Player of the Game
Other than Jason Kipnis‘ RBI single, Mike Napoli‘s solo home run in the fourth was the Indians only run scored until the ninth. It was his team high 7th home run, knocking in his team high 22nd RBI. In addition, he added a ninth inning double to take the team lead in that as well with eight.
Feathers Up
Kipnis continues to heat up and it was his two out, RBI single that scored the first run of the game with Lonnie Chisenhall coming home from third. Overall, he went 5/7 (3 opposite field singles) and raised his average from .263 to .288.
He had an odd pitching line, which we’ll get into more later, but Danny Salazar did manage to get through five innings today, allowing just one run while striking out ten. on the negative side, he also walked six, but allowed just four total hits.
The Indians bats were pretty quiet all night tonight, but they did come through enough in the ninth inning to keep the game going. After Francisco Lindor grounded out to start the inning, Napoli hit a hustle double to right center, then Carlos Santana brought him home with a triple to much deeper right center. Santana was stranded at third, however, and the Indians were unable to take the lead.
The Indians bullpen was absolutely incredible tonight and had to be in order to keep the game scoreless deep into extra innings. Only Tommy Hunter and Zach McAllister allowed runs and after McAllister, six relievers combined to shut out the Astros for 8.1 innings of no hit baseball from the seventh through the 16th inning. Cody Anderson threw the final 3.1 innings and eventually allowed a two run home run to lose the game, but even in doing so, pitched better than he had in his last four starts.
Feathers Down
Salazar did his best today to pitch a game without using his defense at all and that is generally not the most efficient way to pitch. He loaded the bases in both the first and second innings and allowed two base runners in the third thanks to five walks and just three hits. In addition to not blaming fielders for putting runners on, Salazar didn’t use fielders to retire batters either, striking out seven in the first three innings with just two outs recorded by the defense, both on ground balls to Francisco Lindor. While he didn’t allow a run during these three innings, it ballooned his pitch count which hit 72 at the end of the third.
You could say that Salazar was “effectively wild” during those first innings because his pitches were so unpredictable, even he didn’t know where they were going and the Astros were unable to score. Because of this, it is almost funny that it was after Salazar started keeping the ball within the strike out more often that he gave up his first run. After retiring the first two batters of the fourth quickly, including one more strike out, George Springer took a 94 MPH, 2-0 fast ball out deep to left.
As if the six walks from Salazar weren’t enough, the Indians bullpen was all about the base on balls. Tommy Hunter walked one before giving up the lead and taking a blow save in the sixth, then Kyle Crockett walked the only batter he faced coming in for Hunter. Jeff Manship walked one in the 10th and it lead to his removal from the game, after which Cody Allen came in and walked one before finishing the inning. In the 11th, Allen walked another two (one intentional) before finding a way to sneak out of inning.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 3 – Houston Astros 5
On Deck: The Indians have tomorrow off and that’s probably a good thing as Michael Brantley and Jose Ramirez both need the time off to recover from some minor pains. When the Indians come back on Friday they will be back in Cleveland against the Twins starting at 7:10 PM Friday night. Taking full advantage of the off-day, the Indians will skip Cody Anderson’s turn in the rotation and begin the three game set with Josh Tomlin against Ricky Nolasco.
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