they had accounted for fewer wins than Justin Verlander did by himself in 2009 — and way less efficiently, too.

Of late, however, this same cadre of relative misfits has been excellent, producing a collective total of 4.6 WAR in 161.2 innings since last month at this time — or, a slightly higher rate of WAR per inning than Felix Hernandez has produced in 2014.