Josh Tomlin heads to disabled list; Indians bullpen honors him by pitching like him

Yesterday was a tough day for Terry Francona. First, he had to say goodbye (temporarily) to his favorite pitcher, a guy who doesn’t belong in the major leagues, but continues to eat up a 40-man roster spot for the fun of it. Then, he managed the night’s game like his head was muddy from all the sadness.

That temporary loss is Josh Tomlin, who despite having an 8.27 ERA and an “injured hamstring” was brought on to pitch in ALL of the prior three games. If you’re screaming “COGNITIVE DISSONANCE” at your cat right now, just wait until we get to the rest of Terry’s tough day.

Terry then got 4 early runs from his offense and 8 clinical shutout innings from his controversial All-Star right-hander—and was determined to not let that brighten his day. He then:

• Brought his closer into a non-save situation (probably the right move, but we’ll include it here)
• Walked the go-ahead run intentionally
• Brought in the wrong pitcher to relieve his closer, allegedly because of miscommunication (“My pitching coach doesn’t hear well” isn’t much better than “My pitching coach and I are stupid” but whatever)
• Didn’t pinch hit for Roberto Perez in the bottom of the 9th, despite having an ASG-worthy catcher on his bench

On top of all this, Jeff Sullivan wrote about how nobody is ignoring Jesus Aguilar anymore. Hmm.

The usual silver linings

• The Twins lost

• The Tigers lost

Around baseball

• King Felix was placed on the DL with back stiffness

• Jeff Passan interviewed Corey Kluber

• Now that the Red Sox have Steve Pearce, he and JD Martinez can watch Mike Trout clips together