Tribe Fall to 0-5 After Late Rally Falls Short

Written by: Nino Colla on 11th April 2009

Tribe Fall to 0-5 After Late Rally Falls Short | read this item

At least Eric Wedge can’t fault his team’s offensive determination in this five game span.

If only he could get his pitching to feel the same way.

Another late offensive surge wasn’t enough for the Indians as they came up just short against Roy Halladay and the Toronto Blue Jays to get off to their first 0-5 start since 1985. After Halladay befuddeled the Cleveland hitters for seven solid innings, the Tribe mounted their comeback against closer B.J. Ryan in the ninth inning.

In the end, Victor Martinez struck out with the tying run of Mark DeRosa on second base. If only they could have saved one run in the previous eight innings.

They had plenty of opportunities.

You can start with Cliff Lee, who definitely looked like the lesser of the Cy Young winners in his head-to-head duel with Halladay.

Lee’s four runs look tremendous compared to the seven runs he gave up last Monday, but he labored through the five innings he pitched. It also pales in comparison when someone like Halladay is the opposition and he’s throwing as well as he did today.

Lee pitched his entire outing from the stretch, letting the leadoff man on four of his five innings pitched. In fact, Lee failed to retire the first two hitters of any of those innings, and only the fifth inning went remotely quick with him facing just four hitters.

In the second is where the Tribe defense squandered an opportunity to save Lee a run when Shin-Soo Choo made a pin-point throw on an Aaron Hill single to right field. Choo hit Shoppach’s glove perfectly, while Shoppach had a perfect block on the plate.

The missing part of the whole thing was that when Shoppach went to tag the lumbering Kevin Millar, he dropped the ball.

Lee’s final line: five innings, four runs, seven hits, four walks, and five strikeouts. Three of the walks surrendered were to Toronto’s leadoff hitter Marco Scutaro.

Freshly added Vinnie Chulk was used to his fullest extent today and he did his best to keep the four run deficit intact. Chulk was charged with the fifth and final run that the Blue Jays scored when Scutaro hit a sacrifice fly off Joe Smith.

Anywhere else the Tribe might have been able to preserve a run or two?

“Doc” was solid for the Blue Jays, but he was far from untouchable. The second inning was the inning of missed opportunities, with not only the dropped ball at home plate, but a base-running blunder by Choo.

Jhonny Peralta’s first double of the year took a tricky bounce that right fielder Alex Rios couldn’t handle. Choo rounded second, but missed the bag and had to return. He ended up on third, but could have surely scored had he not had to go back and touch second.

Offensively, Choo did go 2-4 in the cleanup spot, with designated hitter Travis Hafner getting a day off.

Indians hitters couldn’t get ahead of Halladay and Lee couldn’t get ahead of Toronto’s, making it a long day for the Tribe collectively. Factor in the base-running and defensive miscues, there isn’t really shock to see the Tribe lose a close game.

It wouldn’t have been close had B.J. Ryan not lost all sense of control in the ninth inning. After a double play erased a leadoff walk by Ryan Garko, Ben Francisco singled and Ryan would then load the bases by walking Asdrubal Cabrera and Grady Sizemore.

Mark DeRosa made it interesting by banking a double off the left field wall, bringing home everyone on base and sending Ryan to an early exit with one out left to get in a non-save situation.

It was at that point Jason Frasor came in and struck out Victor Martinez to end the game and give the Indians a new sense of frustration. Frasor picks up his first save of the season, Halladay improves to 2-0, and Lee falls to 0-2.

The Indians will try to avoid their second straight sweep and their first 0-6 start since 1914 on Sunday at 1:00 ET. Anthony Reyes (0-0 0.00 ERA) makes his season debut against David Purcey (0-0 2.57 ERA), who is coming off a strong seven innings against Detroit on Tuesday.

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Topics: Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Shin-Soo Choo