Morning Rundown: Needing More Than a Fightin' Chance

They fought to get six runs and make sure this wasn't another pack-in job. But is the Royals bullpen really that good? To go out there and do that? I mean, maybe, but damn. They got some decent ERAs over there, some people pitching well. But one hit in five innings? You have to tip your hat to them, but wonder why.

I mean yeah the Indians bullpen practically did the same thing, heck if you count Kluber after the first, they did one hell of a job of a pitching staff to hold things at six from the second inning all the way to the 11th.

But that just makes it more important for the offense to score.

I'm not sure what else to say. Kluber was maybe a little antsy? Who knows, I missed his first disaster inning thanks to class. But I can only imagine that it being his first start (let's not even count last year's relief innings) he was a little jittery.

"The kid had a very rough first inning," Acta said. "But, after that, he gave us a few good innings. I liked what I saw out there. I liked the stuff. I think he can compete up here."

I will give him beyond the first. He did settle down. He had a few clean innings there. But in the fourth he had some issues that were erased on some over-aggressiveness on the basepaths by the Royals and he only got one out in the fifth before Acta yanked him.

So I'm not convinced at anything. I don't think he's as bad as that first inning, but we'll need to see what he's all about in his second start.

Unfortunately his first one got us off on a bad foot and there wasn't anything the Indians could do about it other than tie the game. I mean they put together enough hits and Carlos Santana certainly had himself a game with a two-run shot and two more RBI to pile on to that. But anyone else? The bottom of the lineup went a combined 0-for-12. So the top of the lineup was able to get on and create some of those run scoring opportunities that mostly Santana cashed in on, but the bottom of the lineup, most notably Vinny Rottino, came up dry.

The Santana resurgence has put him at 11 home runs on the year and  in his last 15 games he has six home runs, 16 RBI and is 16-for-49 at the plate. He's definitely entering a good zone, which is important if this offense is going to go forward and do something, anything.

Random Details...

I'm not sure what Manny Acta was thinking by putting Mr. Brent Lillibridge in the two spot for this game. No other option? I mean I know you give Kipnis a day off and need to shift some people around, but... Brent Lillibridge hitting well below .200?

I know I can't question it now that he got two hits and scored a pair of runs, which was excellent on his part, I'm glad he did. But that doesn't make doing it in the first place a smart decision.

During his trot around the bases on the home run, Carlos Santana stopped at second, leading most people to believe that he thought it was a double. Not sure how or why he thought it as the ball cleared the fence, or if he even did. Given the way he was smiling that must have been the case. He did take off his shin protector but he did so exactly at second so it makes me think he thought he doubled.

Either way, I thought it would make for a horrific time on the Tater Tot Tracker, but I was informed because he stopped, Santana's time on the trot is not valid.

I will say that overall the bullpen did a bang up job, but the guy who probably saved the Indians more than anyone was Tony Sipp. I'm not sure if he's all the way back into the form where we can trust him late in games with a lead, but I'm certainly no longer fearful anytime he trots out there, which is significant progress for him from where he was at.

Sipp gave the Indians shutout ball and looked very good in striking out a pair in an out short of two innings of relief. He's also been really good over the past month as the Indians have eased him into situations and all that. He had a 1.93 ERA in July and looks to be returning to the form we've come accustomed to from Sipp.

Not much Chris Perez can do when he comes into a situation like that in the 11th. Again, I'm not even going to bring it up, nor am I going to blame the bullpen. They did their part for more than enough innings, the offense needed to come through for them.

I guess I should point out the 3-for-6 RISP number, which is way better than what we've been seeing. Of course they made their hits count but certainly didn't get enough of those opportunities late when it really was needed.

[CALL TO ARMS]

I purposely did not mention that the Indians had themselves a team meeting prior to the game in going over yesterday's game for a reason.

But they did and it seems like Jason Kipnis is the one that was heavily involved in such as he was the most vocal about it post game.

"The meeting today was a good meeting," Kipnis said. "Stuff was said that needed to be said, but I'm not going to go too deep into it. To have a meeting like that," said Kipnis, "to kind of wake guys up to keep fighting, and come out there and have a guy go first-pitch home run, and first inning [give up] six runs, that can be pretty deflating, especially with the previous five games."

So yeah, when you put it like that, the fighting thing, it was great that they fought. But they didn't fight hard enough to win.

What I do like from this is Jason Kipnis becoming more of a leader. I think Asdrubal Cabrera has really assumed a lot of the vocal leadership part of this team, but he's a Latin guy and I'm not sure how that comes across to the half of the team that doesn't speak Spanish. Asdrubal isn't the most polished with the language, he rarely talks to the media so, he's not the greatest there.

To have someone like Kipnis now step up and be more of a vocal rah-rah guy should help. I'm not sure what  sort of lack of fight was present and who it was present in, but if there was any of it, let's hope Kipnis and the meeting did what needed to be done.

"We still have two months to go," Indians manager Manny Acta said. "Yeah, I understand that losing six in a row doesn't help, but we have plenty of time to go. We need to win one ballgame. We can't be thinking about anything else. Right now, we need to win one ballgame." 

Because that's still true. There are two months left and I know the deficit looks bad. So bad I don't want to go look it up and see if it changed from yesterday based off what happened with the White Sox out of fear it looks worse than it was.

This team has plenty of time if they start playing good baseball. But when you lose six straight, the biggest question of "When is that going to happen?" just lingers around.

If this pep talk meeting type of a thing did what it needed to do and changes things for the better. Great. But will it have come too late? You just lost two straight series to Minnesota and Kansas City. The two worst teams in the division, nay, the entire American League. You might as well be the third worst. In fact, according to win percentage, the Indians are the fourth worst, just ahead of Seattle.

That's the reality of where we are. Yeah there's time left, but if wins don't start happening, that time left will be time the Indians utilize to slip further into the jaws of uncertainty and frustration.

[RANDOM RUNDOWN]

Well, Corey Kluber didn't go over so well in replacing Josh Tomlin, so I can only imagine what we'll get for the Derek Lowe replacement if there's not much of an upgrade there. The Lowe decline is something that is is ultimately very strange and weird. We knew he wasn't as good as he was pitching early on, but I think we also assumed he was bouncing back from his lousy 2011.

So the decline is just, odd.

"I don't have an answer for it," Acta said on Thursday. "I just don't know how it could happen in the middle of the season like that. I know we're all human and we all reach a point, but he was pretty good earlier in the year."

"I need to mix up my times and my holds and try to be as quick to the plate as I can," McAllister said. "I try to slide step and mix up my times. To me, you have to realize who the baserunners are and who you can be a little slower with when they're on base."

"I've got a lot of gloves," said Rottino, who is currently filling a utility role for the Indians. "I have one for catching, one for the outfield, first base, the infield, and I have backups for each. So, maybe eight?"