Player of the Game
Jason Kipnis won tonight’s Player of the Game, coming in for the ejected Jack Hannahan. From the 9th spot in the lineup, Kipnis hit a two run opposite field home run and later singled and scored the go ahead run in the 10th inning. All this was worth a PoG score of 5.48 and his first award of the season. As of this point no player has won two Player of the Game awards.
Feathers Up
It’s nice to know that the Indians do have the ability to score more than four runs in a game, even if it is only against the Royals.
Jairo Asencio was very impressive tonight in the 9th inning to keep the game even going into extra innings. This kid may actually be worth all the trouble the Indians went through to get him.
Feathers Down
Early in the game, Jonathan Sanchez hit Shin-Soo Choo with a pitch. This came after Sanchez broke Choo’s hand last season and combined with all the balls that have been thrown at him already this year, Choo was incensed. His screaming match lead to the benches being warned. To start the next inning, Jeanmar Gomez, who had been throwing a perfect game, hit the first batter intentionally leading to his ejection along with Manny Acta and Jack Hannahan. No Royals were ejected.
Manny Acta hurt the Indians flexibility for the second time this season by misusing the designated hitter spot in the lineup. Today, rather than placing the slow-footed Shelley Duncan in that spot, he placed Jose Lopez there. This hurt the Tribe when Jack Hannahan was ejected for sticking up for Shin-Soo Choo. Jason Donald was forced to move to third, where he later made an error that cost the Indians a run. If Duncan had DH’d he would have gotten a half day off and the Indians would have still had plenty of infield and outfield defensive flexibility. General Rule: If a player isn’t good enough to be in the starting lineup, he isn’t good enough to DH.
For the first time this season the Bullpen Mafia was tasked with keeping a game close late and they were not up to the task. The combination of Rafael Perez, Joe Smith, Tony Sipp and Vinnie Pestano pitched a total of 2.1 innings and gave up 3 earned runs as well as one of Josh Tomlin‘s. Pestano finished off the comeback by giving up a solo home run to Yuniesky Betancourt in the 8th inning for the blown save.
Play of the Game
Jeanmar Gomez hits Mike Moustakas leading to the ejection of three Indians.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 11 – Kansas City Royals 9
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