Indians drop third consecutive game in first match of Ohio Cup

The Cleveland Indians lost the first match of the local derby tonight, falling the the Cincinnati Reds 7-5. The Ohio Cup hangs in the balance and in order to take it home the Indians must win the next leg of the match by at least three in order to carry the cup on aggregate goals.

Wait, that’s not right.

The Indians lost and the Ohio Cup is fairly pointless, so at the end of the day it was just another loss.

Great defensive plays that happened

Tyler Naquin made a ludicrous catch to end the first inning and save a run for Mike Clevinger.

We’ve been saying for years that Tyler Naquin is a gold glove caliber outfielder. Right? All of us. Every one of us. Yep. Greg Allen also made a stellar catch, his coming in the second inning. He timed a jump perfectly while trekking back onto the warning track, snagged the ball, crashed into the wall, and held on.

Meanwhile, Yan Gomes made an incredible throw to nab a runner at second base. Mike Clevinger dipped a curveball below the strikezone, and Gomes snapped a throw from his knees. Lindor caught it at the same moment that he applied the tag, and there was much rejoicing.

The other exciting things that happened tonight

Yonder Alonso hit a solo home run in the fourth inning. His hit constituted the only run and RBI of the game for Cleveland until right before the bitter end. Slightly before this, Francisco Lindor showed some life by legging out a double and then judging a throw based on height in order to tag up to third. Of course, he did not score.

The Indians finally made things interesting in the bottom of the ninth when they remembered that hitting is an important part of baseball. Jason Kipnis hit a two run homer. Yan Gomes doubled. Francisco Lindor sacrificed him home after Greg Allen singled him to third. Michael Brantley then doubled, allowing the speedster to score from first. At this point it felt perfectly reasonable to assume that Jose Ramirez would launch a 500-foot bomb and force me to rewrite most of this recap. Instead, he struck out on three pitches, which is the least Angry Hamster thing that he’s done this season.

Regarding the ongoing and excruciating torture of Josh Tomlin on live television

In Byzantine Rome (Byzantium? The Eastern Roman Empire? I don’t think we’ve established our preferred nomenclature but because we’re going there I’ve decided to waste some time on asking the reader of this blog whether they should just be called “Romans” or what) political enemies often had their noses slit, or they were blinded, or sometimes worse. I’ve determined that pretty much any type of torture is now preferable to forcing Josh Tomlin to pitch on television. The starter turned reliever has now allowed 21 home runs in 49 innings pitched. In that time, he’s allowed 36 earned runs, and horror of horrors, he’s allowing a career-high 1.69 walks per nine.

At some point you need to release the poor man from this torture. I would say that the only person mythical or otherwise given a worse shake was Sisyphus, but it’s inevitable for any Josh Tomlin outing that, eventually, he will slip on the hill, the boulder will fly over the wall, and he will start all over again.

And so it came to pass that Terry Francona earned his reputation as the cruelest manager. Also, Tomlin allowed two runs on the token home run he gave up tonight in “garbage time”, and the Indians lost by two. Nice.

Generic Analysis

Vague question designed to rile up commenters? Non-committal position that neither answers the question nor adds any additional information that might make one more informed. Cliche statement that Bob Nightengale would accidentally use twice in the same article. Unusually long sentence that seems to be building toward something important, making some readers think that maybe this entire paragraph is going to pay off; for a moment they don’t regret passing the 500th word; they prepare to weigh in with an interesting take on the resolution of this sentence, but in reality it was all an excuse to point out that Joey Votto once bought a donkey for Zack Cozart.

The Indians take on the Reds again tomorrow night. I’m not mad about how tonight’s game ended up because it’s nice to see the team take a run at it and nearly make it all the way back. I am a little upset at a third consecutive loss. I’ll get over it.