Morning Rundown: Another Eight for the Road; Tribe's DH Future

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The loss was indeed the first of the season for Vinnie Pestano, showing you just how good he's been and how he hasn't really surrendered many leads. He's also not had the need to come into many tie games and when he has given up the lead, the Indians have managed to get him off the hook in the few times it has happened.

This was the third straight start for McAllister that was decent and other than the less-than-two inning, nine run bombing (of which two only counted as earned runs), he's really turned in nothing but quality outings, going at least five innings in every start and only then he's only failed to go six innings four times, just three since he's been a full-time starter.

Typically Asdrubal Cabrera and Shin-Soo Choo kill their former team in Seattle. Cabrera's line as it stands is .296 average with four homers and 18 RBI in 41 games. Choo in 39 games has hit .293 with eight home runs and 26 RBI.

Together in this series? A combined 5-for-23 with one RBI. That's not good any series, and it is probably a reason you only scored five runs the entire series. 

And the offense has been so bad in the past six games, they've scored just 14 runs. That's 2.3 runs per game. That's, simply not cutting it when you're giving up over five runs per game, which they did in the last six games. 

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I don't particularly like talking about the slump or the losing streak or any of that. To me, it's just losses. At this point in the season, it really matters little if you win or lose. Of course it would be nice to win for morale's sake, but I'm more concerned with seeing good performances. Of course good performances would lead to more winning, so I guess in the end, the losses mean nothing, because either way, I'm not really seeing what I'd like to see.

But I guess in it all, there is Manny Acta. I know some have been calling for his head, which to me is completely insane. Acta is a good leader of men and teacher of players. He knows the game, like most managers do, and he uses logic in his reasoning for decisions he's made. He'll also always own up to his mistakes and the team's pitfalls.

But he's also stern and willing to dish out the criticism when it is deserved. I think he's a good leader for this team and would take him to manage my squad any day. What has to be said about him during this second-half falling out is how he's managed to somehow get his team to still play for him. And don't forget how he got a team of really mediocre, compared to their competition, talented players to play above their ceiling and lead the division.

"It's challenging to keep them motivated even when you're going good," Acta said on Wednesday. "It's a big amount of people. This is not a basketball roster. It is a challenge, but in this type of situation, yeah, it is harder, especially because you don't have that many veterans on the team."

Acta says one of the ways he does it is to show up on the next day the same he did on the last one and prepare to put his team in a game. He's losing sleep, but he's doing what he can and he says he's doing the best he can.

And really, if I'm here to pick sides, because I've seen a lot of that lately, I'm picking Manny Acta's over management. If there's a him or me case, I'm taking me because Acta is doing what he can with what he's given. He's been given a group of players that play hard and are good people and some are talented. But it isn't sufficient to do what people want him to do. It isn't his fault and I hate to see him take the blame for it.

One thing the team will have to evaluate is what they want to do with the Designated Hitter position. It really is a luxury to have it in the AL if you can use it to effectively rotate people and keep bats in the lineup where as they would normally get a day off. Some teams, like Kansas City use it for a guy who is good offensively, but not really a fit anywhere on defense with Billy Butler. And then you have teams like the Indians and Red Sox, who have guys who are pretty much the last of a dying breed, the full-time DH because quite frankly, they're either too hurt to play a position or simply, suck.

"It all depends on your options," Acta said. "Ideally, down the road, that's the way the majority of the teams are moving forward, where they can have a guy that can play a position on the field and they can rotate guys through there and keep them fresh. But if you have an ideal guy to be there, to be a force in your lineup, I wouldn't be opposed to that. You just have to weigh your options and go from there."

While I wouldn't rule it out, I think it is all but unlikely Travis Hafner returns to the Indians next year. It will not be easy for me to have to part with dear Pronky, and heck a few years ago, I might have had a fit over this and denied the very real likelihood the Indians let him walk. But it seems like, just reading into Acta's quote a bit, the Indians are going to start shifting to the current model. With a guy like Carlos Santana especially and people like Shelley Duncan, it makes more sense to use it as a rotation spot and fill it regularly with someone like Duncan who isn't horrible defensively, but is more useful because of his bat.

Manny Acta says that it is quite simple. The reason Ubaldo Jimenez is surrendered a career high number of home run balls is because he's behind in the count. There is a reason they call 2-0 and 3-1 hitters counts. It's likely you throw a fastball to them and they know that, so they're going to hack. 

"It's crazy," Jimenez said. "I don't know what it is. I guess it's just that every time I fall behind in the count, I try to throw a fastball in there and they're hacking hard and getting it out of the park."

I wrote my sentence before I even read Ubaldo's quote, no joke.

So the solution is simple then, throw strikes? Right? Yeah of course. Jimenez has that little problem, but what's encouraging is that it never has been a problem. So we know there is a way to correct said issue, it's just a matter of figuring out how and how quickly it can get resolved.

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