Roster Update: The Indians youth movement continues as the average age of the club dropped an unconfirmed amount when Scott Atchison was designated for assignment. In his place, Austin Adams has been recalled from AAA for the fifth time this season. In those turns, Adams has pitched well with a 2.38 ERA and .200 BAA in 11.1 innings. Atchison, however, has not and his slow and slower balls are no longer fooling anyone. He brings a 6.86 ERA and .288 BAA with him to the waiver wire.
Player of the Game
Despite what the rest of the team does or doesn’t do around him, Jason Kipnis continues to play at a ridiculous level. In addition to the simple streak, mentioned later, Kipnis had four hits tonight in five at bats including two doubles, the second of which knocked in the third Tribe run of the game. In addition, his first single of the night couldn’t have been hit harder as it hit the wall so quickly he couldn’t make the turn around second.
Feathers Up
While Danny Salazar wasn’t without his weekly gopher ball, this time to Andrew Romine in the third inning, in general he took advantage of an extremely aggressive Tigers lineup by keeping them off balance with his split finger. Using his fast ball to set up his change up, Salazar struck out eight in four innings. Unfortunately, what happened in the fifth inning belongs in the section below.
Milestone Update: Jason Kipnis continued his streak tonight with a laser shot single off the wall in right in the first inning off David Price. The overall streak is now at 18, the home streak at 27.
The Indians bullpen helped the team get through the tough times, taking over in the fifth after which Zach McAllister threw a scoreless frame with two strike outs in the sixth. Austin Adams allowed just one hit that inning and no walks. In the eighth, Adams struck out James McCann who lead off the inning, then left the game for Nick Hagadone, who also struck two in 1.2 IP of scoreless baseball. Of these, the most impressive was Hagadone, who finished his dominant performance with a double play off the bat of Ian Kinsler and a strike out against the best right handed hitter in baseball, Miguel Cabrera.
Feathers Down
Salazar looked solid most of the night, but after some questionable calls on balls and strikes, things really fell apart in the fifth. Andrew Romine started the inning with a double to Mike Aviles left that would have been at worse a single with a non-infielder playing in the outfield, then Salazar loaded the bases on a couple of walks. It was these two walks, combined with a tough called third strike on Brandon Moss the previous inning, that lead pitching coach Mickey Callaway to be ejected. Salazar was actually able to beat Miguel Cabrera, getting him to hit a weak grounder down the first baseline, but when he tried to go home for the double play, the ball slipped from his hand everyone was safe. Instead of two outs and runners on second and third, there were no outs, a run in and the bases loaded. Consecutive singles chased Salazar from the game, then a Nick Castellanos double closed the book on Salazar with seven runs allowed, six earned in 4.1 innings.
After the single run scored on a sacrifice fly in the third, the best scoring opportunity for the Tribe was the one derailed by the Moss called third mentioned earlier. Ryan Raburn lead that inning off with a double, then moved to third on a one out Mike Aviles single. Here, the offending eight pitch at bat took place, leaving two on with two outs to be ended on an excellent play by Anthony Gose in center on a sinking line drive from Giovanny Urshela. As with the inning that followed, a few slight changes, even of an inch could have changed a scoreless inning into blowout.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 3 – Detroit Tigers 7
On Deck: The finale of this dreadful series that has so far featured six runs from the Indians and 15 from Detroit, will feature Justin Verlander and Carlos Carrasco and likely, many more runs. Wanting to get things over as soon as possible, the two will play at 12:10 PM, then avoid further contact until September.
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