#189---CIN @ CLE, 6/11/2004

I don’t post a lot of extra innings games here, although I love long game and mourn their endangered status due to the runner on second to start the inning rule. But posting scoresheets of extra innings games just means twice the work, since all my sheets are designed for nine innings and I use a whole new sheet for the extra frames.

The Indians rallied for two runs after two were out in the seventh (the runs pushed across on Belliard’s double), then loaded the bases with none out in the eighth. But Jody Gerut grounded to D’Angelo Jimenez, who threw home and started a double play, and Casey Blake struck out looking. Both sides were retired with little trouble in the ninth, and so it was extra innings. Nothing much happened (other than David Riske fanning five of seven Reds he faced) until there were two outs in the bottom of the eleventh, when Casey Blake singled off Phil Norton and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Presumably, Norton pitched especially carefully to Travis Hafner after the wild pitch, and walked him. But then he walked Ronnie Belliard on four straight. Lou Merloni pinch-hit against the lefty; down in the count 1-2, he coaxed three straight balls for a walkoff walk.

#188---NYA @ CLE, 7/8/2003

Remember the time that all that stood between Billy Traber and a perfect game against the eventual pennant-winning Yankees was a third inning John Flaherty single? It was undoubtedly the highlight of Traber’s career and probably the best thing that came out of the Indians/Mets Robbie Alomar swap for either side. The presence of Enrique Wilson, Todd Zeile, Ruben Sierra, Karim Garcia, and some shortstop named Almonte filling in for Derek Jeter (who flied out as a pinch-hitter in the ninth) suggest this wasn’t the Yankees’ A-team, but no matter.

#187---NYA @ CLE, 7/14/2002

Mike Mussina v. Chuck Finley seemed like a decent matchup, but the Yankees led the Indians 7-0 after five, with the Moose having yielded just three baserunners. In the sixth, Jim Thome hit a three-run blast to cut it to 7-3, with Mussina departing after that frame having made 110 pitches. A two-out double from Omar Vizquel off Ramiro Mendoza in the seventh made it 7-4. Meanwhile, in relief Chad Paronto, Mark Wohlers, and Ricardo Rincon had unspectacularly (except maybe Rincon, who retired all five batters he faced) shutout New York for 5 2/3 innings.

Still, Mariano Rivera loomed with a three-run lead in the ninth. But John McDonald, Eddie Perez, and Omar Vizquel all singled (with a Chris Magruder comebacker mixed in) before Ellis Burks doubled. Now, with one out, it was 7-6 and the winning run was on second. So Joe Torre ordered Thome intentionally walked, and Rivera struck out pinch-hitter Travis Fryman on three pitches. That left it up to journeyman Bill Selby. Who hit a walkoff grand slam to right.

#186---PHI @ BOS, 6/9/2001

This is a scoresheet of a game in which Omar Daal outpitched Pedro Martinez. Martinez started strong, setting down the first seven and through five had allowed just one hit, one walk, and had fanned eight. Marlon Anderson took him deep to leadoff the sixth, but he retired the next six Phillies. It was in the eighth that it fell apart, as the five batters he faced all reached, with Jimmy Rollins’ two-run double the coup de grace. Rolando Arrojo (!) finished the inning.

Daal pitched seven, walking and fanning two.

#185---CLE @ KC, 6/29/2000

Earlier in this blog’s run, I posted a game (#134) in which Jose Rosado made 123 pitches for the Royals in 1998 and noted that under the circumstances this would never happen in today’s game. Perhaps Tony Muser was just interesting in slagging arms, as here’s a similar case – future Indian Chad Durbin, 23, making a whopping 132 pitches in pursuit of a shutout. When Russell Branyan doubled with two outs in the ninth to push across Cleveland’s first tally, Muser finally pulled the plug, summoning Ricky Bottalico to face Alex Ramirez and make two pitches to get the final out. Durbin stuck out six and walked five, so this wasn’t exactly a masterpiece.

His opposite number, Bartolo Colon, had a rougher time of it, walking the first four Royals and then yielding two more runs on the first outs he recorded. In the fourth he was taken deep back-to-back by Joe Randa and Carlos Beltran, and when he followed that up with a sixth walk, he got the hook after eighty pitches. As always with 2000 Indians scoresheets, the names of pitchers that follow are fun – Andrew Lorraine worked 2 1/3, yielding another Beltran dinger, then a familiar name in Paul Shuey for an inning, followed by Jamie Brewington.

#184---CLE @ HOU, 7/18/1999

Mike Hampton shutout the Indians on four hits and two walks with eight strikeouts. The Astros scored off Jaret Wright with a two-out rally that included a walk drawn by Hampton, then tacked on a tally off Paul Assenmacher in the eighth. They didn’t call them the Killer Bs for nothing: see Biggio, Bagwell, Berkman, Bell, plus Bako, Bogar, and Barker. I have to look up the latter as I didn’t remember Glen Barker, who had an interesting rookie stat line over 90 PA in 1999 - .288/.384/.356, which was only good for a 90 OPS+ because a) late 90s baseball and b) OPS+ hates walks.

#183---CLE @ BOS, 7/15/1998

Bartolo Colon v. Pedro Martinez, and it lived up to what it sounds like it should have entailed. They both pitched complete games, with the Sox getting the winning homer from their #9 hitter, Midre Cummings, leading off the fifth. Colon struck out six and walked two; Martinez struck out nine and walked two. Cleveland only got two runners into scoring position, both times just and second and with two outs (in the second and the eighth).

#182---CLE @ CHA, 5/26/1997

I was really excited about this Memorial Day game, which was the first meeting between the Indians and White Sox in 1997, which meant it was the first time Albert Belle played against his former team. I wrote “BONG, BONG, BONG” on the top of the sheet which now would make me think that Bill Lee was showing up rather than Albert Belle, but oh well. I actually distinctly remember listening to the game on the radio in my parents car, although I don’t remember where we were going or explicitly remember keeping score while doing so, but I was.

Belle was 1-4, with an eighth inning single; the two players batting in front of him, Mike Cameron and Frank Thomas, hit back-to-back homers off Orel Hershiser in the first inning to tie the game, but the Indians put up a six-spot in the second and went on to win 10-4. Despite having allowed eight runs through two innings, Jaime Navarro was kept in to pitch seven (allowing a seventh run in that frame). I didn’t keep a pitch count here, but he made 117 pitches in this effort, which simply would not happen today.

I was confused by my notation for Alomar in the eighth, showing that he singled off reliever Matt Karchner, but then moved up to second on “P”, to third on “9” and scored on “P”. I know I was using one letter abbreviations when possible at this time, so “P” means passed ball, but the “9” would have meant the advancement occurred due to the #9 hitter’s at bat, which doesn’t make sense since Vizquel walked and Alomar was apparently already at second on the passed ball. B-R confirms this was an errant symbol; Alomar advanced to third on “1”, the fielder’s choice that Marquis Grissom hit into following Vizquel, then scored on a subsequent passed ball. So there were in fact two passed balls by  Jorge Fabregas in the inning; Fabregas had just come on as a pinch-hitter for Tony Pena in the seventh.

#181---TEX @ CLE, 5/18/1996

I’ve shared one of these 1996 games that I kept in a “B&B Statmaster” scorebook before; this was actually the first chronologically. There’s way too much clutter in the book to begin with, and I compounded by doing things like scoring both teams on one page with just a line between them, scrawling pitchers names in the bottom of the first scorebox they pitched to, drawing location arrows for every batted ball (even when self-evident from the scoring) and writing out “FLY” on every flyout. The score is hard to make out, so I gave myself a test before confirming at Baseball-Reference – I have Texas with 1 in the first, 1 in the second, 2 in the seventh, and 2 in the eighth for 6 and Cleveland with 1 in the second and 2 in the third for a 6-3 final. This was correct, so at least I passed that test.

Darryl Hamilton hit a leadoff homer off Brian Anderson; Albert Belle homered for the Tribe in the second.

#180---CHN @ CLE, 3/7/2020

It’s hard to find much to write about recent spring training games, as the names that someday may be of interest are still largely unknown. But I don’t have a ton of 2020 scoresheets to choose from. Cleveland led 3-0 through six, but the Cubs posted crooked numbers in their last three at bats, rallying to win 8-5.