Another Dreadful Night of Offense Leads Tribe to 4-2 Loss to KC
Yet another night of frustration at the plate for the Indians, as they probably wish the rain would have continued. In a game delayed by an hour sixteen minutes by rain, the Royals used a four-run seventh inning in which they batted around to spoil “Cy Cy Sabathia” bobblehead night in topping the Indians 4-2. The offense flat out stunk once again, as the Tribe pounded out just four hits, one of which was a solo homer by Grady Sizemore that gave the Indians a 2-0 lead in the fifth.
Once again though, the offense had its big shot to have a big inning, but failed to do much of anything with it. It was the fourth inning, as the team put runners on first and third with no outs. Jhonny Peralta did what he seems to do best – strikeout, then Travis Hafner drew a walk, and on ball four the ball got away from KC catcher John Buck, and David Dellucci scored on the wild pitch. With runners now on first and second with one out, Ryan Garko popped out, and Casey Blake grounded out to end the teams best threat of the night.
On the mound, C.C. Sabathia seemed to be living up to his bobbleheads name of Cy Cy, as he got through six innings without allowing a run. It was that seventh that got to him, as he allowed a double to Buck to start the inning, a bunt single to Tony Pena Jr., then a single to David DeJesus to score Buck to make it 2-1. After a sac bunt moved the runners to second and third, Alex Gordon singled to right to tie the game at two.
Masa Kobayashi then took over for Sabathia, and he got an out but then allowed a single to Billy Butler that made it 3-2. Rafael Perez rolled in, and failed to earn his check as he allowed a single to Mark Teahen to bring in another run to make it 4-2. In the inning the Royals, a team not known for much offense, put up four runs on six hits.
The Indians offense did very little against four Royals pitchers, starting with Luke Hochevar, who held them to two earned runs on three hits. From there the Royals pen closed the door, making it a short night for fans that waited out the delay to watch the team fall to 14-16.
The series and homestand wraps up at 1:05pm Sunday as Aaron Laffey (0-1, 6.35) takes on Gil Meche (1-4, 7.22).
Matt has covered Major League Baseball and the "other two" Pro teams in Cleveland since 1994. He has been on the beat of the Indians in full-time mode since 1996, working for various raido and print networks around the country.
