Giants Sweep Indians
Game 1
Carlos Carrasco took the hill for this first game of a three game set with the San Francisco Giants in San Francisco. Tim Hudson was the opposing pitcher for the Giants in his return season after his horrific injury last year in Atlanta. Carrasco was not bad, but was also not good. In this bottom of the first, Hunter Pence gave the Giants an early lead with a RBI triple off of Carrasco. Then Michael Morse provided a sacrifice fly to score Pence to give the Giants a 2-0 lead.
The Indians offense began to struggle and Hudson only added to the hurt. Hudson allowed only 1 run and 4 hits through 7 innings. The one run came in the 3rd off of a Nick Swisher single, scoring Michael Bourn. Swisher has improved in the past few games and seems to have gotten out of his early season slide. Unfortunatley, response runs remained a problem for the Tribe and were a problem in this first game of the series as well. After Swisher’s RBI single, the Giants responded with another run in the third.
After 3 innings, the Giants led 3-1, and from that point on, Giants pitchers shut down the tribe and limited them to 0 runs and 3 hits in the final 6 innings. The Giants tacked on two insurance runs in the 5th and 7th inning to secure a 5-1 victory in the first game of the series
Game 2
In the second game of the beginning of a 6 game West Coast road trip, Zach Mcallister took the hill to face the San Francisco Giants. McAllister, who had been the Indians best and most efficient pitcher throughout the beginning of the season, was lights out for the first 4.1 innings. The Tribe gained a 3-0 lead through the first two innings with the help of 2 Jason Kipnis RBIs and a Nick Swisher single that scored Michael Bourn from 3rd.
In the 5th, the Giants got to McAllister after a few base hits to right field and unprecedented walks by ZMac. The Giants scored 4 in the 5th, and gained a 4-3 lead that the Indians would never recover from.
The Giants took the second game from the Indians by a score of 5-3. The winning pitcher, Juan Gutierrez pitched .1 innings and allowed no hits. Tim Lincecum started the game for the Giants, and pitched 4.2 innings, allowing 9 hits, 3 runs, and 2 walks. McAllister pitched 5 innings of 5 hit ball, and allowed 4 runs, all in the fifth inning.
Game 3
Danny Salazar’s first 5 starts were not assuring. The young pitcher with a killer fastball started the season with a 0-3 record with a 6.04 ERA. Salazar is known to strikeout batters, while notching up a high pitch count. Because of this, Salazar has not pitched more than 5.2 innings in a game. This start, however, was different. Salazar pitched 7 innings of 5 hit baseball while only allowing 1 run. Salazar’s superb pitching put the Indians in position to steal a win away from the Giants in the final game of this series.
Yan Gomes stepped up to the plate in the top of the 8th inning with his team trailing 1-0. Gomes blasted a homer to left field to tie the game up. Gomes homer (3) was one of the Tribe’s 3 hits on the day, and was the last of the day for the struggling Indians offense.
In the bottom of the ninth, with the game tied, with two men on base against Cody Allen, Brandon Hicks stepped up to the plate with a chance to win the game for the Giants. With a 1-0 count, Hicks got a hold of the ball and belted it into “souvenir city” as Matt Underwood would say. This homerun won the game for the Giants with a score of 4-1 and secured the sweep for the Giants.
The Indians leave San Francisco and head to Anaheim with a 0-3 record to begin the road trip. The Indians kick off their series with the Angels on Monday April 28 @ 10:05 EST. Justin Masterson will take the hill against Tyler Skaggs.
