Tuesday, December 1, 2020

#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.

No comments: