Player of the Game
Carlos Carrasco pitched the best game of his career and had the second best game of any Indian this season with a ‘POG’ score of 10.16. While he wasn’t allowed to finish the game, he went 8.1 innings only giving up 3 hits. He did walk one batter, but then retired him on a double play. It is Carrasco’s first ‘Player of the Game’ of 2011. His previous best start this season was his second start of the year when he went 6 innings only allowing one earned run.
Feathers Up
Carrasco did what he needs to do to win games tonight and that is get ground ball outs. He really made the infield work getting 14 ground ball outs and only allowing 4 fly outs in the entire game. The defense responded with some fantastic plays, especially two by Asdrubal Cabrera, a bare hand grab and a glove flip for a double play, and one by Orlando Cabrera in the 9th inning. Carrasco had a perfect game going through 5 innings and only allowed 4 base runners by the time the game was over.
Orlando Cabrera got his 1,999th career hit tonight on a double to right center. He will look to get #2,000 tomorrow afternoon in the rubber match against the Twins.
The Indians ended their losing streak tonight, stalling a fall from first place. After losing 5 games in a row to the Rangers and Twins, the Indians fell perilously close to the Tigers in the standings and are now only 2 games ahead of the Tigers, who have still yet to play tonight.
Feathers Down
Even with the great pitching tonight, the only way the Indians could win was by stealing a run. Delmon Young turned a Carlos Santana double into a triple by letting the ball go through his legs and the relay man slipped while trying to throw him out at third. Santana then scored on a ground out, but if he hadn’t already been on third, he probably wouldn’t have even gotten that far with the way the Indians offense played that inning.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 1, Minnesota Twins 0
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