Tribe Weekend Recap: Mercifully It’s Over

Most of you have already forgotten the Indians were still playing. Goes hand in hand with the classic quote from Major League.

“Right here in Cleveland? I didn’t know they still had a team.”

“Yep, we’ve got uniforms and everything.” – Jake Taylor

Heading into the weekend, the Wahoo Warriors were on a six game winning-streak, tied for their longest of the season. They had a chance to go out with a bang. Instead, they lost two of three and gave literally everyone on the roster a chance in the process. No skin off of their backs, the Indians clinched fourth place with their win Friday night, saving Manny Acta from finishing below the Kansas City Royals.

“It’s important to me,” said manager Manny Acta when talking about fourth place. “It’s very important. Last is a four-letter word that carries a lot of weight. Now these guys don’t have to carry that around with them.”

Never heard somebody sound so excited to finish in fourth have you? Well, we have to take baby steps here in our dying city. You must take the good with the bad. Sure, LeBron is gone, the Continental/United merger is going to cost us our airport hub, inconveniencing all of us in the process, and Brian Windhorst – the best NBA beat man in the business – has left for ESPN.com’s new “Heat Index” page, but we’ve got a fourth place baseball team!

In all seriousness, I think the Indians have a lot to look forward to next season, year two of Acta Ball. The seven game winning streak over the final two weeks of the season is an indicator that this team didn’t just pack it up and mail it in. They continued to play hard for their manager and fought hard to the end. That’s a tribute to their leader.

So in case you missed it (and judging by STO’s weekend numbers, you did), here is what we learned over the final weekend of the MLB season.

Shin Soo Choo finishes a near perfect season with a day off. On the seventh day, he rested. Choo is the best player the Indians have. There is no doubt about that. After going 1-3 in a rain shortened 6-2 Saturday night loss in Chicago, Choo’s batting average sat right at .300.

Acta spoke out loud about wanting to let him sit so he could finish with that .300 average, a benchmark for Major League players. “He loves to play. Whatever I do in that regard (giving him Sunday off), I’ll do it at my own discretion.” In the end, Choo sat out the 6-5 Sunday afternoon loss.

The Tribe right-fielder spoke yesterday. “Manny said after Saturday’s game, ‘If Kansas City loses, you’re not playing Sunday,'” said Choo. “Wedgie did the same thing last year. I told Manny, ‘Don’t worry about my batting average. If I hit .300, I hit .300. If I don’t, I don’t.'”

So he’s humble, and he’s good.

On the season, in 144 games, Choo hit .300 with 22 home runs and 90 RBI’s. He stole 22 bases, had an on-base percentage of .401 and an OPS of .885.

The good news is that he is under the Indians control for three more seasons.

Fausto closes strong. The Indians don’t really have an “ace” per se. The  closest thing they have is the big right-hander who spent part of last season re-inventing himself in Arizona.

On Friday night, Fausto Carmona won his 13th game of the season by going six innings and allowing two earned runs, striking out seven and walking just one. He had thrown just 93 pitches and would have loved to go out there for the seventh, but his manager thought he deserved a rest.

“He wasn’t that happy,” said Acta. “He was trying to fight me for one more inning. He’s had enough. He’s thrown over 200 innings. He’s done enough for us this year.”

Said Carmona, “I said, ‘Manny, come on, let me go one more. He said, ‘no, no, no.’ ”

The Indians offense gave him all he needed in the top of the first inning Saturday night. To start the game, Michael Brantley doubled, Asdrubal Cabrera doubled, and Choo homered. They would get three more in the third cinching the W for Carmona.

“I’m glad to see Fausto finish the year this way,” said Manny Acta. “He’s been very consistent for us all year. Tonight, he once again put us in position to win.”

The Sunday afternoon carousel. OK, a show of hands on how many people watched Sunday’s Tribe/White Sox game……

I didn’t either.

But reading the articles and knowing the plan leading up to the game, it would have been fun to see the pitching showcase Acta was planning for. Justin Germano, who has done an excellent job out of the pen since his call-up July 30th, got the start. The hope was to get three innings out of him, before going to everyone else available in the pen.

The Germanator didn’t oblige, getting lit up for five runs on seven hits in two innings, but that just meant Acta got another reliever a chance to get some work. Aaron Laffey was next. He was followed by Frank Herrmann, Joe Smith, Tony Sipp, Justin Masterson, and Vinny Pestano. Only Vincenzo in the ninth allowed a run in the 6-5 loss.

It was a microcosm of the season for the bullpen, who had its best season since 2007. “A lot of the guys in the bullpen got their confidence back by throwing strike one,” said Acta. “Guys like Raffie Perez started slowly, but little by little he got his confidence back. Then Chris Perez made a huge contribution by just stabilizing that last inning and helping everything fall into place.”

The Tribe should have plenty of good options for next year’s pen, something we will be touching on in the days to come in my Tribe 2010 recap series.

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A personal note. Being the Tribe “recap guy” is not the easiest job in the world (because they are a doormat team), but its something I love to do. Things are always easier and more fun when the team is winning and everyone is talking Tribe, but I’m just as interested win or lose.

I wanted to thank all of you who read, commented, bashed, or enjoyed the daily Tribe minutia spewed out by yours truly. Lets hope 2011 is better than 2010.

It has to be, doesn’t it? (p.s. This is the LAST TIME you will ever see a photo of Andy Marte in an Indians uniform, I promise).

(AP Photo/Paul Beaty)