Another edition of “early spring Indians/Reds tie”, with Greg Allen’s two-out ninth inning triple pulling it even. The Reds got a leadoff double in the bottom of the ninth, but could not break the deadlock with a strikeout and then were so eager to do so that the game ended on a double play on a line drive to right field.
The Indians got a two-run homer from Michael Brantley and a three-run homer from Chris Colabello in the first off Robbie Ray, then held on the rest of the way for a 6-5 victory. Ray was ejected after pitching four innings – unfortunately I neglected to note why but it appears he was unpleased at being rung up by Bill Miller in the bottom of the fourth.
The overall season opener was an inspired choice, as these two teams (plus the Pirates) would wage a fierce division race and then meet up in the NLDS. As would be the case for the regular season as a whole, the Cardinals got the upper hand as Adam Wainwright pitched six shutout innings and a trio of flamethrowers (Carlos Martinez, Jordan Walden, Trevor Rosenthal) finished it by allowing two walks but six strikeouts, with each adding one K to his predecessor’s total. In his one St. Louis season, Jason Heyward had a big opener with three hits as Jon Lester’s Chicago debut saw him not at his sharpest, allowing three runs over 4 1/3.
The Phillies were only retired in order twice, but in each of the other seven innings put a solitary runner on base en route to being shut out. The Yankees used three starters (CC Sabathia, Hiroki Kurdoa, Masahiro Tanaka, each of whom tossed two frames and struck out one more batter than his predecessor) which is interesting, even for the opening of the spring schedule.
All the scoring came in the first 3 1/2 innings of this late spring training game, with the Cubs scattering six runs across four innings to beat the Rangers’ five-run first. The starters were respectable major leaguers to booth (CJ Wilson and Andrew Cashner). Scoring didn’t just stop after the top of the fourth, almost all offense did. From that point forward Chicago mustered just a walk and a single, while eighteen straight Texas hitters were retired before a two-out ninth inning single by Chris Davis (which allowed him to avoid the golden sombrero that he would later seem to wear permanently in Baltimore). Davis moved up to third on a Jeff Samardzija wild pitch, but Taylor Teagarden struck out swinging on the next pitch to bring the game to a close.
The Indians won this on the strength on nine in the fourth, an inning in which the first ten batters reached base (single, single, walk, walk, single, error, walk, Grady Sizemore grand slam, single, walk). Finally the string was broken with a strikeout, but only after a dropped foul pop extended Jhonny Peralta’s at bat.
This spring training game ended in a tie after ten innings, with me scoring the tenth by tracing out only the boxes I needed on the blank side of my scoresheet. Not much of note happened in the game, both teams scoring both of their runs in a single inning (Cleveland in the third, an inning that should have done more damage save for Ben Francisco getting picked off following his lead off walk; Chicago in the seventh). Both teams stranded a runner at second in the tenth.
