The Indians played Thursday’s game against the Rays as efficiently as Hong Kong runs its mass transit system (seriously, I’ve used it. It’s aces.). After the bing-bang-boom of the Tribe’s 12-3 victory over the Angels the night before, one could easily expect to see the Indians’ bats explode again. After all, going into tonight’s game, the Tribe was hitting .325 (107-329) over its last nine games, averaging 6.8 runs a game.
What tonight’s game lacked in high score it made up for in sheer efficiency. Of the Indians’ 7 hits, three were home runs. Shin-Soo Choo wasted no time in getting the Indians on the board, leading off the game with a solo home run. In the second, Michael Brantley scored what turned out to be the game-winning run with a solo shot. Travis Hafner sealed the deal with a HUGE solo bomb in the 8th inning, just to make everybody breathe a little easier.
The Rays scored once, in the 5th, when Will Rhymes hit deep to the wall in right field for a triple and later scored on a Jose Molina groundout. All in all, Josh Tomlin pitched a magnificent game, giving up only 2 hits, no walks, and 3 strikeouts during seven innings pitched. Of the 88 pitches he threw, 58 were strikes. See? Darned efficient.
This wasn’t a glamorous game, but it was good, solid baseball, and it’s exactly what the Indians must continue to do if they want to stay competitive.
Overall the pitching staff was stingy. Took our three pitcher only 6 pitches more for the complete game as it took for Hellickson to pitch six innings. All in a day’s work.