#210---MIL @ CLE, 4/18/1997

 

Jack McDowell was a huge disappointment as a free agent signing for the Indians in 1996, not pitching well and eventually getting injured in 1997. One of the simple but painful “what ifs” to ponder for the mid-90s Indians is “what if they had been able to sign David Cone as a free agent in 1996 rather than Jack McDowell?” McDowell left the Yankees for the Indians, while New York replaced him with Cone.

This was a bad 1997 McDowell start. He made it through the first two having yielded just a walk to Milwaukee, but in the third he gave up four singles, walked two, uncorked two wild pitches, and there was a passed ball. He walked two more in the fourth, and paid big time when Fernando Vina hit a grand slam. Four innings, four walks, seven runs.

Milwaukee meanwhile got a good start from Ben McDonald, who yielded just two hits and a walk over seven frames, setting down twelve Indians in a row between the first and fifth, and then the last seven he faced after that. The Tribe did muster two off Bryce Florie in the ninth, but that didn’t even offset the three runs that Paul Shuey had surrendered in relief of McDowell (the big blow being a two-run homer by Dave Nilsson).