Recap: Cleveland Indians fall to Oakland Athletics in 10 innings

Oakland 2, Cleveland 1 (10 Innings)

box score

Indians fall to 48-56

The Indians had their chance to get to Sonny Gray in the first inning. Gray walked two (Lonnie Chisenhall and Michael Brantley) and gave up a single to Carlos Santana. Jerry Sands flew out to deep center to score Chisenhall, and the runners on first and second moved up a base. Giovanny Urshela had an opportunity to give the Indians a big inning, but was struck out. That was the Tribe's last real scoring opportunity until extra innings.

In his short but excellent major-league career, Sonny Gray has dominated the Indians. After his first inning hiccup, that trend continued, for Gray would allow just five more base runners in his last six innings. He induced three double plays, defusing rallies before they could begin.

Trevor Bauer had a similar outing, only his blip occurred in the fifth inning. After retiring the first two batters without incident, he lost control of the strike zone, walking Eric Sogard and Marcus Semien. Billy Burns then lined a single over Urshela's head, and the A's tied the game. Bauer would walk another batter before finally ending the inning by getting Mark Canha to hit a weak popup down the third base line. Bauer would pitch into the seventh inning (one run, four hits), and could have gone further if not for that 30-pitch fifth inning.

The A's and Indians are very similar team right now. Both clubs have outstanding rotations, but no offense to speak of. So it was very appropriate that their season finale went into extra innings tied at one run apiece. Zach McAllister, who has settled in nicely as a key setup man, pitched 1.1 scoreless innings in relief of Bauer, Bryan Shaw pitched a scoreless ninth, and Cody Allen retired the first two batters he faced in the tenth. But then he gave up a base hit to Sam Fuld, and left a pitch out over the plate to Canha, and he split the gap. With Fuld running, there was no play at the plate, and Oakland walked off a 2-1 winner.

The Indians did reach base 11 times today, but none of those were extra-base hits, which is the most glaring weakness of an offense with many of them. series, The team had just five extra-base hits (two homers, three doubles) in the four games in Oakland. Part of that may be Oakland's pitching, but a lot of it has to do with the players the Indians are using right now. The Indians traded the #3 and #4 hitters in Slugging Pct last week, and #1 (Jason Kipnis) may be going on the Disabled List.

Win Expectancy Chart

Source: FanGraphs

Roll Call

Game Thread

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