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September 9, 2011Clippers Bats Whip Bulls 8-3 to Take a 2-0 Series Lead
September 9, 2011Remember when no matter what button Manny Acta pushed, things always worked out the way he wanted them to? That seems like such a long time ago, doesn’t it? The thing is, it was this season.
The man with the Midas Touch in April and May has gone the other way since.
There really wasn’t a lot to talk about in this matchup between the two teams left in the wake of the buzzsaw that is the Detroit Tigers. The White Sox and Indians now are left to battle to see who is the AL Central runner-up. Its kinda like winning first alternate for queen of the Omega Moo sorority in “Revenge of the Nerds.”
The game really was a reflection of the division actually for the first six and a half innings. A misty rain fell almost throughout the entire game and neither team could muster up much offense. After all, these are two teams that love to strike out.
But here we were in the bottom of the seventh with the score tied at one.
Tribe lefty David Huff, aka “The Rain Man” considering seemingly every time its his turn in the rotation, the skies open up, was pitching well, allowing just one run – a Brent Morel solo shot – on four hits. He opened the frame by walking Alexei Ramirez and giving up a single to Alex Rios. He came back to K catcher Tyler Flowers for a big first out. Next up was Morel, who had already gotten him once before. At 102 pitches, Acta came out of the dugout to get Huff. He called on “The Harvard Heater” Frank Herrrmann, looking at the righty/righty matchup and hoping for a groundball.
Again, if this were April or May, Morel would have hit a tailor-made 6-4-3 inning-ending double play. But this is September people. Morel, who came into the game with three homers on the season, hit his second of the game for a back-breaking three-run shot to put the Sox ahead 4-1.
“Fastball is my best pitch,” Herrmann said. “I’m usually going to live and die with it. I think he knew that. He was obviously swinging early if he got on top of a 95-mph [fastball] up. I’ve got to get that pitch down and give our defense a chance to make a play on it.
But it got worse for the Tribe pen.
Herrmann walked Gordon Beckham and gave up a single to Juan Pierre. Acta had seen enough and called upon the rookie Josh Judy, who was closing in Columbus all season. The first thing Judy did was hit the light-hitting Brent Lillibridge with a pitch to load the bases for the real life Clew Haywood, Paul Konerko – “the biggest Indian killer of them all.”
Its been a big point of discussion every time the Tribe faces the Sox, how do they handle Konerko, who literally seems to own them. They have tried to go right at him. They have tried intentionally walking him. One way or another, the guy always seems to get over on the Tribe.
Judy had no place to put Konerko with the bases loaded, so he had no choice but to give it his best shot. That best shot was deposited into the left field stands for Konerko’s 10th career grand slam.
And why did Acta go with Herrmann and Judy in this situation instead of the Joe Smiths, Vinnie Pestanos and Tony Sipps of the world? “Our main guys have pitched three out of the last four days,” Acta said. “We needed these guys to come in and keep the game close. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do it.”
The Sox took this one 8-1 and moved a game and a half ahead of the Indians for second place in the Central. The Tribe now sits under .500 at 70-71, losers of four straight. It seems like the end of days for the Tribe, but there are still games to be played.
“We’re going to have to get ready,” Acta said, “and try to win a ballgame before we even think about chasing any of the teams in front of us.”
Tonight, they try to break the losing skid by sending Jeanmar Gomez (2-2, 4.11 ERA) to the mound. He faces lefty Mark Buerhle (11-7, 3.34 ERA)
5 Comments
not only has this 4 game losing streak kicked out any hope at the playoffs, but we are getting our respective butts handed to us.
thankfully, this comes at a time where there is football to watch and we can quickly switch over when it’s getting out of hand (hey, don’t judge me).
above .500, 2nd place in the division, good progress from our youngsters – that’s all I ask
@1 – What worries me is how this season is ending. I get the injuries and stuff but man, what a terrible way to close out the season if this continues. There will be plenty to build on going into next year but you would really hope they could turn it around a bit down the stretch.
agreed. never a good reason to get destroyed game after game after game.
Yeah, the individual performances over the last week or so have been less than stellar. I was hoping to see Santana heat up and end somewhere close to his slash line from last year, but that seems less and less likely.
Going into this season I felt there were a lot of questions for this team. Coming out of it, thanks to injuries and bi-polar performances, there’s probably even more. Outside of Masterson, Cabrera, and a few bullpen guys, I see nothing but question marks.
We need a win, not to stay in the race or anything because thats clearly over. But we need a win just for the sake of a win. How devastating would it be for this thing to spiral out of control and the Indians end up with 75 wins or something? A winning record would still be something to hang our hats on and go into the offseason with a positive outlook for 2012.