Two days ago: Disaster!

The only disaster on the field tonight was PULGT* Kyle Drabek, who huffed and puffed on the mound but couldn't get any outs. Drabek came into the contest with a decent ERA but an incredible 6.0 walks per nine innings. After Michael Brantley and Asdrubal Cabrera led off the game with back-to-back doubles, Drabek struck out Shin-Soo Choo, but then walked Travis Buck and Carlos Santana to load the bases. Grady Sizemore made him pay for the wildness, plugging the left field gap with a bases-clearing double. By this time Drabek was close to 30 pitches thrown for the inning, most of them balls. Matt LaPorta hit the ball hard, but right at the third baseman, and when Drabek walked Jack Hannahan, Toronto manager John Farrell had had enough.

Toronto has an eight-man bullpen, a bit of overkill if you ask me, but in this case a large bullpen came in handy; six relievers finished up the game, and only a couple went beyond their normal work. Shawn Camp, a middle reliever, finished the first inning and pitched a 1-2-3 second inning, but started to tired in the third. With runners on first and third and one out, Matt LaPorta fouled off several pitches before Camp threw a pitch down and in. LaPorta smashed the pitch off the restaurant beyond the fence in left-center to push the lead to 7-0. Camp would stay in long enough to see the deficit balloon to 10-0.By the time the third inning was over, it was 12-0.

Random batting lines:

Asdrubal Cabrera: 4-6, 3 2B

Carlos Santana: 0-3, 3 BB

Shin-Soo Choo: 1-6, 2B

Matt LaPorta: 3-5, HR

Josh Tomlin pitched four very good innings, but after that, he fell apart, giving up three runs each in the fifth and sixth innings. But he pitched well long enough for the Indians to build up quite a substantial lead, a lead that could withstand his worst start of the season. And Chad Durbin and Frank Herrmann. And the first four Toronto hitters of the ninth reaching base.

Two nights ago, the Indians lost their fifth game in six tries. Tonight, the main worry was using Vinnie Pestano two days in a row going into a four-game series with Texas. The Indians won the series with Toronto, and finished their six-game road trip at 3-3 and with the best record in baseball.

*Parallel Universe Let's Go Tribe. The parallel universe where Grady Sizemore has a goatee and Charlie Sheen is a model citizen.

via www.fangraphs.com