With the feel of October baseball knocking on Tribe’s front door, Mother Nature did her best to welcome the nearly christened AL Division Champs with a seasonably chilly 45-minute rain delay. And, unfortunately, for the Tribe’s latest plug-n-play starter, Zach McAllister, it was enough to ruin his hot start.
With the Indians’ rotation leaking likely a rusty sieve – Corey Kluber’s seven- to 10-day stint on the DL courtesy of a pulled groin – McAllister got the nod for the first time since a disastrous one-inning start against the Blue Jays on July 2nd.
And just like that McAllister looked the pitcher he was in his early years of his professional career. He sandwiched a hard-shot to the gap by Miguel Cabrera, who was thrown out by Tyler Naquin, around two strong innings as he fanned one and walked one.
Detroit’s starter, rookie ace right-hander Michael Fulmer, got off to an equally strong start as well as he surrendered just one unearned run in his first two innings.
Then…Mother Nature decided to put on her impression of the Wicked Witch of the West.
And neither starter recovered.
Enigmatic right-hander Cody Anderson got smacked around for three runs as James McCann and Jose Iglesias knocked back-to-back doubles – which was immediately followed by a Ian Kinsler dinger, his 27th of the year.
After cruising through his third inning, Fulmer hit a massive speed bump in the top of the fourth. Naquin led off with a single and would later score on a Rajai Davis single. Former Royals prospect Blaine Hardy would enter the game and cough up another run to knot the score at 3-to-3.
All the while as a light drizzle tickled the diamond like a nerves of your nearly sleeping foot.
Jeff Manship worked a solid fourth inning. And rookie reliever Joe Colon had a…bit…of a rough go of it the next inning.
Steady Lonnie Chisenhall lost a long liner in the lights that resulted in a base runner. Ian Kinsler hit a routine double play groundball to Francisco Lindor. But Jason Kipnis’ throw at the turn proved to be too hard to handle. Cameron Maybin scooted a hot shot to left field. And Miguel – AGAIN! – Cabrera took one the other way for a three-run dinger. Tribe down 6-3.
Then J.D. Martinez absolutely rocketed a ground-rule double to the deepest part of the park. But was left stranded by Justin Upton.
Well, they are now going into another rain delay. Yipee!
Stay tuned for live blogging. Or at least until the old man in me has to go to bed. Then I’ll finish the write up tomorrow morning.
I wondered, when all these injuries took out the rotation, if they would turn to McAllister. I concluded that he had been in the bullpen too long for them to try to convert him back to a starter. It looks like I was wrong (unless today was really just a bullpen day, and he was the lucky guy to go first. Since the rain came and put an end to his day, I guess we’ll never know!).