CLEVELAND, Ohio When you always manage by the book, the book might as well manage.

The numbers that once defined baseball immortality -- such as 500 career home runs or 60 homers in a season -- were cheapened by steroid cheats. In their place came "sabermetrics," new statistics devised by specialized analysis. Some of the concepts could probably be understood only by Bill James, the godfather of baseball figure filberts, and maybe Stephen Hawking.

All this fomented the information revolution in baseball that was popularized in the book and movie "Moneyball."

But when numbers rule the actual playing of the game, it becomes a kingdom of conformists. The stats enforce a safe orthodoxy. Woe betide the man who thinks for himself or the manager who plays a hunch. He'd better be right, because there is safety in numbers.

It is rare that someone goes with a gut feeling, or risks the second-guessing that comes with independent thought.

Take Indians manager Manny Acta's allegiance to pitch counts. The Indians were in the forefront of the numbers-crunching revolutions, but one must ask whether they have let guidelines harden into boundaries.

"Compulsory figures" used to be a term in figure skating, when numbers actually had to be carved into the ice. Perhaps the "compulsory figures" in baseball today are pitch counts.

In the season opener Thursday, Acta used closer Chris Perez in the ninth inning, and Perez ignited the fireball that consumed a 4-1 lead. The manager basically said Perez is the closer, so why deviate from the normal practice?

All sorts of objections could have been made, including Perez's rehab time in spring training after hurting himself by overthrowing, and the skimpy three appearances he made against big-league hitters after recovering.

But Acta also argued that starter Justin Masterson already had thrown 99 pitches.

Read more:
Baseball managers need more guts, less numbers: Bill Livingston