It was Mike Aviles who sent them home happy with another walk-off blast, the Tribe’s seventh of the season. But it was Corey Kluber who put them in position with yet another dominant performance.
Kluber failed to pick up the win, but the Tribe improved to 8-2 in Kluber’s last 10 starts, during which he’s posted a 1.19 ERA.
While the end result was exciting, I can’t help but wonder if it couldn’t have worked out better for Kluber if it weren’t for a bizarre and terribly mishandled chain of events in the 8th inning.
With one out in the 8th, Adam Jones attempted to bunt at the first pitch but missed, and the ball may have hit his hand (whether it did or not is irrelevant, by rule it’s a strike either way). Buck Showalter then came out to argue and after an extended conversation with home plate umpire Dana Demuth (longer than is allowed, by my understanding of the replay rules) Showalter decided to challenge the call.
One small problem: you can’t challenge the call. The ruling on the field was that Jones had swung at the pitch, taking a hit-by-pitch off the table as a possible outcome of the play. But the umpires reviewed it anyway, forcing Kluber to stand around even longer.
Eventually, after putting on the headsets and talking to the replay command center, the umpires realized this wasn’t a reviewable play. This brought Showalter back out of the dugout for another extended conversation, which probably should have resulted in an automatic ejection based on the rule that you can’t argue once a replay has been handled.
Through all of this, which lasted roughly seven minutes, Terry Francona stood quietly in the Indians dugout, allowing Kluber to get cold on the mound.
Did any of this matter? Who knows. But it certainly didn’t help. After retiring Jones, Nelson Cruz singled and, after Francona removed Kluber, Cruz would come around to score they tying run.
It’s a chain of events that ultimately didn’t hurt the Tribe, but it was disappointing to see Francona take such a passive approach in a game that had the feel of a playoff atmosphere.
Ryan, I didn’t much like the article on Dickerson earlier, but I COULD NOT AGREE MORE with you on this. ‘Ol Buck is a flat out disgrace and has always been classless, no big surprise there…but I am please to hear the old man and I are not the only one’s who are just utterly sick n tired of this ‘lax, easy going “Tito”‘ moron we have sitting on the bench. Let’s put aside the inexplicable and inexcusable removal of the games most dominant RHP bc Nelson Cruz hits some weak single which posed zero threat. I loved your point about Francona, well…to put it bluntly is a coward. He’s given FAR to much praise and always has. Boston and their WS titles had far more to do with immense talent and their mystique than it did this guy. I’ve been fed up with his constant overuse and waste of the pen and ‘match up’ lefty on lefty garbage, etc he does each game…It’s as if he is reading a “how to coach baseball: For DumbA$$e$ during the games. Great article, and thx for your contribution! Hope this more than talented squad can at least not embarrass our city and make this a real race
turd, may i call you turd,
irregardless of your stance on the issue, i love the fire!!! keep it up mr. ferguson. maybe your passion and a healthy bourn hammy propels us into october (well, that and a million other things going right the next month and a half).
system message: this post contains zero snark seeing as the user is completely pumped up
Looks like another regular from cleveland.com wandered into this message board… Oh hooray.