Shoppach’s hits tie mark in Tribe loss

CLEVELAND (AP) — Kelly Shoppach was too tired and disappointed to celebrate his record night.

Cleveland’s catcher tied a major league mark with five extra-base hits, including a game-tying homer in the ninth, but the Indians lost 14-12 to the Detroit Tigers in 13 innings Wednesday night.

“I don’t know about any records and I’m too tired to think about it,” Shoppach said after the grueling game that went 5 hours, 33 minutes, used 16 dozen baseballs and had 526 total pitches.

Detroit manager Jim Leyland called it one of the most memorable wins in his long career. It came on a day the Tigers traded veteran catcher Ivan Rodriguez to the New York Yankees, fell behind to All-Star Cliff Lee 8-1, and got out of bases-loaded jams in the ninth, 10th and 12th innings.

“It was one heck of a freak win,” Leyland said.

Shoppach had two homers, three doubles and drove in three runs as the eighth player to get five extra-base hits in a game. Hall of Famer Lou Boudreau was the only other AL player to do it, with a homer and four doubles on July 14, 1946, for Cleveland at Boston. Shawn Green of the Los Angeles Dodgers last accomplished the feat with four homers and a double on May 23, 2002.

Shoppach had a chance for a great ending to his big game, but struck out on a 3-2 pitch from Casey Fossum with the bases loaded and no outs in the 12th.

“I can’t take personal gain in a loss like this,” Shoppach said, adding that he thought he swung at a bad pitch in the 12th. “It would be a lot different in this clubhouse if we had won.”

Fossum (2-0) then got Andy Marte to hit into a double play. The left-hander allowed one runner in the bottom of the 13th before getting the final out at 12:41 a.m.

“It was a huge win. It seems we were meant to win this game no matter what,” Fossum said as teammates danced to blaring music in the clubhouse — just 11 hours before having to take the field for the fourth game of the series.