Morning Rundown: The Long and Winding Road...Trip

Oh that battling thing again... Whatever. Seddon battled, the Indians tried, in the end it didn't matter because after Seddon exited was when the real fun began.

What this boiled down to was Travis Hafner coming up with the big hits. From the one late to the later home run blast. Almost as if he was celebrating in his first game back since the birth of his second son. Then Chris Perez blowing it in the 10th in a big way.

Hafner was huge and the Perez blowup was even bigger. It was the first time he found some of sort of harsh ending to a game against Detroit. But look at this.

Perez last pitched on August the 2nd against Kansas City and he threw four pitches. He threw nine the day before that. He's hardly sharp. The last time he got a save situation July 26th.

Not going to make an excuse for him in anyway. But he wasn't sharp in this one. 

Perez takes blame for it. I'm not going to make excuses, but this is what it is. When you go on a nine game skid like this, when you are playing the way you are playing, this stuff happens. Your closer isn't sharp, you go up three runs in the 10th and all of a sudden, I'm not shocked if the Indians were in a situation where they were shocked to be in that situation.

It's really going to take something for the Indians to get over this whole thing. This is the crap they are being fed and right now, they are taking it and taking it. They'll need to decide as a team when they don't want to take it anymore because the offense can come out and do their part, but the pitching may not cooperate. The pitching may come out and do something but the hitting may not.

This team is not playing well. As it said in the headline, the pitching, the hitting, struggling. It's a two sided coin. Until they do both of those things right in one game, they're not going to win and they're going to have to continue to eat the crap they're fed.

It has nothing to do with Perez, Hafner, Seddon, anyone on this team by themselves. It has to do with the sort of stench that is following them as they continue to ride this losing streak and that is all there is to it.

Random Details...

Ezequiel Carrera with three more hits in his third game with the club this year. He's not got seven on the season. It took 10 games for Johnny Damon just to get to that total. So there's that. Carrera is clearly a better defender at this point in his career than Damon is, but that didn't stop Zeke from having his issues in this series. Acta loves him as a defender, and he's got speed, but that doesn't mean he's really good. He has a lot of room for improvement in that aspect. It is good to see him getting on base though because when he can do that, he can create opportunities.

Lou Marson has been on a rough stretch and he finally broke out of it with a single that he tried stretching into a double, but was denied. He did come back later and hit that big double in the 10th that scored a run though.

Brent Lillibridge, three strikeouts, down to .177, excellent.

Other than Perez, can't say enough about the bullpen following Seddon's exit. Allen got a few outs, Sipp got a few, Smith got into a jam that Pestano couldn't get him out of and then there was Josh Tomlin.

He gives up a triple and at that point the only thing I can think of is... Why... Why this way? Can't we just lose in the eighth inning? Do we have to watch them celebrate at home plate like this? Tomlin's going to give up something, he's too much of a contact pitcher not to and unless its right at an infielder, Jackson is surely going to score.

But that wasn't the case as he was able to nail a huge strikeout down in Omar Infante, which allowed him to intentionally walk both Cabrera and Fielder and getting the groundout to Santana to throw home for the easy force is one thing, but to get it back to first to turn the double play, that was just gravy.

And dare I say it propelled the Indians into that big 10th inning. As for what followed, I'm not really sure, but if you did it earlier in the ninth, why wouldn't you do it in the 10th? With Perez throwing to Cabrera, and he not being the winning run, why do you throw to Cabrera with Infante on first?

You put the winning run into scoring position. Which I might do in some circumstances, but with Prince Fielder on deck, you might as well pick your poison. Sure you can walk the bases loaded again if you want, easier to get out of with two outs, but at that point, you need to win. You have one more relief pitcher left. If you get out of the inning, great, you may have a chance, but your chances are decreasing. You can't keep putting people on and expect to get out of the jam.

Sooner or later, those guys that you are telling "we don't respect you" will beat you and make you look like fools. And sooner or later you just need to beat the best. If Chris Perez is your best, then you might as well go after their best with your best. That's all there is to it. You can blame Acta all you want, but that's the reality of it.

[DESIGNATED DAMON]

Remember when we questioned as to what Johnny Damon was getting at when he was talking about being let go if the Indians fell out? Was it retirement? Did he start to hear the footsteps of the baseball grim reaper coming for his career? Perhaps he knew what was going to happen if things would continue to falter for the Indians or even if they didn't, if he continued to scuffle, regardless of where Grady Sizemore was in his...whatever he is doing now.

Turns out he was just flat out right. The Indians are ready to move forward with younger options as they play out their season, competition or not and it already looks like it is the right decision to designate Johnny Damon for assignment.

"We had to make a tough decision," Acta said. "Johnny is just first class. He made an impact on a lot of people here, despite not performing the way he was expecting and how we were expecting. I can only imagine how much impact he could've made here if he would've performed better. He gave everything he had. He was really helpful to some of our young kids. He was a total pro about it."

"I was looking at it [on Saturday] night," Acta said. "Out of the five guys we started the season with, I wasn't anticipating that one was going to get released, one was going to be sent down to Triple-A, one was going to have to be put in [the] bullpen and, at some point, the five of them would have a 5.00 ERA. That's not the way I think. That's not the way anyone should be going into the season thinking. We were positive going in. [I thought the rotation would] at least be better than it had been in the past. I was anticipating that either guys were going to pitch as good, or better."