A reverse of fortunes can happen pretty quickly in baseball. On Saturday, the Cleveland Indians turned a no-hit bid for New York starter Matt Harvey into a losing effort to top the Mets 7-5.
For much of the early part of the game, the Indians’ bats looked helpless against the Mets’ ace and Josh Tomlin’s season debut got off to a rough start.
Mets outfielder Curtis Granderson hit the third pitch thrown by Tomlin (1-0) over the right-field wall for a lead-off, solo home run to give the Mets a 1-0 lead. From there, Harvey sat down the Indians 1-2-3 through the first four innings as he “carved up” the lineup, as Indians manager Terry Francona put it.
Harvey (0-3) was one out away from escaping the fifth with the no-hitter and 1-0 lead intact. But Carlos Santana, standing on second after a walk and a steal, was enough to start a rally.
Jose Ramirez followed by drilling a ball to deep center field that Mets center fielder Alejandro De Aza couldn’t track down, falling for an RBI-double and tying the score 1-1. Juan Uribe then added an RBI-single to left field to give the Indians a quick 2-1 lead.
Just after being given the lead, Tomlin had a quick exit from Saturday’s game. After throwing a warm-up pitch prior to the top of the sixth, the Indians called for the trainers and Tomlin was taken out with a right hamstring cramp, per the team. He allowed one run on four hits and struck out six in his five innings. He had also been cramping since the third inning, perhaps the byproduct of not having pitched in 17 days.
“I don’t know if it was just the adrenaline of not pitching for that long, but my hamstring kept grabbing at me,” Tomlin said. “I knew it wasn’t anything serious like a pull, it was just cramping up on me when I followed through. That last inning when I went out there, it grabbed at me and stayed there. It wouldn’t really release.”
Jeff Manship entered the game and received some help from Ramirez in left field. Mets third basemen David Wright ripped a ball off the top of the wall in left field and tried to advance to second, but was thrown out by Ramirez’s throw from the near the warning track.
The Indians kept piling on Harvey in the sixth. Rajai Davis opened the inning with a single, stole second base and Jason Kipnis followed with an RBI double to the gap in left-center field.
NEW YORK CLEVELAND
ab r h bi ab r h bi
Grndrsn rf 5 2 2 1 Davis rf 5 1 1 0
Wright 3b 4 1 1 0 Kipnis 2b 4 2 2 1
Cnfrt lf 4 0 1 0 Lindor ss 3 1 1 1
Cspds dh 4 1 1 3 Napoli 1b 4 1 2 2
Duda 1b 4 0 0 0 Santana dh 2 1 0 0
Walker 2b 4 1 1 1 Gomes c 4 0 1 1
Cabrera ss 3 0 1 0 Ramirez lf 4 1 1 1
d’Arnud c 2 0 1 0 Uribe 3b 2 0 1 1
Plawcki c 0 0 0 0 Cowgill pr 1 0 1 0
De Aza cf 4 0 0 0 Naquin cf 4 0 1 0
Totals 34 5 8 5 Totals 33 7 11 7
NY Mets 100 000 040 — 5
Cleveland 000 023 20x — 7
LOB—Cleveland 6, New York 6. 2B—Conforto (3), Granderson (2), Kipnis (4), Lindor (1), J.Ramirez (2), D’Arnaud (1). HR—Cespedes (3), Granderson (1), N.Walker (3). SB—R.Davis (5), C.Santana (1).
IP H R ER BB SO
NY Mets
Harvey L, 0-3 5 2-3 6 5 5 3 4
R.Montero 1 1-3 3 2 2 0 1
Henderson 1 2 0 0 0 0
Cleveland
Tomlin W, 1-0 5 4 1 1 0 6
Manship H, 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
McAllister 1 0 0 0 1 1
B.Shaw 2-3 3 4 4 1 1
Allen S, 3 1 1-3 0 0 0 1 0
Inherited runners-scored—R.Montero 3-0. HBP—D’Arnaud (by McAllister). WP—Harvey (1), R.Montero (1).
Umpires—Home, Dan Iassogna; First, Bob Davidson; Second, Lance Barrett; Third, Dale Scott.
T—2:54. A—20,165 (45,274).
Categories: -Sports-
