Sunday, July 18, 2010
Associated Press
Cleveland
Fausto Carmona tried to outpitch fellow All-Star Justin Verlander and lost his command — but won the game.
Cleveland’s right-hander walked six over seven innings, but backed by superb defense and a two-out RBI single by Trevor Crowe in the seventh, Carmona and the Indians beat the Detroit Tigers 4-3 in the first game of a day-night doubleheader Saturday.
The second game was tied 1-1 when rain began falling on Progressive Field.
“Fausto did such a good job without his best stuff and kept putting up zeros until we could get Verlander out of there,” Crowe said.
Crowe came through in the seventh with a tiebreaking single against reliever Phil Coke (5-1). The hit scored Matt LaPorta, who doubled with two outs.
Carmona fell behind 3-0 in the first inning, but got stronger while Verlander faded.
“I tried too much and was overthrowing,” Carmona admitted. “The defense really helped me win.”
Third baseman Andy Marte started three around-the-horn double plays to thwart Tigers threats in the second, third and fifth.
His backhand stop of a smash by Miguel Cabrera in the third helped halt the Detroit slugger’s hitting streak at 20 games. Cabrera went 0 for 3 with a walk.
“That was a huge swing inning,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “Cabrera hit a bullet down the third-base line with two guys on and it looked like it was going to bring another run in and we would have second and third with no out. Marte made a great play on it. Then they scored two in the bottom half.”
Carmona left in the eighth after yielding a leadoff double to Johnny Damon. Joe Smith got Magglio Ordonez to ground out and fanned Cabrera.
Left-hander Rafael Perez then retired Brennan Boesch on a groundout.
“Smitty was huge, fantastic,” Indians manager Manny Acta said.
Chris Perez worked the ninth for his eighth save.
Carlos Guillen had a two-run single and Brandon Inge followed with an RBI double in the Tigers’ first. Guillen was thrown out at the plate on a close play to end the inning.
Carmona walked five over the first three innings, but settled down. He allowed three runs and six hits, striking out three. Acta went to the mound after Carmona walked Damon to open the third. Carmona then walked Ordonez, too, before Marte bailed him out.
Verlander fanned nine and walked five over six innings, allowing six hits and three runs. He also threw two wild pitches in the sixth that enabled Cleveland to tie the score at 3.