Cleveland Sports Forum

picky, picky, picky

Acta more critical after loss to Tigers

by Sheldon Ocker on June 16, 2011 - 5:19 pm


DETROIT: Usually, manager Manny Acta makes a point of refusing to show emotion or use language that might inflame or be overly critical.

But after today’s 6-2 loss to the Tigers, a game in which the Tribe’s slump returned after one day, the manager was clearly upset with several of his players.

Of the failure to collect only five hits after a 13-hit win Wednesday night, Acta said, “”I’m just disappointed because these guys aren’t making any progress. Some guys have been in a three-month slump, and that is not a good sign.”

He seemed to indicate that he and his coaches have given enough advice and assistance to the slumping hitters, and now it’s up to them.

“”They’re not doing it,” Acta said of his hitters. “”They’re working on whatever they’re failing at. We point things out. But it’s not good. Some of these guys are way too talented to struggle for two or three months.”

It also was clear that Acta wasn’t in a forgiving mood with Mitch Talbot, who lasted only four innings, giving up all the runs.

“”Once again baseball proved that what you guys like to call momentum is no better than the next day’s starting pitcher,” the manager said. “”He couldn’t hold the lead for even one inning. Mitch labored the whole time, and that set the tone right there.”

husker wrote:picky, picky, picky

Hey, just saying it's been 48 years for ME.

I count '63-'64 as my first years of paying devout attention to Tribe Baseball.

My first season of personally playing ball was in the 1963 YMCA Indian Guides Father-Son softball league. I was 6 and hit .575. One kid bested me with a .625 average, and I finished 2nd for the season. He was my best friend....until then.

He did have cute sisters. One older, one younger. He moved on to New Jersey on his Dad's transfer and years later he came back for high school locally and picked up a scholarship as a running back at The University of Akron. We met a couple of times, but never reignited our childhood friendship.

(I never could get his .625 out of my mind)

He did have really cute sisters.



I must say things have changed in ball and technology since first regularly tuning into radio broadcasts in my Dad's 1957 "finned" Plymouth (that the floor rusted out on and I could see the road below us as we drove on it's last legs six years later.....yeah the good old days of manufacturing in America) and my AM transistor radio with the Civil Defense channel marking.

1966 was my first year of being a serious baseball card collector.

I was a numismatist starting in 1964.

I never was a philatelist.

Acta with a new temperament with regard to his players seems appropriate. I was not an Acta fan when he was hired, but I think he's doing admirably pushing and pulling buttons and now pushing his players in June 2011 as we are firmly in playoff contention with The All Star Game just a 4th of July sparkler sniff away.

Kearns still on the team? Kipnis is tearing up AAA, doubled and homered yesterday, he can come up to replace Phelps or Kearns.

Phelps was tearing up AAA too.

Phelps was in a slump when we called him up. Kipnis has been on the ascendant recently. In his last six games 26-8-14-8 with 1 double, 3 triples, 3 homeruns. I expect him to appear on the Hot Prospect List this week.

But you're right, of course, that AAA success doesn't guarantee anything.

Cord Marte blowing his opportunity.

Ba da bing, ba da boom.

Chisenhall is on the DL now...

Indians third base prospect Lonnie Chisenhall is being held out of the lineup with Triple-A Columbus due to a mild concussion/whiplash injury suffered on a slide into third base last week.
Chisenhall hasn't played since Saturday. The 22-year-old is only batting .250 with five homers and .734 OPS this season and has really struggled against left-handed pitching, so we're more likely to see teammate Jason Kipnis make his major league debut first.

Jun 17, 8:45 PM EDT

Indians' 1B LaPorta leaves with injury


CLEVELAND (AP) -- Indians first baseman Matt LaPorta was helped from the field with what the team announced as a right lower leg injury in the third inning of a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday night.

LaPorta was hurt when caught in a rundown between second and third. He was helped from the field by third-base coach Steve Smith and assistant trainer Rick Jameyson.

LaPorta reached on a bizarre play to open the inning. He lined a ball that Pirates shortstop Ronny Cedeno got a glove on with a leaping effort. The ball bounced out of his glove and toward second baseman Neil Walker, whose throw in the dirt skipped past first baseman Lyle Overbay for a two-base error.

Orlando Cabrera followed with an easy grounder to Cedeno and LaPorta tried to go to third.

The Golden Sombrero

That's the symbolic award presented to a player who strikes out four times in one game. Grady Sizemore won it on Sunday, when he went 0-for-5, with four strikeouts.

"That guy yesterday (Pittsburgh starter Jeff Karstens) has a very good breaking ball vs. left-handers, and he was tough on Grady," said Acta.

After hitting well when he came off the disabled list in mid-April, Sizemore has been locked in a debilitating slump. He hit .378 in April, but since May 1 he is hitting .179 with three home runs and 10 RBI. Sizemore's strikeout rate is soaring. Since May 1, he has struck out 42 times in 112 at-bats, or once every 2.7 at-bats.

"At times, Grady has been chasing pitches out of the zone. He'll be fine," said Acta.

Sizemore also does not have a stolen base this season. He has reached base 54 times, and only has one stolen base attempt.

"He's got the green light, but I think he's being more cautious this year because of his knee," said Acta.

Sizemore is coming off microfracture surgery on his left knee last year, and he spent two weeks on the disabled list this year with a bruised right knee.

"We knew he wouldn't be 100 percent this year because that (microfracture) surgery is a very tough surgery," said Acta. "If he can get through the rest of this season with no more knee issues, I think next year you'll probably see the 100 percent Grady. It's too much to ask of him to come back and play at the top level he played at right after that kind of surgery."

Rockies 8, Indians 7: Ace is in a hole
Published: Tuesday, June 21, 2011

By Jim Ingraham
JIngraham@News-Herald.com


As implosions go, this was the full monty.

It was Fausto Carmona at his combustible, chaotic, catastrophic best — or worst.

It was a five-alarm meltdown — and it turned the Indians' game with the Colorado Rockies over, under, sideways and down, as the Indians lost, 8-7, Monday night.

They lost mainly because Carmona, with a 4-1 lead in the fifth inning, couldn't pitch out of a two-outs-nobody-on-base "jam."

Speaking of jams, that's where the Indians are now with Carmona. Following his careening mid-game collapse Monday night, Manager Manny Acta is faced with a problem very few first place teams are faced with:

Their No.1 starter is killing them.

Carmona is 4-9 with a 6.17 ERA. That's for 16 starts overall. In his last seven starts, he's 1-6 with a 9.73 ERA. In those seven starts opposing teams are hitting .333 against him, and he's given up nine home runs and 16 doubles.

Those would be unacceptable numbers for the No. 5 starter in any rotation in the major leagues.

For a No. 1 starter on a first-place team, those numbers are a dead skunk in the middle of the road.

Which raises the question: How much longer can the Indians continue to start Carmona every fifth day? How much longer can they afford to wait for their star-crossed starter to get his act together?

After the game, Acta provided the answer.

"Fausto is pitching again in five days," he said.

"The stuff is there. He's our guy. We've got to work to get him out of this."

The sooner the better, because it's getting to be late June, the Indians are in a daily wrestling match with the Tigers for first place, and the Tribe's No. 1 starter is giving them innings such as this:

Top of the fifth inning, Indians leading, 4-1. Two outs, nobody on base. Carmona then allowed the next seven batters to reach base. The first six scored, turning a 4-1 Tribe lead into a 7-4 Rockies lead.

Carmona started that seemingly impossible rally by walking the No. 9 hitter, Chris Iannetta. Carlos Gonzalez singled, and so did Chris Nelson, loading the bases.

Then Carmona walked Todd Helton, forcing in Iannetta to cut the lead to 4-2.

Troy Tulowitzki followed that with a chopper down the third-base line that hit the base and bounced crazily past third baseman Orlando Cabrera and down the left field line.

A lucky (or unlucky for Carmona) two-run double.

That tied it at 4.

Carmona then threw a fastball right down the middle to the next hitter, Jason Giambi, who hit it halfway to Erie. It was estimated at 440 feet; a three-run home run.

That gave Colorado a 7-4 lead.

Carmona gave up a double to the next batter, Seth Smith, and with that Acta had seen enough. He removed his No. 1 starter, who was charged with seven runs on nine hits in 4 2/3 innings.

Six of the runs and five of the hits came after there were two outs and nobody on base in the fifth inning.

A complete implosion.

It featured all the usual demons that haunt Carmona when he's pitching bad: poor control (two walks), an inability to throw quality strikes and to limit the damage during rallies (seven consecutive batters reaching base), and a total loss of poise and control of his emotions (after a bad break on Tulowitzki's ball, throwing a cookie to Giambi, who hits it to the moon).

"I don't know what happened. It happened so fast. I tried to make pitches but it didn't work out the way I wanted," said Carmona.

"You've got to smell blood and get out of that inning," said Acta.

"I don't know what to say. It's frustrating. He got the first two outs on four or five pitches, then he walked a guy and everything broke loose," said catcher Lou Marson.

"Fausto dug his own grave," said Acta. "He lost his focus. He walked the number nine hitter with nobody on base, and then buried himself. His ability to make a pitch when it counts was not there."

The Indians staked Carmona to an early 3-1 lead, thanks to a three-run home run by Travis Hafner in the first inning, then stretched it to 4-1 on a fourth-inning home run by Carlos Santana, who is hitting .571 with three home runs in the first four games of the homestand.

After Carmona's implosion the Indians got a two-out, two-run single by Shin-Soo Choo in the bottom of the fifth to cut the Colorado lead to 7-6. Both teams scored runs in the eighth, the Rockies' coming on a bad throwing error by Marson.

But most of the damage and drama came in the fifth inning.

"The fifth inning killed us," said Acta.

That makes me start to doubt Manny. That stunk!

Indians feel Carmona close to breaking out

Acta doesn't believe hurler's current form resembles that of 2009

By Zack Meisel / MLB.com | 06/21/11 7:33 PM ET

CLEVELAND -- Fausto Carmona's struggles this season have some thinking back to June 2009, when he was shipped out to Goodyear, Ariz., for seven weeks to work on his mechanics and mental makeup.

But Indians manager Manny Acta said Carmona's current state more closely resembles 2007. That's the year Carmona finished fourth in the American League Cy Young Award voting after posting a 19-8 record and 3.06 ERA.

Carmona's latest letdown -- he allowed six runs with two outs in the fifth inning, a frame that proved too much for the Tribe to overcome in an 8-7 loss Monday -- could have been easily avoided, Acta said.

With the bases loaded and the Indians ahead, 4-2, Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki bounced a ball toward third base. Cleveland's Orlando Cabrera was in position to field the ball cleanly, but the ball hit the bag and rerouted, allowing two runs to score. The next batter, Jason Giambi, slugged a three-run homer.

"If that ball didn't hit the bag yesterday, we would be talking about the positives of [Carmona] having back-to-back good outings," Acta said. "Does he bear some responsibility for walking the ninth hitter with two outs and nobody on? He does. But before then, he was throwing the ball so well and he expressed to me that he feels physically and mentally better than in 2007."

Carmona (4-9, 6.17 ERA) has allowed four or more runs in eight consecutive starts. In the three outings before he was sent to Arizona in 2009, he gave up 19 runs (16 earned) in 7 1/3 innings for a 19.64 ERA.

"Talking about the fundamental side, I feel fine," Carmona said through an interpreter after Monday's loss. "I'm working, I'm doing stuff, I'm making pitches, but I'm not getting the results I want. But I don't feel like I felt in 2009."

In Monday's outing, he yielded a run in the first inning and six in the fifth, but faced the minimum in the three frames in between. Acta took that as a signal that Carmona isn't far from ridding his demons.

"Our pitching guys feel that he's actually on the way to snapping out of it," Acta said. "It was just one big, ugly inning."

Acta said pitching coach Tim Belcher plans to work closely with Carmona before his next start, which is scheduled for Sunday.

"'Belch' might have found something," Acta said. "He's going to work with him on his side day [Wednesday]."

At this juncture, since Carmona is out of options, so are the Indians.

"We're not thinking about doing anything with him right now," Acta said. "It obviously has its limitations by the fact that he's out of options. Not too long ago, he threw 210 innings with a below-4.00 ERA in the American League. Those guys don't grow on trees.

"I know that everybody loves to go by, 'What have you done for me lately?' But you can't go by that approach all the time."