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Josh Tomlin and Roberto Perez save the day in Cleveland, as expected

The Indians don’t need to hit, they just need five Corey Klubers.

Detroit Tigers v Cleveland Indians Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images

You’ve heard of pitch sequencing, now get ready for base sequencing. If it went a little better for the Cleveland Indians, they would’ve blanked the Detroit Tigers for the second game in a row. Instead, Jason Kipnis made two phenomenal defensive plays after missing an easy tag on a pick-off attempt with two outs. Such is life. They still came out on top, 2-1, for their third-straight win.

Josh Tomlin lasted five innings and didn’t allow a home run, which is odd for him for multiple reasons. He also issued two walks and threw an unusually low 59 of his 98 pitches for strikes. For a pitcher who usually lives in the zone and just prays the other guy won’t hit it a million miles, it was an odd game. His heatmap shows just as much, but at least it infinitely better than the eight-run performance he fell victim to in his season debut.

This probably isn’t a revolution for Tomlin or anything, and I don’t think I’d ever want it to be. In a game where he allows a dinger or two and throws a whole lot more strikes, he probably lasts seven or eight innings. Instead, the Indians burned through five relievers to finish off four innings of baseball. I think it’s just more the Detroit Tigers offense is some kind of terrible, and Tomlin was able to live with some pitches falling out of the zone. Even when Detroit managed to make contact, it was mostly weak (79.9 mile per hour average), with the exception of a 96.8 mile per hour zinger that Jeimer Candelario hit for one of his 17 doubles on the night.

The Indians offense was as dead as it has been all season, but Jose Ramirez opened the scoring with a first-inning home run leading to six innings of nothingness prior to Jason Kipnis’s blunder that allowed a run. Speaking of Jose, his agent would like you to know that the Indians offense is horrible (I didn’t get a screenshot before he deleted the tweet, but here’s Joel Hammond talking about it and he’s a trustworthy fellow so believe me, it was there a minute ago). Do with that information what you wish.

Just as Tito drew it up, Roberto Perez led off the eighth inning with a go-ahead home run that was saved by Cody Allen in the bottom of the frame.

The weather is going to warm up eventually and baseball can be fun again, but in the meantime when is Shohei Ohtani’s next game?