Highest WPA | Lowest WPA | ||
Granpabrera | .375 | Babybrera | -.085 |
Masterson | .268 | Buck | -.067 |
Marson | .102 | Choo | -.060 |
If you were one of the 8,726 fans who attended today's game, you saw the Indians play a very good game.
After Carmona and Carrasco's performances, Masterson's seven-inning outing was a breath of fresh, cold, April air. Justin struck out just one Chicago batter, but he was in the strike zone all game long, and more importantly, he was inducing weak ground balls. Masterson was the beneficiary of a bizarre triple play in the fourth inning. With runners on first and second and Alexei Ramirez at the plate, Ozzie Guillen started the runners while putting on the sacrifice bunt. Ramirez bunted the ball into the air down the first base line, and Carlos Santana, in his first major-league appearance at first, ran in, dived, and caught the ball in the air. With both runners well around the next base, all that remained was to make throws to first and second to triple up the White Sox.
For a while, though, it looked as if Chicago's John Danks would outpitch Masterson. The left-hander pitched without much trouble into the sixth inning. Travis Hafner got a seemingly innocuous two-out single, but then Orlando Cabrera got on top of a pitch and pulled it out to the home run porch to give the Indians a 2-1 lead.
The Indians then picked on the White Sox bullpen. Will Ohman was brought in to face Jack Hannahan to start the seventh and walked him. After Lou Marson squared around to bunt on the first of his at-bat, he swung away on the second pitch, driving the ball over Carlos Quentin's head for a run-scoring double. Marson went to third on a well-placed sacrifice bunt and scored on Asdrubal Cabrera's sacrifice fly. The Tribe broke things open in the eighth with three runs, two coming on pinch-hitter Shelley Duncan's bases-loaded single.
Pure Rage made his first 2011 appearance in the ninth, and though it wasn't a save situation, he retired the White Sox in short order.
Next Up: Boston, 7:05 PM (Tuesday)