CLEVELAND – It’s not the way Manny Acta wanted it to play out, but the second-year Indians manager said it didn’t take him long to turn the page on a disappointing 15-10 loss Friday to the White Sox on Opening Day at Progressive Field.
“We’re in baseball,” said Acta, whose club trailed 14-0 after just four innings. “We know that you have to get ready for the next day. You try to put it behind you the best way you can and get ready for the next day.”
What Acta will remember from the loss is his young team’s refusal to buckle despite facing an insurmountable deficit. The Indians scored 10 runs over the final four innings to make it somewhat respectable.
“I’ve seen so many occasions where teams roll over when they’re down 14-0,” Acta said. “They didn’t do that. That was encouraging. I think we will see that a lot this year.”
Something else Acta is expected to see a lot are losses. The Indians are coming off consecutive 90-loss seasons and have dropped the first two games of the year.
Wounded Wahoos
Grady Sizemore (microfracture surgery left knee) played center field for five innings Friday, going 1-for-3 in a minor league game in Goodyear, Ariz. He is expected to play again today and will increase his innings count to a full game before the Indians decide whether to bring him to Ohio for a minor league rehab assignment. If all goes well, Sizemore could return at the end of April.
** Reliever Joe Smith (strained abdominal) threw a simulated game Friday in Goodyear. The next step is to pitch in a real one – a minor league appearance – which is expected to come sometime next week.
** Third baseman Jason Donald (left hand fracture) took groundballs at Progressive Field, and according to Acta, will start swinging a bat by Monday. Acta said Donald might begin a minor league rehab assignment when the team is on the road for six games, beginning Friday.
Buckin’ up
It didn’t take Acta long to get outfielder Travis Buck into the lineup, with the Indians’ hottest hitter this spring starting in left Saturday.
Buck, who won an extra outfielder job with an impressive offensive effort during the exhibition season – .393, 4 HRs, 12 RBIs in 20 games – went 1-for-4 with a double and a run in his 2011 debut.
Acta said left field is not a platoon situation between the left-handed hitting Buck and the right-handed hitting Austin Kearns. He said he would decide who would start on a day-to-day basis.
Review it
Acta is old school, but he supports MLB’s instant replay, which was instituted at the start of the 2008 season for home run calls only.
“I’m for it,” Acta said. “It’s there, so why not use it.”
Acta got to see it twice in the season opener Friday. A Carlos Quentin two-run shot was upheld in the third inning, as was a two-run homer from Cleveland catcher Carlos Santana in the seventh.
Quentin’s homer was legit, hitting the railing above the yellow home run line in left-center. But Santana’s appeared to deflect off a fan’s glove in front of the line.
“No,” Santana said when asked if he thought it was a home run. “I think I got lucky a little bit.”
Roundin’ third
The 14 runs Chicago scored over the first four innings Friday were the second-most – and a modern-day record – a big league team has scored over the span in a season opener. In the short-lived Players League in 1890, Buffalo scored 16 runs over the first four innings of a 23-2 victory over Cleveland.
** The 10 runs allowed by Fausto Carmona on Opening Day tie for the most allowed in a season-opening game since 1919. The 10 runs over three innings were the most in major league history allowed by a pitcher in three innings or less in a season opener.
Contact Chris Assenheimer at 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com.
