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.
