#175---STL @ CIN, 4/10/2015

The highlight of this sheet is the pair of two-run homers launched by Joey Votto in his first two trips to the plate against John Lackey. He would later add a steal in an interesting spot, taking second with one out in the ninth and the go-ahead run already on third in the form of Billy Hamilton. Hamilton drew a pair of walks and created havoc while on base, scoring twice after taking bases via balk, steal, and wild pitch.

#174---CLE @ MIN, 7/21/2014

This game was decided on Josh Willingham’s eighth inning homer off Bryan Shaw after the Indians had slowly clawed back from a 3-1 deficit. One thing to note on the scoresheet is the note on top of a challenge. If you follow the boxed C you will see that it occurred during Chris Colabello’s second inning PA. The note means that on pitch A (which would become just an ordinary foul), what had been a triple down the left field line was overturned. In the early days of replay I felt compelled to note every review and what the original call/call sought by the challenging team was. It’s exhausting and clutters the sheet – now I try to exercise patience when a call appears close, only writing down the final outcome and only noting the situation if it is crucial to the outcome of the game or otherwise interesting.

#173---NYN @ CLE, 9/8/2013

This late season 2-1 game lasted 3:43 as twelve pitchers worked, and Daisuke Matsuzaka needed 103 pitches to go 5 2/3 despite only allowing 6 baserunners true to his form. His opposite number Danny Salazar needed 80 to go four, allowing a homer to Justin Turner.  The Indians reliever parade kept the Mets off the board until closer Chris Perez yielded a run in the ninth. David Murphy was on base five times for the Mets.

The Indians only run came on a bases loaded hit batter to cap a two-out sixth inning rally. In the ninth, Jason Giambi led off against LaTroy Hawkins with a single. Mike Aviles pinch-ran, and after Lonnie Chisenhall flied to right, he attempted to steal on a 1-0 pitch to Drew Stubbs. He was called out, leading to his ejection. Stubbs struck out swinging to complete his golden sombrero and bring the game to an end.

#172---NYA @ NYN, 7/23/2012

For eight innings of this game, the Yankees managed just two hits and two walks off of their subway series rivals. Alas, the seventh was a quick but decisive blow for the Bronx Bombers. Mark Teixeira saw seven pitches coaxing a leadoff walk from Chris Young, but then Nick Swisher collected his 1000th career hit on a double and Raul Ibanez tied the game by pulling a homer down the right field on the next two pitches. In came Jon Rauch, and after striking out Russell Martin, he got up in the count 0-2 on pinch-hitter Eric Chavez before the latter homered down the left field line. A committee of Yankee relievers would make it hold up (including Rafael Soriano with the save; this was the year that Mariano Rivera tore his ACL).

Note that right before the carnage, Chris Young had made Ivan Nova and the Yankees pay; he lined a first pitch single to right after Josh Thole was intentionally walked with two outs and a man on third in the bottom of the sixth. Also, Lucas Duda in right field was a thing?

#171---DET @ CLE, 5/1/2011

Ahh, those heady spring days of 2011, when the Indians were winning enough games to delude their front office into believing they could challenge the Tigers for the division crown. Although to be fair, looking at the Detroit lineup on this day, it’s hard to imagine that this would be a 95 win team: Will Rhymes, Ramon Santiago, and Don Kelly batting in front of Miguel Cabrera? It would look a lot better with regulars Victor Martinez and Jhonny Peralta in the lineup for sure.

After each team put up an early two spot, there wouldn’t be many scoring threats in the third-seventh as only twice did Cleveland get a runner into scoring position with less than two outs, while Detroit only managed it once. In the eighth, the Tigers chased Justin Masterson by getting their first two hitters aboard, coaxing a sac fly off of Rafael Perez to take a 3-2 lead. But Joaquin Benoit did not have it on this day, yielding three runs to the Tribe. Chris Perez made it interesting in the ninth, but got Brennan Boesch to fly out on the first pitch with runners at the corner to “save” the game.

#170---CHA @ BOS, 9/4/2010

Both Sox were trying to make the playoffs and would ultimately fall short. The two runs the ChiSox pushed across against John Lackey in the seventh made the difference. Note Manny Ramirez was back in Boston playing for the White Sox, a tenure I don’t really remember. We also see Chris Sale working in relief against his future team, but what really caught my eye was Daniel Bard, who worked through the eighth with three flyouts to center. The night before I wrote this, it was announced that Bard’s long exile from the majors had ended when he made the Rockies’ roster.

#169---PHI @ WAS, 4/13/2009

Scoring note: You can see a briefly-lived endeavor by me to track the number of strikes thrown by the starting pitcher each inning in addition to total pitches. I quickly decided that this space would be better used for a running total of pitches.

This was a wild home opener for the Nats against the defending champion Phillies. Each team got five of their runs on three homers, with the biggest the three-run shot from Ryan Howard in the seventh after the first two batters of the inning were plunked. The Nats tried to come back with a pair of two-run blasts from Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman, but Brad Lidge recovered from the latter with a pair of strikeouts and a grounder to first.

Some of the names on the Washington side are great: Lastings Milledge, Cristian Guzman, Elijah Dukes, Nick Johnson (this team would finish 59-103).

#168---NYA @ CLE, 4/27/2008

This was a good early-season duel between CC Sabathia and Chien-Ming Wang. Sabathia gave up a leadoff single to Johnny Damon and walked A-Rod later in the first, but then set down the Yankees through the fourth sans a Ryan Garko error. In the fifth, Robinson Cano beat out an infield single, but Sabathia picked him off before he even threw a pitch to Melky Cabrera. Good thing too, as Cabrera hit the next pitch out for a homer. That would be the game’s only run, as for the rest of the game the only blemish on the lines of Sabathia and reliever Masa Kobayashi were a Jeter double. On the other side, Wang retired the last four batters he faced, and then Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera closed it out with a pair of perfect innings.

#167---CLE @ LAA, 5/9/2007

The Indians got two in the first off of Jered Weaver, and Paul Byrd tried to make it hold up and it did for sixth. But in the seventh, Erick Aybar singled on a chopper to the mound and Kendry Morales followed with a two-run blast. In the eighth, Gary Matthews hit the first pitch from Fernando Cabrera to put the Angels up, and K-Rod got the save with a 1-2-3 ninth against the bottom of the Tribe order.

Travis Hafner was involved in a couple plays worth noting on the scoresheet. In the first he reached on catcher’s interference, and in the fifth his grounder was deflected by first baseman Casey Kotchman to Aybar, who threw back to Kotchman for the old 343, with my “d” prefix denoting that the position number that followed deflected the ball. I would now score this play “3-43”.

#166---CLE @ DET, 4/15/2006

Fausto Carmona (actually Roberto Hernandez) made his major league debut a success, allowing one run over six innings while walking two and fanning four. The Indians five run fourth off of Jeremy Bonderman removed all doubt; Bonderman was relieved by Jordan Tata, who I do not remember at all (eleven career appearances for Detroit over 2006-07).

#165---CLE @ SEA, 4/22/2005

The Indians jumped on Gil Meche for five runs in the first inning and coasted home from there behind seven strong innings from CC Sabathia (1 run, 5 K, 2 W). I’d mostly forgotten about Jose Hernandez’ turn as a Tribe third baseman, probably because in 84 games he hit .231/.277/.338. Casey Blake, who played right field in this game, would eventually take over third.

#164---CIN @ CHN, 4/16/2004

This game was wild, so wild that I’m not going to try to recap it all (there were 30 hits, 12 walks, and 21 runs) and instead hit the most wild elements:

* I had no recollection of three of the Reds pitchers. John Rielding made 70 appearances in 2004 and 229 for his career. Phil Norton made 69 appearances in 2004, but only 23 previous to that year and none after it. Brian Reith made 22, the last of 73 in his career.

* Barry Larkin got two PA as a pinch-hitter in the sixth (led it off with a single and ended with a K)

* There were three multi-homer innings, including Sammy Sosa and Moises Alou on consecutive pitches from Danny Graves to walk it off in the ninth. It was the second time Alou was involved in back-to-back homers, as part of a monster day that included a single and a double as well.

* Both managers were ejected. Dave Miley of the Reds for arguing balls and strikes after Sean Casey was called out looking by CB Bucknor to end the fourth. Dusty Baker for…

* The Cubs batted out of order in the seventh in what was apparently a failed attempt at a double switch. Ramon Martinez replaced Alex Gonzalez at short but was supposed to bat ninth instead of Gonzalez’ eighth spot. He doubled to the wall in left to lead off the inning, but was called out when the Reds pointed it out, leading to Baker’s ejection.

#163---LA @ CLE, 6/15/2003

The more I looked at this scoresheet, the more little things I found that made it one of my favorites that I had posted. There was a lot of silly stuff going on this game, and some silly connections that one can make looking at the names:

* Dave Roberts leading off for his former team for the team he would later manage to two pennants

* Adrian Beltre batting seventh behind Mike Kinkade and Ron Coomer

* Both teams were running the bases with some reckless abandon. In the sixth, with one out and runners at the corners, the Dodgers tried a double steal that ended with Paul LoDuca getting thrown out 2-4. This is a place where the scoring leaves out a little detail – how did Brandon Phillips get involved? Was he covering third for some reason as LoDuca tried to go back, maybe in a rundown? Or something crazier?

The Indians trumped this failed play, though. The bases were loaded with one out in the bottom of the eighth with LA leading 4-2. Future Dodger Milton Bradley, facing former Indian Tom Martin, singled through former Indian Jolbert Cabrera at second. Jhonny Peralta scored, and Matt Lawton tried to, but was gunned out at the plate 6-5-2. For some reason Coco Crisp tried to get to third, and LoDuca threw back to Beltre at third to tag him out. Instead of ending up with a 4-3 game, bases loaded 1 out,  or with runners at first and second 2 out, the Indians ran into a double play to end the inning and take their chances in the ninth against Eric Gagne at the height of his dominance. After yielding a leadoff hit to Ben Broussard, and a one-out walk to Josh Bard, he fanned Brandon Phillips and pinch-hitter Shane Spencer to end it.

#162---CHA @ CLE, 7/15/2002

With this sheet, we have now reached a full season’s worth of games (excluding a handful of “special” editions, and offset by the embarrassing Home Run Derby "scoresheets"). Given the name of this blog, this should have taken a little over three calendar years but in fact took about 12.5. That’s ok; no one’s reading except my ego.

Confession: I do not remember Jason Phillips at all, which is a shame because this must have been the best game that he ever pitched, given that he only had 18 career starts (32 relief outings) with a ERA of 6.20. He shut out the White Sox through seven, scattering four hits and two walks (albeit with just two Ks) before Kenny Lofton hit a leadoff homer in the eighth (I like that; my heart sinks at seeing Kenny Lofton in the lineup of the White Sox of all teams). He was relieve with runners at first and second and two outs by Paul Shuey, who yielded an infield hit to Frank Thomas was batting sixth, behind Jose Valentin (read that carefully; this was the sad phase of the Big Hurt’s career). Shuey would fan future Indian Jeff Liefer to get out of the jam, then have a 1-2-3 ninth in which he retired two more future Indians (Tony Graffanino and Lofton).

The Indians led 4-0 through sixth, but really took control with a two-out, three-run blast by Ricky Gutierrez, one of his four on the season.

#161---HOU @ CLE, 3/24/2001

Protip: If you want to score a spring training game in person live, go to a game later in the spring when the substitutions have been reduced from a torrent to a babbling brook. This was a live from Winter Haven scoresheet. I don’t remember much of the game (it was spring training after all); I think Russell Branyan’s homer was titanic, although that could be false memory of his raw power filling in the details. My brother snagged a batting practice homer hit by an Astro – maybe off the bat of Daryle Ward?

#160---OAK @ CLE, 8/23/2000

No Thome triple here, just a second inning homer to get Cleveland on the board after Bartolo Colon yielded three runs in the top of the first. The Indians tied it and then took the lead on back-to-back two run hits in the fifth, something you don’t see that often; the first three batters of the innings had reached to load the bases, then Einar Diaz hit a comebacker that led to a fielder’s choice at the plate. Lofton’s double plated two and left runners at second and third. Omar Vizquel jumped on the first pitch he saw from Tim Hudson for a single into right to bring them home.

Oakland would tie it in the next frame with a two-run double from Miguel Tejada, but the Indians ended the scoring with two more in the bottom of that sixth inning. In all, 8 of the 12 runs scored in this game in those three half-innings. This was a big game for August; coming in, the Indians led the A’s and Red Sox by 1/2 game in the wildcard race. Oakland would go on to win the West, running down Seattle, and the latter would edge the Indians out by a game for the wildcard.

#159---CLE @ TEX, 5/1/1999

I’m inadvertently making Thome triples a theme of this blog, as this game also features one of Thome’s 26 career three-baggers, coming on what I assume was a liner pulled down the right field line to put the Indians up 2-0 in the fourth. There was a 32 minute rain delay after the first pitch ball thrown by Aaron Sele to Manny Ramirez in the second (see the circled R and notation “AA” for “after pitch A” on the right side of the scorebox). Manny hit the first pitch of the resumption to left for a longball to make it 1-0 Cleveland. Rafael Palmeiro and Todd Zeile would homer late, but it wouldn’t be enough as the Indians prevailed 5-3.

A couple fun things from this game: Ivan Rodriguez stole a base in the fourth, one of a career-high 25 this season (his second-best was ten, three times); Robbie Alomar drove in brother Sandy with a two-out single in the fifth.

#158---NYA @ CLE, 7/13/1998

Jaret Wright pitched an excellent game against the great 1998 Yankees, striking out four and walking two while allowing one run (a Darryl Strawberry longball) over seven frames. Paul Assenmacher and Mike Jackson each pitched perfect innings in relief to nail down the 4-1 win. Kenny Lofton homered but Jim Thome was the offensive star for the Tribe, hitting one of his 612 career home runs but also one of his 26 career triples.

Sometime in the late 90s/early 00s, area McDonald’s had a special menu item, the Thome Triple. If memory serves, it was three burger patties with two kinds of cheese on an elongated bun (kind of like a Romanburger for you Clevelanders). I always thought it was a terrible name, but he was one of the stars and the alliteration was hard for marketing people to pass up. In the sixth inning on this day, facing El Duque, I guess it was appropriate.

#157---BAL @ CLE, 5/25/1997

I’m always torn about posting the dreadful Excel scoresheet – it’s so bad, yet they are also some of the earliest extant scoresheets I have to post. Thankfully, I’ve almost exhausted the supply at this point.

The lack of detail on these is best illustrated by Marquis Grissom’s first inning, in which he singled and then was caught stealing (simply indicated by “C”). The Indians got a good game from David Justice with a single, two walks, and a homer for three runs scored and two driven in. I don’t have any idea why I didn’t record the Orioles ninth, but after reading the Baseball-Reference account, maybe it was a way of suppressing a near-disaster:

Surhoff singled
Webster struck out
Tarasco walked, advancing Surhoff to second
Incavaiglia, hitting for Bordick, singled, advancing Surhoff to third and Tarasco to second
Reboulet ran for Bordick
Anderson doubled, scoring Surhoff and Tarasco, advancing Reboulet to third
Alomar was intentionally walked
Davis struck out
Alvin Morman relieved Mike Jackson (for some reason pitchers get full names on this scoresheet but batters don’t)
Palmeiro struck out

Final: Cleveland 7, Baltimore 6

#156---TOR @ NYA, 2/22/2020

2/22 is the earliest date for a major league game ever chronicled on this blog, and is probably the earliest date for a major league game I’ve ever consumed. Unfortunately, that early start to games turned out to be completely unnecessary in 2020. It looks as if the scoresheet doesn’t have lines separating the scoreboxes, but they were in fact very faint and didn’t pick up the scan – I have nowhere near the spatial awareness that would be required to pull off scorekeeping without lines. The transparency makes the field diagrams on the right side of the sheet unrecognizable; I find those very helpful for spring training games to keep track of where the subs are playing in the field before it becomes clear where they are appearing in the batting order. And since I often eschew tracking pitches for such games, there’s room to facilitate it.

The most notable thing about the game was that it was a scoreless spring training game for five innings. The eventual winning run scored with one out and runners on the corners in the top of the seventh, the Blue Jays pulled off the delayed double steal play that I hate so much when employed by OSU coach Greg Beals. It worked here, with Anthony Alford swiping home while some guy named Wall advanced to second.  It was quite an inning for Alford; after lining a single to center as the leadoff man, he stole second and third with one out and then home during the next at bat.

Bonus --- SD @ LA, 8/13/2020

I didn't catch this whole game last night - MLBN didn't start showing it until 10:00, but first pitch had been at 9:40. I wasn't sure if I was going to stay up for the whole game, but Padres/Dodgers is an interesting matchup right now, so I figured I would keep a scaled-down scoresheet (I don't generally like tracing the diamond, and usually I track pitches) that I would have zero guilt about abandoning if sleep seemed more attractive as the innings went on. 

Instead, Mookie Betts made sure that I was interested to the end, tying a major league record by recording his sixth game with three homers. He ended up reaching base all five trips, although a squibber up the third base line in his last at bat was a bit of a letdown. 

#155---NYA @ HOU, 4/9/2019

Not that a typical Yankees/Astros game in recent years wouldn’t be interesting, but this one definitely looks more interesting in retrospect after the scandal and given that Gerrit Cole, who started this game for Houston, is now in the Bronx. A few plays in this game to note, mostly for the scoring:

* The New York third ended when Brett Gardner bunted into a double play, catcher – short – first

* Jose Altuve’s third inning homer was the 100^th of his career

* In the home eighth, Alex Bregman struck out swinging, but Austin Romine couldn’t handle it and he reached on a passed ball. Aledmys Diaz pinch-ran after the second pitch of Brantley’s at bat – I don’t recall what happened and didn’t note it, but I’m assuming it was some kind of injury scare. You can see that the substitution happened after the second pitch because I noted “PR Diaz 4-8 (AB)”, meaning that Diaz pinch ran during the 8^th inning at bat of the fourth place hitter, with “AB” indicating “after B” – that is, after the second pitch of the at bat.

#154---CLE @ ARI, 2/24/2018

This was the first game I had the opportunity to score in 2018, and since I was doing it off the radio I did not keep a pitch-by-pitch account (this is bad enough to do off the radio, but for exhibition games it’s completely hopeless because the announcers will invariably interview someone and you’re lucky if they tell you the direction a batted ball is hit, let alone what happened on the 1-1 pitch or even if there was a 1-1 pitch. That didn’t stop me from trying in the past, but no more.)

The Indians broke the game open with a six-run, three-homer ninth inning, forcing Arizona to run their total of pitchers used to ten. Given the limited space on the sheet, I did not bother marking RBI, and really I should consider doing that on all my sheets…I don’t care about them as a statistical category and if you really want to know, you can count them from by examining the PBP account, which after all is the whole point of keeping a scoresheet.

#153---CHN @ PIT, 4/24/2017

The Cubs beating the tar out of their hosts has become a mini-theme in this space, I guess. I don’t have anything to say about the game itself, except to point out that by tossing the last two innings for the Pirates in his big league debut, Dovydas Neverauskas became the first Lithuanian in MLB.

The good thing about posting scoresheets of blowout games is it generally allows for a lot of different situations and their corresponding representation on the scoresheet to be displayed…here we have batting around, extensive substitutions/position switches, and my favorite, a foul pop caught by the pitcher (see Mercer’s ninth inning at bat).

#152---CLE @ CIN, 3/2/2016

Former Indian Tyler Holt singled. He stole second. Two pitches later, Jessie Winker singled towards the shortstop position. For some reason, second baseman Erik Gonzalez fielded it and threw it away, allowing Holt to score and tie the game. Some guy named Trahan singled and Winker stopped at third. Second and third, nobody out, huge pressure on Indian pitcher Ryan Merritt. Some guy named Hudson lined back to Merrit, who snared it. One out!

Some guy named Cave took strike three. Two out! Trahan took second on indifference. It was all up to Merritt and some guy named Blandino. Fly to center. Inning over. Jam eluded! Extra innings…wait, it was the first weekend of spring training? This dramatic ninth inning ended only paid off in a tie game? How utterly unsatisfying. Maybe a little bit of training for Mr. Merritt on how to respond to pressure later in his career, like if he was forced into making one of his first major league starts against a high-powered offense in Game 5 of the ALCS? No, probably not. But it’s a good story.

#151---CHN @ CLE, 6/17/2015

This was one of the worst drubbings I’ve ever watched my team endure, but it was so bad that it had a comedic aspect to it. Cleveland was trying to find a bargain basement #5 starter in Shaun Marcum, who had missed all of 2014 with injury. But the Cubs battered him for six runs in the second inning. It’s somewhat remarkable that he actually got six swinging strikes on 54 pitches considering how badly this went. Kyle Schwarber, called up to take advantage of an opportunity to DH in an AL park, rapped his first hit with a groundball triple down the rightfield line in the second, and added three singles later for good measure.

After Marcum’s horrific outing, I tweeted something about Ryan Raburn pitching in this game. The people got what they wanted. Raburn came in for the ninth, and somehow got two outs on 23 pitches. There were runners on first and second, he had thrown two balls to David Ross and was hurting, so the Indians decided to bring in David Murphy to relieve him. That’s right--two position players in the same inning, with a mid-PA switch.

I don’t recall when/where/if Murphy warmed up, since he had come into the game in left field in the seventh. Michael Bourn replaced him, taking Raburn’s lineup spot, and Murphy coaxed Ross to popup to end it…except Francisco Lindor muffed the catch. Addison Russell singled, Dexter Fowler walked, Mike Baxter got plunked, and Kris Bryant crushed a grand slam to make it a seven-run inning.

Usually when a team bats around, I just use the column for the next inning and draw lines cordoning off the batters from the previous frame. But in the ninth inning, that’s not an option, so here you can see that in scorebox 4-8, I put a nine in a circle in the upper right hand corner to indicate that I had to go back. Mercifully, Coghlan flied to the warning track to end Murphy’s eighteen pitch outing.
Meanwhile, the Indians were completely shut down by Tsuyoshi Wada.

#150---KC @ CLE, 4/22/2014

Why not pick a scoresheet from my least favorite baseball team of all-time beating my favorite team? It’s everything to hate about these Royals teams in one place. Plating all of the runs in their key fourth inning with two outs, highlighted by a three-run shot from corner infield meathead #1. Corner infield meathead #2 going 4-5 with 3 runs scored and a RBI. At least Nick Swisher reached base three times for the Indians.