On Lee, Mastny, Underwood, and Manning

As the calendar cranks slowly towards August now is as good of time as any to reflect upon what we’ve learned about the Indians thus far. Here are three things that appeared in stark relief during Saturday’s Indians game.

1) Cliff Lee is a monument to mediocrity standing atop a solid base of inconsistency. In each of his last three starts he has had an inning in which he’s given up five runs. Not good. Those who’ve followed Lee over the past few seasons are well aware that he is awfully prone to imploding in one inning (usually the fourth or fifth). Against the Rangers he decided that he might as well get that ugly inning out of the way as soon as possible; hence the five runs he surrendered in the bottom of the first. He promptly followed the first inning implosion with a run of 6+ innings of rather impressive work. That, in a nutshell, is Cliff Lee.

About twice a season he’ll put together a string of nine such excellent innings. In so doing he adopts the role of the tease and converts a few more fans to join the “Yeah, But When He Puts It All Together…” Fan Club. But those few starts are more than outweighed by the times he gives up six runs in 5+ innings, leaving two on before exiting. Lee has an average fastball he throws inconsistently but regularly and it’s the type of fastball that opposing hitters enjoy depositing in the bleachers in left-center field. He’s like Fernando Cabrera, only if Cabrera were never staggeringly excellent. At some point you have to wonder if Lee could lose his job to one of the young arms in the minors. With each start it seems more likely, although as the season inches closer to October and the Indians remain entrenched in a battle to make the playoffs you have to question how wise it would be to give every fifth start to an unseasoned player. Jason Stanford has never been an answer to any question, but he might be the temporary solution to the Cliff Lee Conundrum.

2) Tom Mastny is incapable of getting through an inning without loading the bases. He was the last person to make the roster coming out of spring training and he is still young, which is to say that one shouldn’t be concerned about his long-term prospects. But in the short-term the Indians bullpen has 2.67 quality pitchers. Right now Mastny is the guy Wedge turns to in the seventh when the team needs to stay close, which is just one of the many reasons why it’s a problem that he is always loading the bases. For every time he gets out of the jam (Boston) he puts the game out of reach (Rangers). Again, not good.

3) Matt Underwood and Rich Manning make one atrocious, putrid booth. (1) Here is one Underwood complaint: He cannot make a home run call to save his life. When the homer is a no-doubter he makes the homer sound like a no-doubter, which is to say that his excitement is in proportion to the likelihood of the hit being a homer. When the homer is a maybe-maybe-yes-gone! homer he constantly sounds surprised, as if as soon as the ball crosses the fence Manning elbows him to let him know to make the call. Then you have the not-quite-a-homer hit, which Underwood calls as if it’s going to be a homer…and then it’s not (which is what you want in the maybe-maybe call). So he sounds the most awake and excited when the Indians almost hit a homer and the least awake and excited when an Indian crushes the ball. That’s one complaint. A second complaint is that he often misses calls, which is the cardinal sin of play by play guys.

Rich Manning, meanwhile, is a curmudgeon. He is surly and crotchety old man. He is smug without reason and his smugness is incredibly unbecoming. Here is a Manning complaint: Manning speaks down to his audience.

Take for example the second game of the Rangers series. Carmona reached the 8th inning with just under 100 pitches. He had a three-hit shutout going and he had basically plowed through the Rangers. While Carmona was busy striking people out Underwood was asking about the possibility of Carmona pitching the 9th inning. After all, Carmona was on the verge of a shutout. The bullpen had been overworked against the White Sox in the previous series. Carmona still looked dominant. Why not send him out there in the ninth?

Seems like a fair question — and it is. So of course Manning dismissed it outright. He denied the importance of the complete game, saying that it was something players don’t pay attention to, implying that it’s just a statistic for the uninformed fan. (2) Thanks for the dis! Carmona was going to finish the 8th with over 100 pitches and, according to Manning, sending him back out in the ninth was out of the question. Right here I was wishing Manning would have taken the opportunity to discuss the 100 pitch threshold — why is 100 pitches important? Maybe use his platform to positively affect a fan’s understanding of the game. But instead of an even-handed explanation of why it would be a bad idea to send Carmona out to pitch the ninth Manning belittled Underwood for asking the question and, by extension, the portion of his audience who wondered if Carmona might pitch a shutout. Spectacular!

Here is a second complaint: Manning constantly bemoans today’s wild technological advances — email! cell phones! the internet! — as if these things are for people of a lesser vintage. He thinks being detached somehow raises him above the fray when in reality being detached makes him look like an fuddling dope. Sometimes I wish he’d just shut up. Other times I wish he’d just head back to the 1970s (except in the 1970s Carmona would have absolutely gone out to pitch the 9th — no doubt about it).

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So the Indians have Underwood and Manning. The Cavs have a slew of really bad announcers. The Browns get stuck with CBS’s fourth or fifth announcing team (which sadly no longer includes Gus Johnson). How can a city as sports-crazy as Cleveland get stuck with such bad television broadcasts? Fortunately we have the radio, I guess. Tom Hamilton and Joe Tait are fantastic. Jim Donovan is fine (and needs to stick Browns radio).

fn 1: Occasionally my blog posts are republished on Swerb’s Blurbs. Swerb’s Blurbs regularly submits content for the “Morning Coffee” portion of the SportsTime Ohio website. What are the chances this blog post a) gets picked up by Swerb’s Blurbs and b) gets published on the STO site? I say 0% and 0%.

fn 2: It’s hard to believe that a professional athlete would not want a complete game shutout. I’m certain that Carmona would have appreciated the achievement; it’s the sort of thing that can be pointed to during contract negotiations.

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