The Tigers led most of the way, but Cleveland struck early and often in extras.
There’s a line in Bull Durham in which, on a bus, a hyped-up Nuke LaLoosh exclaims to Crash Davis, “I love winnin’, man! … You know what I’m sayin’? It’s, like, better than losing?!” Well, the Guardians tied Saturday’s game late and scored a bunch of runs in the tenth inning; the Tigers tried to come back but it was too little and too late, as the visitors took the third game too, 7-5 in ten innings. Ol’ Nuke was right — and it especially stings to lose to a division rival.
Casey Mize, just coming off a stint on the IL for a hamstring strain, made his eighth start of the season for the Tigers. Even if you don’t think the “win” statistic for a pitcher is worth a hill of beans, it’s still pretty fun when a Tiger leads the league in that category; Mize had six coming into tonight’s contest, accompanied by a mid-2 ERA and a WHIP just over 1. That’s all very nice, but could he help to stop the Tigers’ losing streak? (Narrator: He did his best.)
Luis L. Ortiz — obviously not to be confused with Luis F. Ortiz — made his tenth start for Cleveland. He spent parts of the previous three years in Pittsburgh, going back and forth between the rotation and bullpen. He’ll typically strike out a bunch but has had problems with the walks, although he’ll get a few more ground balls than your average pitcher.
Kerry Carpenter got a hold of a fastball and crushed a deep double to right-centre to lead off the bottom of the first, and Gleyber Torres followed with a walk. Colt Keith then doubled to right to score Carpenter and push Torres up to third base. With two outs Zach McKinstry walked to load the bases, and Matt Vierling smashed a liner down the right field line on the first pitch to score Torres and Keith. Now, Vierling did get himself thrown out at second trying to stretch a single into a double, but hey, it was 3-0, a nice change from the previous two days.
Cleveland got its first hit and first run in the third with a Bo Naylor solo home run to right, narrowing the lead to 3-1. An error, a walk and a José Ramírez double later, it was a 3-2 game.
A nearly-identical situation to the bottom of the second arose in the bottom of the third: the bases were loaded for Vierling with two outs. Alas, the second such instance wasn’t quite so fruitful as he hit a routine grounder to third for the final out of the frame, and Squiggy the Squander Squid (pictured below) made his presence very thoroughly felt.
Photo By MICHAEL MACOR/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
In the top of the fifth with two outs and the speedy Lane Thomas on first base, Mize faced the dangerous Ramírez again but managed to coax a weak grounder to first out of him this time. That turned out to be the end of Mize’s night; for his first start back after being on the shelf, he wasn’t going to have a particularly long outing. His final line was 5 IP, 4 H, 2 R (1 ER), 1 BB, 6 K. I’ll take that for now.
Brant Hurter, who’s been just as good this year as he was last year (which is saying a lot), started the sixth and gave up a one-out double to Carlos Santana but stranded him with a strikeout and a routine flyout.
Tommy Kahnle came into the game with two out in the seventh and Steven Kwan on first, inducing a popup to second to end the inning. He carried through to the top of the eighth where he immediately ran into trouble: a pair of singles put runners on the corners with none out in a one-run game. After a foul out, a weak ground ball was hit to first base; Spencer Torkelson came home but couldn’t get Ramírez who broke for home on contact, and it was a 3-3 game. A single to right loaded the bases but the score remained tied, and another popup resulted in the second out. Will Vest was then unceremoniously shoved into this bases-loaded situation, and got a grounder to second base to end the threat.
In the bottom of the eighth Torres worked a leadoff walk against the tough Cade Smith. Alas, Smith then did what he did the previous night: struck out three guys. The at-bats from Keith, Greene, and Torkelson were pretty ugly as well.
Vest stayed in the game to pitch the ninth and he got Kwan, Thomas and Ramírez out on six pitches with no drama. NAILS.
Tim Herrin relieved Smith to start the bottom of the ninth, and he struck out Justyn-Henry Malloy, got Vierling to fly out to centre, and Javier Báez struck out to head things to extras.
Brenan Hanifee took over for the tenth with Ramírez on second; Kyle Manzardo smacked a double to left to score Ramírez for a 4-3 Cleveland lead, their first of the game. Santana walked, then Angel Martínez singled to score Manzardo for a 5-3 lead with nobody out. Bo Naylor hit a sacrifice fly to put Cleveland up 6-3, and Nolan Jones singled to put them up 7-3.
Emmanuel Clase came on for the bottom of the tenth, and while he isn’t invincible anymore, he’s still pretty darn tough. Báez started the inning on second, Jake Rogers struck out, but after Andy Ibáñez was plunked, Torres smacked a double to left that scored a pair for a 7-5 score… which was the first hit for the Tigers since the third inning. (Yikes.)
Keith then popped out to third for the second out, and Riley Greene hit the first pitch he saw to second for the game-ending groundout.
The final game of the four-game series, which Cleveland has now won, is an extra-early Sunday game at 11:35 am EDT.
Numbers, News and Observances
- Javier Báez, May 4 through May 13 (31 plate appearances): 11-for-29, .379 batting average, 1.075 OPS. Yay!
- Javier Báez, May 14 through May 23 (29 PA): 5-for-28, .179 BA, .528 OPS. Yikes!
- Miguel Cabrera’s going to play one more season in the Venezuelan League this fall and winter for his hometown team. That’s fun.
- On this day in 1935 the first night game in Major League Baseball was played at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Reds beat the Phillies , 2-1.