Indians @ Pirates game #2

• HitsRus

  

  David Huff (2-8) vs Karstens (1-2)
  
  BRF has posted the glittering Wahoo for last nite's game.
  
  The way I figure it....he'll have to post that glittering Wahoo 66 more times if the Tribe is to have a reasonable chance to win the division.
  (92 wins).
  
  To illustrate just how far the Tribe is in the hole....we'll need to go 66-30 the rest of the way out. It is even worse for the P-rats.
  
  
  A long journey begins with the first step.... let's see another glittering Wahoo tonite!
• devil1197

  No one thought the team was going to win the division, so I'd say a .500 or better mark (considering you are without Cabrera/Sizemore for most/all of the season) should be the goal.
• Mulva

  

  I would say a better goal would be just not to lose 100 games. We're currently on pace to finish 64-98, and after this Pirates series the month from hell begins.
  
  3 @ Philadelphia (35-30)
  3 @ Cincinnati (37-31)
  4 vs. Toronto (38-31)
  3 vs. Oakland (33-36)
  
  3 vs. Texas (39-28)
  4 @ Tampa Bay (41-26)
  4 vs. Detroit (37-29)
  3 @ Minnesota (38-29)
  3 vs. Tampa Bay (41-26)
  4 vs. New York (42-26)
  3 @ Toronto (38-31)
  4 @ Boston (41-28)
  3 vs. Minnesota (38-29)
  
  44 games. 41 against teams above .500. If Minnesota hangs on to complete the comeback (from down 5 in the 9th to leading in the 10th) and beats Philadelphia today, 21 of them will be against teams currently at least 10 games above .500.
  
  I'm honestly not sure I've ever seen a more brutal stretch in an MLB schedule than the bolded section.
  
  We'd be lucky not to be mathematically eliminated by the time that stretch is over.
  
  Enjoy July, Tribe!
• miller45452003

  LOL @ Acta giving your hottest hitter (5 for his last 10) Santana the night off. The guy just found a good grove at the plate and you sit him. Just brilliant Acta...just briliant. Is Wedge still looking for work?
• Swamp Fox

  But I thought Wedge was the Devil himself? Not to be annoying but I thought Wedge did a nice job in Cleveland and while he did sometimes get off to a slow start and things didn't go swimmingly well, the team generally performed at a decent level and could at least compete at an acceptable, if not "World Series" like consistency. To be fair, I think it is awfully easy to blame all of the poor results thus far on Acta, but Cleveland has had atrocious luck with regard to injuries, illness, etc etc, this season and I'm not sure any manager, no matter how skilled, could salvage a whole lot while forced to put a non-major league line-up on the field day after day. Keep in mind that we are talking about Cleveland, and the Indians have had more than their share of bad luck, going back before Wedge or Acta arrived on the scene.
• miller45452003

  ^^^^I agree with all of this above, but making decisions today putting Austin "slumpdick" Kearns in the 3 hole is just horrible!!!! I understand Santana has played 5-6 straight games, but for christ sakes the guy is starting to have his way at the plate and you pull him off the lineup card. It's the little things like this that irritate the hell out of me. Or when he leaves his starters in 2 innings to long. He makes alot of very poor calls. I know we dont have the best talent buy any means, and I can handle that, but do your effing job!!!!
• Laley23

  

  Losing is one thing. Losing while not giving your team the best chance to win is another. Acta, imo, has done this too often. So did Wedge though, and I said I wouldnt judge Acta until around this time NEXT year. So I wont.
• miller45452003

  and on a sidenote...Huff needs to go away. I can't stand to watch the guy throw!
• HitsRus

  

  Acta's team seems unprepared..watching the Mets get seven infield hits the other nite...and small ball the Tribe to death was positively painful. It seems the team finds a new way to lose every nite.
• HitsRus

  

  Branyan cranks a 3 run bomb to pull the Tribe within 1...5-4 in the seventh.
• HitsRus

  

  Branyan is not so good the next time up....strikes out to start the eigth. Jhonny lines a double but is stranded at second.
• HitsRus

  

  Tribe bullpen gives up another in the bottom of the 8th....6-4 'rats.
• newarkcatholicfan

  

  Back to normal for the mistake on the lake.
• BRF

  

  newarkcatholicfan;395207 wrote:Back to normal for the mistake on the lake.

  
  How quaint...or quizzant, as the 3 stooges would say!
• BRF

  

  BTW, I will be more than willing to post 66 more GW!
• hoops23

  

  David Huff is absolute ASS out on the mound.
  
  Don't understand why he's still starting.
  
  I can live with Masterson, because he's been turning the corner and has been VERY SOLID to GREAT during his last 4 or so starts, and Justin obviously has great potential, but Huff?
• Non

  

  Finally a win!
  
  That first run by McCutchen was like the final play on Major League. Jake Taylor bunted and beat out the throw to first and then Hays came all the way around from second to score. For years I always thought that was far fetched. But McCutchen actually pulled it off.
• Mulva

  

  Swamp Fox;395033 wrote: I thought Wedge did a nice job in Cleveland and while he did sometimes get off to a slow start and things didn't go swimmingly well, the team generally performed at a decent level and could at least compete at an acceptable, if not "World Series" like consistency.

  
  You HAVE to be kidding?
  
  68-94
  80-82
  93-69
  78-84
  96-66
  81-81
  65-97
  
  Wedge's teams were the definition of inconsistent. The only things you could count on under his teams was that they would start slow and fall apart when it really mattered. He was an awful, awful manager.
  
  I said at the time that Acta was hired that he was the worst possible person they could have brought in, because he's just not a good manager. BUT... I also said that nobody in the world could win with this team, and that I wouldn't get on the fire Acta bandwagon until they legitimately had enough talent to win (I did the same with Wedge... wasn't calling for his head until after the total meltdown in 2005).
  
  The real blame for this team falls on 1 person and 1 person alone (and no it isn't Dolan): it's Mark Shapiro. You can say "Dolan won't spend" all you want, but the truth is that Shapiro is just a complete fucking dumbass when it comes to everything a GM should be able to do. He drafts horribly, gets fleeced right and left on trades (those Sabathia and Lee deals are looking great Mark!), and couldn't pick out a decent free agent to save his life. When he was given the money to spend he just put it all in the wrong places. Example...
  
  Jake Westbrook, Travis Hafner, and Kerry Wood make up over 1/2 of the Indians payroll. When 3 average to below average players are being given $30+ million in a small to mid-market team it is no surprise that the owner is dumping salary and the team is losing games. Those are just 3 horrific contracts. And none of that is retrospect, because there were plenty of people at the time the deals were made asking why a guy who was a career DH was being given that much, or why a closer was a #1 priority over a starter. Shapiro is a fuckup, and the fact that he is being promoted tells just how terrible this organization is and explains why so many people (myself included, unfortunately) are now completely apathetic towards the team.
• hoops23

  

  Not to mention the complete gaffs when it comes to the draft. They had a very solid 1st round pick this year, but as a whole, the whole body of work in terms of drafting has been TERRIBLE for Shapiro and his staff.
  
  That's a BIG no-no when you're a mid-market team.
  
  Shapiro's only saving grace is that he's able to see talent within other organizations farm systems. Grady, Brandon Phillips, Cliff Lee, Travis Hafner, Carlos Santana, Shin Soo-Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera, etc...
  
  That and the fact that he often times finds the diamond in the rough type player, such as Austin Kearns and in a way, Russell Branyan this season. Hell, even Shelley Duncan has had some good games.
  
  BUT, the overall body of work just isn't that great. As Mulva mentioned, 3 guys who have vastly underperformed since signing on the dotted line make up over 1/2 of the payroll that's not a great sign. Add that to the complete ineptitude of drafting and overhauling the farm system and you have a disaster that is currently the Tribe.
  
  We have a few quality players, and some who have "great" written all over them, but they are not enough to carry the rest of this AAA team disguised as an MLB squad.
• HitsRus

  

  Hindsight is 20-20....and nobody should have a complaint about the body of work of Shapiro and Wedge the first 3 years 2003-2005. They broke up an aging team and rebuilt with younger players, and the team showed steady improvement getting to to the brink of the playoffs in 2005. Yeah, "they fell apart when it mattered most"....but you can't really call that a pattern nor complain about the pattern of slow starts until you look at the next 4-5 years in retrospect. Along the timeline, that started to emerge after the choke in 2007 and the beginning of the season 2008.
  
  What the biggest problem was in Wedge/Shapiro was their inflexibility and inability to address flaws that persistently dogged this team( e.g. situational hitting, lack of small ball skills), and the reluctance to make changes that would have taken this team to the next level. The reluctance of Shapiro to break up or even challenge the 'good ole boy' group of coaches that came up together to do better was the killer. As the coaching staff was inbred...so were the holes in our young players development. Every coach has their methods and some things that they teach well, and some things not so well...by 2007, Wedge and company were stale. Not necessarilly coincidentally, after the choke in 2007, the team stood pat. Even the World Champs were making off season moves to improve their team...but the Tribe stood pat.
  This was front office/owner failure. More front office failure....signing(wasting critical $ on ) an average pitcher(Westy) to a long term contract, when they should have been going hard after Sabathia to extend. Wasting more $$$ on a DH (bad luck that he was hurt), but was easily replacable. The Great Salary Dump of 2009 is/was the most devastating blow of all...probably condemning the team to irreversible perpetual failure. The Cliff Lee trade may well rank as one of the worst trades in MLB history when all is said and done.
  I could go on and on about how they ruined Andy Marte, the Brandon Phillips disaster.etc....