Player of the Game
If you’ve followed BurningRiverBaseball for years and were wondering when I was going to drop WPA and go back to my own Player of the Game stat for determining the Player of the Game, that day is today as Mike Napoli somehow beat out Francisco Lindor .180 to .134 in total WPA. Lindor is the real winner today as he helped the Indians win this game more than any other player with a single, double and home run, knocking in three and scoring three. By ‘POG’ stat, Lindor scored 8.25 compared to Napoli’s 3.93.
Feathers Up
Whatever it was that the Indians had forgotten about Justin Verlander in their last match-up, they figured out tonight as Jason Kipnis and Lindor started the offense up quickly and didn’t let up until Verlander was out of the game in the fifth. After the two table setters reached in the first, Mike Napoli brought both home for the first runs of the game, then Napoli himself scored on a single. They would score again in the third and three more in the fifth to remove the Detroit starter from consideration.
Josh Tomlin used his imitable “slow and steady wins the race” style to outlast Verlander, allowing just two runs despite giving up nine hits in six innings. Both of the Tigers runs scored in the fifth inning on an Ian Kinsler two run home run to left. As he has for about a year now, Tomlin found a way to scatter the hits that didn’t leave the park and was only harmed when Kinsler took advantage of a hanging curve. Despite all the hits and five K’s, Tomlin threw just 105 pitches in the six innings.
For those who prefer relievers to have assigned roles and never pitch out of them, Terry Francona, Cody Allen and Bryan Shaw probably really put a cramp in your reasoning tonight. Shaw came in for the eighth with two men on and one out, a situation the public narrative says he is terrible in. Shaw proceeded to strand both runners by striking out James McCann and getting Jarrod Saltalamacchia to ground out to end the inning. Allen was then used with a four run lead, not a save situation, and he set down the Tigers with three strike outs in a scoreless frame. While it may seem excessive to use all the Indians late inning relievers in one game, all three of Allen, Shaw and Zach McAllister have had three full days off and all have struggled enough lately that they could use the extra work.
Feathers Down
As much as we’d like to pronounce Miguel Cabrera dead, he’s far from it. The greatest hitter in baseball over the last decade still ranks near the top and he went 2/4 tonight with a walk and a run scored. It was his two singles against Tomlin that lead the pitcher to his greatest moments of stress in this game. In the first, Cabrera singled with one out to put runners on the corners. An apparent Victor Martinez sacrifice fly seemed to score the runner from third, but video replay overturned the call on the field (pictured at top). His second hit came in the fifth with two outs and two runs already in. By continuing the inning, Tomlin then had to face Martinez again, who also singled and if he hadn’t retired Justin Upton to end the inning, Tommy Hunter would have been brought into the game a full inning earlier than he was.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 3 – Detroit Tigers 7
On Deck: The Indians and Tigers will be back for game two in series two tomorrow at 6:30 PM in Cleveland. Corey Kluber will look to build on two great consecutive starts while taking on the Tigers’ Anibal Sanchez.
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