By STEVE GOLDMAN
For the Star Beacon
CLEVELAND —
Indians manager Manny Acta said that Tampa Bay won with pitching and defense on Sunday. But as he himself attested. it didn’t hurt the Rays that his own team couldn’t move runners.
Tampa Bay used all that and a three-run homer by Reid Brignac to win the rubber match of the three-game series at Progressive Field, 4-2.
Brignac, a rookie second baseman, hurt the Indians not only at the plate with his second-inning drive, but also with his glove, as he turned a potential game-tying hit into an out, as Cleveland stranded 11 baserunners as compared to only three for the Rays.
As was the case on Saturday with Ben Zobrist’s three-run homer, Brignac’s long ball came after the first two batters of the inning had been retired. Justin Masterson (3-9, 5.19 ERA) walked Willy Aybar and gave up a hit to John Jaso before Brignac launched his shot just over the right-center field fence for a 3-1 lead.
“Masterson threw the ball very well,” Acta said. “We understand that none of (our pitchers) want to walk guys. I think we learned a lesson today. (With) two outs and nobody on, we have to be able to smell blood — go after those guys and not allow three (or) four-spots after two outs and nobody on.”
“It was a bad pitch,” Masterson, who went 6.2 innings, said. “It was a slider that forgot to slide.
“Really, I was pretty happy with the way I came back. (Instead of) letting that inning kind of bury (me), with (45) pitches after the first two innings, to try to come back and keep the team in the ballgame.”
The Tribe (41-57) smacked out 11 hits against Wade Davis (8-9, 4.32) and three relievers, including a career-tying four by Travis Hafner. But it didn’t do a good job of pushing the baserunners along.
In the second inning, on Andy Marte’s one-out grounder to short that scored Hafner, Jayson Nix was thrown out while inexplicably trying to take third. Later, Marte fanned with men on second and third and one out in the fourth.
Finally, it looked as though the Indians might tie it in the seventh. With men on second and third and two outs against Joaquin Benoit, Carlos Santana pulled a sharp ground ball past first baseman Carlos Pena that loooked as though it might beat the shift. However, Brignac, who was playing in short right field and closer to the foul line than usual, made a diving stop and threw Santana out.
“Offensively, we were horrible,” Acta said. “We had just terrible approaches at the plate today when we were in hitters’ counts. We didn’t run the bases well.
“So with a team like that that has such good pitching and plays such good defense, you’ve got to play good baseball, and unfortunately on the offensive side, we didn’t.”
Along with Nix’s blunder, Acta also pointed to Michael Brantley’s failure to try for third on Asdrubal Cabrera’s one-out hit to right in the sixth.
Cleveland got its other run in the first on Santana’s sacrifice fly. Tampa Bay (59-38) tacked on an unearned tally in the fifth, when Carl Crawford’s sacrifice fly brought home Jason Bartlett, who had reached via Marte’s error at third base.
Grant Balfour and Rafael Soriano (26th save) also pitched scoreless relief for the Rays.
Rafael Perez, Joe Smith, Tony Sipp and Chris Perez also worked for the Indians.
Oddly, Sipp finished the eighth despite not throwing a pitch in the game, as he caught Evan Longoria trying to steal second.
Rafael Perez had wrapped up the seventh somewhat similarly. However, he threw one pitch befopre nailing Brignac attempting to steal, and then went on to throw seven more pitches in the eighth.
“Some guys weren’t even throwing pitches and were getting outs,” Masterson said with a laugh. “It would have been nice to see Tony Sipp get that win without even throwing a pitch.”
Goldman is a freelance writer from South Euclid.
