The Indians have built their season to this point around resilience. Knock them down, count them out, and they keep getting up and coming back for more.
On Tuesday, Detroit dropped Cleveland to the floor once more.
“We’ve got to do it again,” first baseman Nick Swisher said.
In the wake of Tuesday’s 5-1 loss to the Tigers, the Tribe is looking for a way to get back on its feet. Detroit’s dominance over Cleveland this season continued courtesy of a stellar outing from ace Justin Verlander and outfielder Don Kelly’s unexplainable ownership of Indians starter Justin Masterson.
The defeat dropped the Indians five games behind the first-place Tigers in the American League Central and extended Detroit’s winning streak to 10 games. Now, instead of using this four-game series as an opportunity to steal the top seed from the Tigers’ grasp, the Indians can only hope for a series split with two games left to play.
On the season, Cleveland has just three wins in 14 meetings with Detroit.
“These guys have put it on us pretty good,” Swisher said. “We need to get them a couple times.”
Kelly provided the fatal blow.
“He’s definitely been a thorn in our side,” manager Terry Francona said.
The average baseball fan might not know much about Kelly. Around Cleveland, though, children who dare utter his name risk being sent to their rooms without supper. Facing Masterson, Kelly cursed the Indians once again, launching a critical three-run homer in a game-changing fifth inning.
Kelly entered the evening with a .232 average over the course of his career in the big leagues, but the light-hitting left fielder has feasted on Masterson. The latest example came on Tuesday, when Kelly improved his career mark against Masterson to .458 with two homers, eight RBIs and no strikeouts.
Masterson had no way of explaining Kelly’s success.
“He loves facing me,” Masterson said. “If I was Superman, he’d be my kryptonite. Especially this year, with a couple of homers. I guess there’s always a guy. He salivates when I get up there.”
Kelly singled twice within the first four innings, but Masterson minimized the damage through that stretch. That included an impressive escape act in the second inning, when the Tigers loaded the bases with no outs. Masterson used a pair of strikeouts and an inning-ending groundout off the bat of Ramon Santiago to escape unscathed.
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