In his first start, against the Tigers, Jeanmar Gomez threw 7 innings, giving up 5 hits, a couple of unearned runs, walking one and striking out four to earn the win in his Major League debut. In his second start against the Tigers, Shin-Soo Choo hit a homerun off of Justin Verlander.
Any time a fringe starting prospect comes up and has some immediate success, you always worry about what will happen when the league gets a book on him and/or hitters start to learn his stuff and approach and adjust to him. Gomez has been successful thus far by attacking the strike zone with marginal stuff. Tigers hitters came into today intent on being aggressive early and often. While mistake pitches weren’t getting launched over the fence, Gomez didn’t have the movement, deception, or placement to keep them from spraying hits around the field to the tune of 8 runs in 3 innings and chasing Gomez for his worst start as a Major Leaguer. It will be up to Jeanmar to adjust going forward in order to stay relevant at this level.
Justin Verlander pitched like staff ace Armando Galarraga and worked 8 innings surrendering just the one mistake to Choo.
The Tribe bullpen, forced into action early, pitched 5 scoreless innings, two by Frank Herrmann and one each by Rafael Perez, Tony Sipp and Chris Perez.
Jayson Nix made two, one ridiculous, plays on pop-ups into the camera bay, the second one flipping all the way in, landing on his neck, further bolstering his grinder stereotype status and cementing his roster spot on the 2011 Indians roster, I'm sure. Lou Piniella, managing his last game with the Cubs today, also just moved past Andy Marte on the Indians 3B depth chart.
Shelley Duncan took advantage of Matt LaPorta’s off day in order to widen his gap in the more pathetic slump race.