Game 11: White Sox 9, Indians 6
Another game, a similar story. Tribe pitching once again dug a hole deep enough that the offense couldn't crawl back out. Carlos Carrasco tossed his cookies again in his second start of the season, giving up 5 earned in only 4.2 innings. In fairness, he managed to keep the ball in the park, and was BABIP'd pretty hard by some dinky White Sox bloops. His outing was far from encouraging, though, forcing Terry Francona to delve deep into his bullpen from early in the game. The pen, unfortunately, dug the hole even deeper The Indians offense, once again less-than-optimal with RISP, could never recover.
Carrasco got through the first two frames clean, striking out the side in the 1st and taking the Sox down 1-2-3 in the 2nd. Three straight hits to lead off the 3rd, including an RBI double from Adam Eaton, put the Sox up 1-0. They added one more with a sac fly that inning and another in the 4th. In an all-too-familiar position, down 3-0 to start the 5th, the Indians had an outburst of sorts and tied the game on a two-RBI double from Asdrubal Cabrera and a Nick Swisher RBI single with no outs in the inning. Just when it looked like they might break things open, the next three batter flew out in order to end the inning, and things went downhill.
As abruptly as it ended, the Tribe's 5th inning was enough to knock Sox starter Chris Sale out of the game, so there was still some hope that we could get to Chicago's weak pen. That hope was quickly dashed. Carrasco left the game in the bottom of the 5th inning after giving up a fourth run, leaving two men on base and handing the ball over to Marc Rzepczynski as he exited. Scrabble promptly walked Adam Dunn to load the bases, then walked Dayan Viciedo to put the Sox up 5-3 before getting the final out of the inning.
The Indians kept trying to claw back, but three straight Sox hits off Brian Shaw in the 7th, capped by a two-run bloop double off the bat of Conor Gillaspie, would be all the Sox needed. Though the Indians would scratch out two more runs, the Sox added two for insurances, including another RWI (Run Walked In) in the 8th off of Blake Wood. That was Wood's fourth walk of the inning (though one was intentional).
So while the bullpen did the Tribe no favors, it was the starting pitching that set the negative tone again for the Indians tonight. White Sox pitching was bad, too, but it did just enough. Carlos Santana looked awful again, going 0-4 with a walk and two K's. Though we managed to score six, the only real highlights were a few nice running catches by Michael Brantley. It was an all-around ugly game, one of those where everyone involved is best to leave it behind and move on.
Next up: game 3 of the series tomorrow at 2:10 ET
Box score
Win expectancy chart:
Source: FanGraphs
Roll call:
Total comments: 376
Total commenters: 30
# | Commenter | # Comments |
---|---|---|
1 | Matt Y. | 49 |
2 | USSChoo | 49 |
3 | PyroKinesis | 43 |
4 | LosIndios | 34 |
5 | tgriffith1992 | 34 |
6 | JulioBernazard | 31 |
7 | westbrook | 23 |
8 | Phil Kehres | 20 |
9 | roar888 | 13 |
10 | Vachos | 12 |
11 | BuenosAires_Dawg | 11 |
12 | mlw831 | 11 |
13 | APV | 7 |
14 | Jason Lukehart | 6 |
15 | palcal | 5 |
16 | Gradyforpresident | 4 |
17 | Jeffrey R | 4 |
18 | mauichuck | 3 |
19 | lucasmcain | 2 |
20 | Zaza Braggins | 2 |
21 | CTTribe73 | 2 |
22 | no1ever | 2 |
23 | prsancho | 2 |
24 | kardiackids | 1 |
25 | emd2k3 | 1 |
26 | Cols714 | 1 |
27 | #RollTribe | 1 |
28 | anthony.plush | 1 |
29 | mainstreetfan | 1 |
30 | mjschaefer | 1 |