Tigers Sweep Indians with 10-3 Beat Down

Last night, after the Indians lost to the Tigers in extra innings, I sent out a tweet asking this basic rhetorical question: The Indians lost in a choke job, they lost in a solid game by the Tigers, and lost a heart breaker in extra innings. What’s next, a beat down?

I hate being right, especially when I’m making an obvious joke to help lighten the mood.

The Tigers essentially took the Indians out back to the shed last night and gave them and old-fashioned butt whooping. At the end of the final set of nine innings, the Tigers were 10-3 victors and walking out of town with a four game sweep and a seven game cushion over their next closest competitor in the AL Central “race.”

Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

The biggest issue for the Tribe on thursday night was most obviously they ineffectiveness of Zach McAllister. Typically a consistently consistent pitcher, McAllister made it through only 2.1 innings of work. He allowed six runs to cross the plate, five of which were earned runs, and had absolutely no command over his arsenal of pitches. Need further proof of this, McAllister allowed those six runs to score on four hits and four walks.

The Tigers struck hard and fast in the top of the third. After working the bases loaded walked Miguel Cabrera to make it 1-0 and then allowed back to back doubles to Prince Fielder and Victor Martinez to make it 5-0. An error by second baseman Mike Aviles allowed a sixth run to score three batters later.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Tigers scored four more runs over the next two innings to put the game out of reach. This time the culprits were Andy Dirks and Martinez providing RBI base knocks in the fourth and Cabrera supplying a two run single in the fifth.

Meanwhile, the Indians score their three runs sporadically. Asdrubal Cabrera doubled home Michael Bourn and Jason Kipnis in the fourth and sixth innings respectively. Michael Brantley turned in the Indians final run of the game in the ninth when Michael Brantley reached base on an infield hit, scoring Jason Kipnis in the process.

It made little difference, though. By the time the third inning had concluded the Indians were already down 6-0 and with the way the series had played out up to that point, there was little reason to believe the Indians would suddenly break free against the Tigers to pull out the come from behind victory.

That said, the Indians will have to rebound quickly if they want to find their way into the playoffs. The process of recovery from an absolutely abysmal series starts tonight as the Indians take on the disappointing Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Jered Weaver will take on Scott Kazmir with first pitch scheduled for 7:05.

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The Good: Asdrubal Cabrera showed signs of life for the first time in what seemed like weeks. His two RBI doubles were the bulk of the Indians offense.

The Bad: This entire series was awful. It was the Indians opportunity to grab hold of the division lead, or at least make things interesting and instead they got swept and possibly knocked themselves out of contention all together.

The “Huh?”: Ryan Raburn pitched. And he pitched well in one inning of relief. Something tells me that this wasn’t what the Indians had in mind when they decided to extend his contract for another two years. He did manage to get his first career strikeout.

Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports