Player of the Game
Chad Durbin takes advantage of another low scoring game to grab his second ‘Player of the Game’ award of the season. Durbin earned a ‘POG’ score of 1.27 for pitching a perfect 9th and stepping up for an injured Vinnie Pestano. This was agreat improvement over yesterday’s game where Durbin allowed 3 runs in one inning. The bullpen as a whole was much improved over a day ago scoring 3.03 ‘POG’ points over the course of 2.2 innings.
Feathers Up
Asdrubal Cabrera found a way to help his team, even though he didn’t get a hit until the 8th inning. He made two great plays at short stop, saving two hits and keeping the Rangers from scoring and he was safe on an error earlier in the game which wouldn’t have been possible if he didn’t put the ball in play. The error came at a crucial time and set up a bases loaded situation when the Rangers only had a two run lead.
For anyone who thinks the Indians should pitch around Josh Hamilton the way you would with Jose Bautista and Miguel Cabrera, be aware that the big problem is that the Blue Jays and Tigers don’t have Michael Young, Adrien Beltre and Nelson Cruz. Hamilton has hit two giant home runs in the last two games, but the pitches he hit were not horrible, he is just an extremely talented player.
The Indians made a lot of hard outs, especially early in the game, and had a lot of scoring opportunities. Every good team loses games like this from time to time, the Tribe just didn’t have the bat magic on their side tonight.
On again, off again Fausto Carmona was on again tonight, only allowing two run scoring hits after allowing 7 runs in 4 innings last start. This is especially impressive against the Texas Rangers.
Feathers Down
Shin-Soo Choo and Matt LaPorta had scheduled days off while Jack Hannahan and Travis Hafner were already out due to injury. This put the Tribe four starters down before the game began.
Set-up man extraordinaire Vinne Pestano was removed from the game without throwing a single pitch. Hopefully the injury is not severe, as Pestano is an integral part of the Tribe bullpen.
Final Score: The Indians will try to salvage a single game out of the four game series tomorrow.
Cleveland Indians 0
Texas Rangers 4
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