Written by Nino Colla

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...Ahhh...What the heck Charlie Furbush?

 

September 19th, 2011

Seattle Mariners - 12

Cleveland Indians - 6

W: Charlie Furbush (4-9) L: David Huff (2-6)

 

[BOXSCORE]

 

So wait, did David Huff get out-pitched by Charlie Furbush, or did Charlie Furbush just suck less? Or did Charlie Furbush just spread out his suck?

Or what the heck. How do you classify this game?

 

Charlie Furbush? Really now? I'm not really sure what to say about this. You give up 12 runs to the Mainers and it wasn't even a full nine-inning game? Heck, you gave up nine runs, NINE runs, in one inning.

 

Do we even have to go over this. I feel like the balloon I filled up yesterday was popped abruptly. It was nice. I feel like a little kid, that just got a brand new shiny balloon. And Ichiro walked by and popped it with his Charlie Furbush needle.

 

Are you serious?

 

Manny Acta called it a very ugly day. It was ugly. It rained. Rain is ugly most of the time. What was uglier? David Huff or the rain? Not saying David Huff is ugly himself, but his pitching was. Okay wait hold on. I don't have many astute observations because I saw an inning of this game before the rain ended it.

 

"I left some balls up and over the middle and got hit hard," Huff said. "Even when I was down they got some lucky hits, some bloop singles... It was really frustrating. I'm really disappointed in myself."

 

Oh here we go. I hope Huff isn't falling into that crap he was when he went down that road where he got into Acta's doghouse. He is blaming himself though, so I don't think we have to worry about that. However I'm a bit puzzled at him saying something about "stupid pitch selection." Is he not listening to his catcher? Why would Huff be calling the pitches? Why would he feel the need to shake Lou Marson off?

 

Did Marson call a bad game? Doubt it.

 

Huff really handcuffed the bullpen. Even though the roster is expanded and most of everyone has been called up from Columbus and the bullpen has a lot of arms, this is no time to be doing this. There is a double header today and another one later this week. You need to at least go five in order to not stretch the pen so much.

 

Random Details...

 

Carlos Santana is on one heck of a roll right now, is he not? He hit 26 yesterday, going back-to-back with Asdrubal Cabrera who hit his 23rd.

 

If it seems like Santana has homered in like, every game lately, that's probably because he has. He's five home runs in the past seven games. More than that he's knocked in nine runs in the past eight games. Santana is on a level that we expected him to be at all season. Now the expectations isn't for him to do this consistently all season, but this was the type of production, or the type of spurt we had expected of him at some point.

 

Plainly put. This is the dangerous Carlos Santana we were hoping for all year. We finally got him. He's finishing this season really strong and it is really nice to see him finally put it together. When you look at this season at a whole right now... I think i'd take a catcher/first baseman that hits 25+ home runs, will knock in 85-100 runs, score 80+, and get on base at a .350ish clip. He can strike out 100 times if he wants and hit .240, but if he produces those types of production numbers, I'm good. Sure he is capable of more with the bat.

 

In fact, that's one thing that he was all about in the minors. Granted that incredibly high average isn't going to always translate as the power numbers grow, but you can expect more than a .240 average I think. You can probably hope for him to cut down on the strikeouts. But hey, he is going to finish with over 100 walks. His ratio of walks to strikeouts is what you really need to look at. And it is far better than what anyone else on the club will sport.

 

Something going unnoticed is the performance of Jason Donald. He was back in the two-spot and he collected three hits and scored a pair of runs. He's really taken off in September here, having some real good games and producing a real solid bat in a utility type position. The Indians are going to need someone like him off the bench. They've always looked at him as an above average utility player and with Chisenhall and Kipnis really looking like the future, Donald is looking like a really good bench option.

 

To have someone who could probably start on some teams as a backup? Yes please.

 

[RANDOM RUNDOWN]

 

It will be Zach McAllister coming up to start the second game of the double header today. This is the starting point for Z-Mac to make his case.With a rotation spot or two likely up for grabs, no one is out of the question in my mind.

 

"Obviously the year he had in Triple-A, he has to be given consideration [for next year]," Manny Acta said. "That said, it hasn't translated up here. We need to see better than we've seen the last two outings."

 

Acta is totally right. He's got to start doing it up here when called upon. He's made a few start for the Indians in spot duty, so it is hard to say, "Hey come on now..." But it would be nice if he had a few starts up here to end the season just to kind of see him get some consistency and see if he has it.

 

Also announced, Josh Tomlin. It would appear that he is going to be penciled in to start one of the game's on Saturday. This is actually a little worrisome. I know I originally said I'd like to see him back to at least prove he is healthy. But man, there seems to be some bad karma going on this season regardless in terms of injuries. I just hope he's okay.

 

"For me, it's huge," he said. "I want to compete, and I want to go into the offseason knowing everything is fine, health-wise, so I can have that calm about me."

 

Tomlin has to pass the test of throwing a simulated game today first. If all goes well, he'll start one game in the double-header and one game only. That will be it. Acta said that even though it is one start, the Indians are not "in the business" of shutting down healthy guys without a reason.

 

Acta seemed pretty confident that everything was good and if he goes through the simulated game, he'll hit the last check-point one would need to go through to start pitching again. Cross your fingers folks. Let's not get a bad break again. The season is almost over anyway. The injury gods have mercy on us, right?

 

With Hannahan out, Lonnie Chisenhall has been able to pretty much command the third base spot in the stretch here and he's starting to get it. Jason Kipnis came up and was lightning from the get-go. For Chisenhall, it's taken a little bit more time, but he's settling in.

 

"I know I feel better at the plate," he said. "When you go out there and get your chance, you've got to play well. Fortunately I've been swinging the bat well the last seven to 10 days. I'm happy with the direction I'm headed in right now."

The buggaboo for Chisenhall has been lefties. With Cleveland he's actually hit five of his seven home runs off the left-handed hitters. His average is lower than it is against right-handers, but his average is low as a whole to begin with. He has 10 hits total against lefties, so half of his hits have gone over the fence.

 

If the power is there, then you have to feel good about him getting the rest of it at some point.

 

All in all, it's nice to have no questions at third, second, or short going into next season. Those guys are young, but it is looking like you can count on Chisenhall and Kipnis to be parts going into next year. And if they one-up that and go from parts, to keys, then, hey, even better.

 

Pretty cool story about Jim Thome receiving a Charlie Manuel bat from his playing days. It isn't an instance where Charlie gave him the bat, but actually a reporter for a Japanese broadcasting group finding the bat, asking Manuel if it was okay, and giving it to Thome.

 

I know if I say, "Kelly Kelly was wearing a Lou Marson jersey" most of you would probably say....

 

Why did you say "Kelly Kelly" so matter of factly rather than, "who is Kelly Kelly" or "why are they named twice?" Look, I do my research. 

 

As is usually the case, when a big WWE (that's wrestling) event comes to a city, there's usually members of a sprots team there. Travis Hafner is a huge fan as we all know by now, so he was no doubt there with Trevor Crowe and some others. According to Crowe, who tweeted a pic of Kelly Kelly (that's a female wrestler), she was wearing a Marson jersey.

 

It could be Crowe just being funny, or she really is wearing Lou Marson of all players. On a side note, one wrestler, Jerry Lawler is a big Indians fan and actually is friend with Pronk.

 

Think when they re-scheduled that Mariners game for this off-day, they scheduled it early just so Pronk could go to WWE Raw last night? Maybe. What I'm more concerned about is the fact that Kelly Kelly was wearing the old road jersey. Someone get that girl an updated jersey damnit.

 

I've now wasted entirely too much time on this topic. But you enjoyed it more than the game yesterday. Don't lie, you did.

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You can read more Morning Rundown and other features on Nino's blog, The Tribe Daily.

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