I’m a superstitious baseball fan. I get annoyed if someone mentions that a no-hitter is in progress. When I play, I don’t step on the foul line. I respect bad moustaches and haircuts if they’re part of a hitting streak. And I like it when the Indians play on a Friday the 13th because I know they’ll win.

We’ve had two Friday the 13th games this season. The last one was April 13 in Kansas City, which we won 8-3. Going into tonight’s game, our record over the last 10 years on Friday the 13th was 7-3. After tonight’s 1-0 win over Toronto, it’s 8-3.

Normally in a 1-0 game, you’re biting your nails. But for some reason, after watching Justin Masterson’s first two innings, I felt perfectly confident that the Tribe would win. Masterson was just so… on. He had 5 strikeouts and gave up no runs, one walk, and five hits. Five strikeouts is not an overpowering performance, but he threw the right combination of pitches.  Two double play balls, several high fly balls that couldn’t quite get enough distance, lots of ground balls. He was in control from the get-go. It was apparent that this was one time when lack of run support wouldn’t ruin a good start from Masterson. I just knew Hafner’s solo home run would be enough.

Stephanie noted that Friday’s game was the first time the Indians had started the second half of the season against the same team they played Opening Day and with the same starters. I mentioned this to my husband while we were watching the game. He was quick to remind me how Opening Day turned out. When Vinnie Pestano came in to start the 8th inning, the husband groaned because that meant Chris Perez would be coming in for the 9th.

“He’s 24-2 in saves this season,” I said.

“Yeah, and he blew the first game of the season and the last game of the first half,” my husband replied, as though those bookend blown saves meant that Perez was destined to blow tonight’s game. My husband isn’t superstitious or afraid of Friday the 13th. He’s just a standard jaded Indians fan who had nothing to worry about. Pestano took them out 1-2-3 and so did Perez.

Offensively, tonight’s game was troubling.  We were 0-6 with runners in scoring position against a starting pitcher who had a 5.22 ERA and a 1.468 WHIP going into tonight’s game.  We managed 8 hits on the night and could only muster up a single run. However, tonight was not the night to worry about a low-scoring, close game–Friday the 13th is our lucky day.

 

 

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