Friday, July 27, 2012
Akron Beacon Journal
cleveland
Thursday was supposed to be guaranteed loss night for the Indians. Who in their right mind would come to any other conclusion with the formidable Justin Verlander on the mound?
Verlander probably is the consensus pick for the most dominating starter in the American League, if not the majors, a guy who routinely throws harder as the game wears on, eventually hitting 100 miles per hour or more in the late innings.
But Verlander has never had much luck against the Indians, who beat him 5-3 Thursday night with a barrage of hits in a seventh-inning rally that was as shocking as it was lethally efficient.
Verlander also lost 2-1 to the Tribe earlier this year, when he was outpitched by Justin Masterson.
But that was a little different, the kind of game one would expect him to lose, if he were to lose at all. Thursday night’s offensive explosion by the Indians came from nowhere.
Through six innings, the Tribe’s only run came on a first-inning double by Shin-Soo Choo, who took third on a groundout and scored on Jason Kipnis’ sacrifice fly. Over the next five innings, the Indians had only two singles, neither struck with authority.
But Carlos Santana drove the first pitch of the seventh 419 feet over the wall in right for his eighth home run of the season, and Travis Hafner followed with a 401-foot drive to right-center, his 10th homer of the year, that tied the score 3-3 and set off a huge roar from the crowd of 34,579.
Lopez continued the rally with a single and two outs later, Choo singled to send Lopez to second. Asdrubal Cabrera lashed an RBI single to right, sending Choo to third, and Kipnis hit a fading liner off the glove of shortstop Ramon Santiago to score the fourth run of the inning.