CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Cleveland arms combined to add another nine strikeouts to their league-leading total as they won their second straight, and seventh of the season, 3-2 over the Reds thanks in part to some daring baserunning by Oscar Mercado in the fifth.
Leading 1-0, Mercado scored a critical insurance run from second on a double play ball off the bat of Jose Ramirez but second baseman Josh VanMeter elected to throw home when he saw Mercado blow through third base after getting a force out at second.
“Once I made my mind up, I was going for it,” Mercado said. “In the game of baseball, sometimes you gotta take some chances. The way things are going for us right now, sometimes you gotta manufacture runs any way possible. I kind of blacked out and went for it.”
The gamble paid off and it helped starter Mike Clevinger pick up his first win of the season.
“That gets the juices going, it’s huge,” Clevinger said. “He never second-guessed it.”
Clevinger, who threw just eight pitches in the first inning, worked around five walks and struck out four in 5 2/3 innings of work but he was able to keep the Reds off the scoreboard.
“He was mixing his pitches early,” acting manager Sandy Alomar said. “We felt they were going to be aggressive against him. The first batter of the game swung at the first pitch. After that he started using his breaking ball. He had a good one. It was sharp and he slowed their bats down.”
With the top two punchout staffs in the majors going at it – the Indians’ staff entered the night with 130 strikeouts, one more than the Reds – a low scoring affair was expected.
Things got dicey for Clevinger in the second when Cincinnati put runners on first and second thanks to a bloop single by Jesse Winkler and catcher’s interference on Sandy Leon allowed Nick Senzel to reach but Senzel was gunned down at second trying to advance on a ball in the dirt and Josh VanMeter was called out on strikes to end the threat.
In the third, Clevinger walked Freddy to lead off the inning. Shogo Akiyama doubled to put runners at second and third with one out before Clevinger got Nick Castellano to pop out to Santana in foul ground at first and Joey Votto sent a harmless fly ball to left.
“If you’re ever going to nibble or nitpick in a game, that’s the time and person to do it to,” Clevinger said. “Especially if Votto’s up there thinking I’m going to pitch around him. No, I’m not going to pitch around him, I was going to attack him, but I was going to attack him with some of my best stuff. I wasn’t going to leave anything over the heart of the plate.”
Reds rookie Tejay Antone was pulled in the fifth with one out and a runner on second after throwing goose eggs at Indians bats in first big-league start through four innings.
Atone walked the leadoff man for the third straight inning to open the door for the Indians to finally push two runs across. Cesar Hernandez broke the deadlock with a single to left scoring Jordan Luplow, who walked.
Then came Ramirez’s fielder’s choice that erased Hernandez at second and saw Mercado race by new coach third-base coach Tony Mansolino and beat the tag at the plate by a millisecond with a head-first slide.
“It probably wasn’t the smartest of plays, but it worked out,” Mercado said.
In a perfect world, Mercado would’ve slammed on the brakes, but with the offense on life support, why not hit the gas and blow through a stop sign?
“Mansolino was trying to hold Oscar,” Alomar said. “Mercado said he saw the shortstop charge, and when he saw that he felt he would have enough time to score. It was a heads up play by him, but it was not a particular play he would do normally.
“He was more aggressive because of the situation we’re in right now. He felt like we had to do something.”
Clevinger departed with two out in the sixth after walking three batters in the inning. Leon’s pickoff of Castellanos at first base, which was held up by replay review following a Reds challenge, prevented the bases from being loaded. Dominic Leon came on in relief and promptly struck out Senzel to end the threat.
Oliver Perez and James Karinchak pitched scoreless seventh and eighth innings respectively. Karinchak has yet to allow an earned run in 6 1/3 innings of relief this season and he has struck out 10.
Brad Hand struck out a pair in the ninth to pick up his fourth save of the season.
“They did a fantastic job,” Alomar said of the pen, which saw four relievers combine to allow just one hit and strike out five.
