Indians come back and beat Twins 7-5 after Trevor Bauer settles in

Game 124: Indians 7, Twins 5

Box Score

Tribe improves to 63-61

Teams don't often come back from a 5-run deficit, though the Indians had the advantage of giving themselves plenty of time to get back into the game by falling behind in a great, big hurry.

Before Trevor Bauer recorded his first out of the game, he'd already put the Tribe in a 5-0 hole by going double, walk, double, single, home run to begin the game.

Trevor Bauer has started 19 games this season. In the 1st inning of those 19 games, he has now given up 16 runs, an average of .84 per inning. He has pitched a total of 93.1 frames after the 1st inning in his 19 starts, and given up a total of 43 runs, an average of .46 per inning. His 4.15 ERA for innings 2 through 8 isn't very good, but it's worlds better than what he's done in the 1st.

Yan Gomes hit a solo home run in the 2nd inning to get the Indians on the board, and Zach Walters drove in Gomes and Jason Kipnis with a single in the 4th. Michael Bourn led off the top of the 5th with a double, and eventually scored on a wild pitch.

Remarkably, after giving up the home run that made it 5-0, Bauer retired the next 14 batters he faced, including 4 strikeouts. That must have irked Terry Francona, who figured he'd have a good excuse to make 37 pitching changes after the way that 1st inning went, and so when Bauer walked a man with two outs in the 5th, Francona pulled him, despite Bauer having thrown only 87 pitches. Thus began the parade of relievers.

In all, the Indians would use seven relievers in the game, only the second time this season that any MLB team has used so many in a 9-inning game (and the first time all season that it's happened in North America, as the one previous instance was done by the Dodgers in the second of their two games in Australia to kick off the season). It's hard to argue with the results though, as they combined to throw 4.1 shutout innings while allowing only four men to reach base, all on singles.

Meanwhile, back in the 6th inning Tyler Holt (who'd arrived at the ballpark just minutes before the game began, after being recalled from Columbus again after Ryan Raburn was placed on the 15-day DL) was put in as a pinch hitter with two on and two outs, and stroked a double off the right-field wall, putting the Indians ahead, before Bourn drove him in with a single to make it a 7-5 game.

The game looked lost before the Twins made a single out, but Bauer settled in and gave the team a chance, the offense looked better than it has in over a week, the all-hand-on-deck bullpen did a fantastic job, and the Indians picked up a comeback win at a time when every game is big.

Win Expectancy Chart:

Source: FanGraphs

Roll Call:

Game Thread

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