CLEVELAND (92.3 The Fan) – All good things have to come at an end at some point.
For Cleveland, its 20-game winning streak against the Detroit Tigers ended Friday with a 10-5 loss.
Detroit last win against Cleveland happened on April 11, 2019, and ended the second-longest losing streak against a single opponent in MLB since the Divisional Era began in 1969
The loss snaps the Indians' longest winning streak of the season of six wins.
Cleveland starting pitcher Adam Plutko (1-2) did not have his best stuff of the season against the Tigers, who have the 11th best offense in the American League. Plutko went 3 1/3 innings, gave up five hits and seven earned runs in the loss.
“Today he was very aggressive in the (strike)zone, which was fine,” Indians first base coach Sandy Alomar said. “But when he got away from that, he couldn’t expand a little bit more. At that time, his breaking ball wasn’t the same the second time around.”
The fourth inning for Plutko fell apart very quickly. After retiring Victor Reyes with a 6-3 groundout, the wheels came off for Plutko, who didn't record an out for the rest of the inning. Jonathan Schoop smashed a two-run home run for the Tigers' first two runs of the game. After the Schoop home run, Jeimer Candelario, JaCoby Jones, and Jorge Bonifacio reached base to load the bases. Austin Romaine drove in Candelario on an RBI single. Isaac Paredes cleared the bases with Detroit's first grand slam of the season to lead 7-5.
“They strung some hits and quality at-bats together,” Plutko said. “Their aggressiveness went up the second time around. They didn’t expand the zone quiet well.
Cleveland got on the scoreboard in the second inning for the first time of the game. Carlos Santana (hit by a pitch) and Franmil Reyes (walked) as Tyler Naquin hit an RBI double to score Santana. Domingo Santana grounded out to the shortstop but earned an RBI as Reyes scored. Delino DeShields added an RBI single to score Naquin to make it a 3-0 Indians lead.
Reyes showed off his power for the Indians in the third with a two-run home run off Tigers (10-14) pitcher Michael Fulmer to make 5-0 Indians. Reyes leads Cleveland with six home runs on the season.
The Indians’ (16-10) offense went cold after scoring five runs early in the game.
“They’re was a couple hard hit balls, but after that we couldn’t get anything going,” Alomar said. “I don’t know if the guys were losing the lead was something that demoralized them a little bit, but these games are bound to happen.”
Detroit (10-14) added three more runs to its lead in the seventh. Reyes homered to right field off Indians pitcher Dominic Leone and Candelario added a two-run single – making it 10-5 Tigers.
Triston McKenzie will take the mound and make his Indians debut Saturday night. Detroit will counter with left-hander Matthew Boyd (0-3, 9.64 ERA).