The Indians lost to the Orioles 4-3. Baltimore led 2-0 two batters into the game and led 4-0 into the bottom of the 9th. The Tribe rallied on a 2-run HR by Carlos and a pinch RBI single by Hafner but Cabrera struck out with the tying run on 2B.
My wife walked in for the bottom of the 9th and mentioned what an exciting game it was. Not really.
You could sense the Indians would rally but fall short. For some reason I kept thinking of Teaser and the Firecat, or mostly about Teaser.
Notes:
— Tomlin’s first inning woes continued. He entered the game with a 10.93 ERA and .387 average against in the first frame. Today he went 1B-HR-1B for a quick 2-0 deficit to keep that trend alive.
— Santana looks much more smooth and balanced now without the big toe tap at the plate and had 3 hits today, including a 2B and HR.
— Kipnis had 2 hits and a SB.
— The ho-hum HR Accardo gave up to Betemit in the 8th for a 4-0 Orioles lead proved not to be so ho-hum an inning later.
— The Indians loaded the bases in the 6th. BREAKING NEWS: They did not score.
— The Tribe was only 1-8 with RISP and has now scored only 6 runs in the last 4 games. That nice 10-6 rally win over Tampa Bay on Wednesday seems a long time ago.
— The Indians went 16 consecutive innings without scoring until the late almost rally.
— Cabrera is hitting .191 in July with 1 HR and 3 RBI.
Cliff Note:
For those readers like me with trivial minds, Teaser and the Firecat was a nice album by Cat Stevens (now Yusef Islam) back in 1971 with hits such as “Morning Has Broken”(with Rick Wakeman on piano), “Peace Train” and “Moonshadow”. Stevens also wrote and illustrated a children’s book with the same title using the album’s cover art and Teaser, a top-hatted young boy and his buddy Firecat who find the moon fallen to earth and must place it back in the sky. The words are written in English, French and Spanish on each page.
As Firecat would say, “Screameow!”