Rays bombard Indians bullpen

By PAUL HOYNES

Cleveland blew a 7-4 lead to lose in Tampa Bay’s dome.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The good news about the closerless Indians is there are only 49 games left in the season. The bad news is what might occur in those 49 games.

The Indians entered the ninth inning against Tampa Bay with a 7-4 lead Wednesday afternoon at Tropicana Field.

Edward Mujica and Masa Kobayashi combined to give up six runs while not recording an out as the Rays rallied for a 10-7 victory. Mujica gave up a two-run homer to Gabe Gross after allowing consecutive doubles to Jason Bartlett and Eric Hinske. Kobayashi relieved and gave up a three-run homer to Carlos Pena.

The bullpen has nine wins and 21 losses and has converted 18 of its 33 save opportunities — a 54 percent success rate.

There were a lot of wheels spinning Wednesday.

Manager Eric Wedge benched DH Ryan Garko for not running out a ground ball in the second. The move eventually hurt Wedge when second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera sprained his left ankle running onto the field for the sixth inning and had to leave the game.

Wedge moved catcher Sal Fasano to first, shifted first baseman Andy Gonzalez to third, moved Jamey Carroll from third to second and brought Kelly Shoppach off the bench to catch.

In the ninth, Fasano, playing first for the first time in three years, fielded a grounder by Akinori Iwamura and flipped to Kobayashi, who missed the bag. Kobayashi walked Ben Zobrist before Pena hit a liner deep into the right-field seats.

“It stunk,” Fasano said. “I wish I could have done more.”

Wedge considered it one of the worst defeats of the season.

“The thing with Garko is on my mind,” he said. “You know how I feel about that. It’s just tough to have a game ripped away from you that fast.”

Garko sent a grounder down the first-base line to start the second. It went foul and then came back fair. Garko never left the box.

“I made a big mistake right there,” Garko said. “It’s the first time it’s happened and it will be the last.”

Wedge kept the locker room closed for 20 minutes — 10 over MLB’s cooling-off period — as the Indians made several roster moves. Right-handers Anthony Reyes and Brendan Donnelly will join the team in Toronto from Class AAA Buffalo Friday. Matt Ginter was placed on the disabled list with a right forearm injury and Tom Mastny was optioned to Buffalo.

The loss overshadowed a 5-for-5 game by Jhonny Peralta and six decent innings by Jeremy Sowers, who out-pitched All-Star lefty Scott Kazmir. Peralta is hitting .281 (117-for-417) with 19 homers and 64 RBIs.

It was Peralta’s second five-hit game of the season.