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June 15, 2011From Schadenfreude with Miami to Empathy with Dallas
June 15, 2011Even though the Indians offense is having trouble with essentially any starting pitcher these days, nobody was touching the Tigers Justin Verlander on this night.
The Detroit ace was all but unhittable as he shut out the Tribe and moved his team right into first place. The Indians, who have been in the AL Central lead since April 7th, had no chance against Verlander. You could see it from the first inning. The right-hander only got stronger as the game went on.
Everything, and I mean everything was working for him. I cannot remember seeing a more dominant performance in the last five years. His fastball was touching 99. His breaking pitch froze Tribe batters everytime he threw it. His change-up came from the exact same arm motion and was 15 mph under his fastball.
The 1995 Indians weren’t beating Verlander last night.
”We could do nothing with Verlander,” manager Manny Acta said. ”He was dominant, especially the way we are swinging the bats. He had all his pitches working. He threw strikes with all of them. And every one of his pitches is above average or way above average.”
Verlander had allowed just one base runner – he grazed Carlos Santana’s jersey sleeve in the first – heading into the eighth. He had already thrown a no-hitter earlier this season and looked well on his way to another one. With one out, Orlando Cabrera singled to center to end the no-no bid.
OC allegedly flipped his bat after the single, which couldn’t be seen on TV. He refused to talk about it after the game. Verlander, however, commented on it.
“Whatever. If he wants to flick his bat when it’s 4-0, and they just got their first hit in the eighth inning, if that’s the type of player he is, that’s fine. You can’t worry about guys like that.”
Santana provided the Indians only other hit, a single, in the ninth inning. Verlander finished the Indians off for a complete game shutout where he struck out 12 and walked just one.
Poor Justin Masterson was once again victimized by a lack of run support. He allowed just two earned runs (four total) pitching into the seventh. All seven of the hits he allowed were singles, many of them were of the bloop variety. The porous Indians defense betrayed Masterson as well.
In the third inning after Austin Jackson led off with a single, Don Kelly hit a little blooper into short right-center. Orlando Cabrera went out to make the catch, turned one way, turned the other, and dropped the ball for an error. Up next, Brennan Boesch hit a fly ball to shallow left. Travis Buck initially broke back on the ball and lost it in the sun. The ball fell in front of him for a single. The play should have been made.
So instead of one on with two out, the bases were loaded with nobody out for Miguel Cabrera. The sacrifice fly he hit, scoring Jackson, would have been the third out of the inning. Instead, the Tigers got three in the third.
“I tried to limit the damage as much as I could with one or two runs, but that third run came in,” Masterson said. ”Aside from that, I had a pretty good game.”
The Tigers got their fourth run on a two-out Andy Dirks single off of Rafael Perez in the seventh.
So the Indians are no longer in first place. The truth is it is amazing they lasted this long with the way they have been playing over the past three weeks. They have lost 10 of 12 and both wins were of the 1-0 variety. They have scored just two runs in the last four games, and have been shut out four times during this 12 game stretch.
“Obviously, having a tough stretch — whenever it is during the season — you want to minimize it as much as possible,” said Grady Sizemore. “Regardless whether it’s April or September or June, it’s just one of those things that when you get in one of those rough patches, you want to minimize it and shorten it as much as possible.”
”We’re not panicking,” Orlando Cabrera said. ”There are lots of games left. Detroit is not going away. And I know we’re not going away.”
I don’t think even the biggest Tribe fans thought that the team would snap out of the offensive funk last night against Verlander. They have two more chances to win this series and get back to the top of the division. The first comes tonight with the maddeningly inconsistent Fausto Carmona (3-8, 5.71 ERA) on the mound. The Tigers counter with Brad Penny (5-5, 4.69 ERA)
(photo via Kirthmon F. Dozier/Detroit Free Press/MCT)
11 Comments
sounds like Verlander is ticked about the alleged OC bat flip. Wonder if OC gets plunked tonight? If so is Shelly back in the house yet? We can’t brawl without him
This team made a guy that hadn’t won in nearly 3 years look like Verlander back in Toronto. He pitched a heck of a game, but this teams complete lack of any hitting ability helped out that performance greatly.
well, we did have 1 solid crank off Verlander last night and it surprisingly came from Choo. and the Tigers showed why it’s important to have defense when Austin Jackson snared it at (or over) the fence.
that’s been the most disappointing thing during this slump. why the heck has our defense been so bad? it’s like last season when we were magically good at defense for June when the rest of the year we were terrible (but the exact opposite).
heh. crank.
We sure lose a lot of balls in the sun. I blame global warming.
That must have been a little of that Orlando Cabrera “veteran presence” that I’ve heard them talk about so much lately.
🙁
TD – calling Carmona “maddeningly inconsistent” at this point is actually a great compliment. Lately he’s just been “maddeningly abysmal.”
@AMC – his 8.91 ERA over his last 6 starts agrees with you.
I think Verlander is mad at himself for losing a no hitter to Orlando Cabrera of all people.
The lack of scoring is getting really old. It’s incredible that a whole team is capable of slumping like this. The lack of hits when runners are in scoring position can’t be a fluke… the team’s mentality right now must be that they can’t hit when they need to.
@ Max: We need more of your presence here, not less.
I was thinking the same thing. Further, I know that Duncan’s absence doesn’t correlate to our losing streak, as it began while he was still up; but I can’t help but think that his presence with the team would only help morale.
As Rick “Uncle Grouchy” Manning said in a broadcast earlier in the year, Duncan is a guy that “the other guys in the clubhouse are really attracted to.” Not entirely sure what he was fully implying there, as I’ve never really seen those players as “that kind of men” (not that there’s anything wrong with that – /seinfelded) but I think I agree with the general premise that he’s a huge clubhouse asset. (Again, not implying anything untoward.)