CLEVELAND _ Mike Clevinger was electric but was forced from the game with a back issue in the Indians' 3-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon at Progressive Field.
Clevinger, like Trevor Bauer, Shane Bieber and Carlos Carrasco during this series, had little trouble disposing of this Blue Jays lineup. He allowed only one hit in his five innings pitched and struck out 10.
He ran into one jam, in the fourth, when Socrates Brito led off the inning with a walk and Freddy Galvis doubled to right field. Clevinger responded by striking out the next three hitters he faced to end the inning.
"He had to pitch out of some traffic and he did. My goodness," said Indians manager Terry Francona. "When you have your back against the wall, and our pitchers all seem to have done that, they execute their best pitches. That's a really good trait or characteristic to have."
He was pulled after the fifth inning and only 75 pitches with upper back tightness, something the he and the team saw was an overly-cautious move.
"The hope is that it's an over-reaction on our part," Francona said. "We're going to get him worked up tomorrow just because when a guy's got a bunch of adrenaline going and when he wakes up tomorrow morning, we just don't want to guess. So, we'll get him looked at and hopefully it's good, it's just stiff in the back area and we're good to go. I think there's some real positive signs. He tested out really well."
Clevinger expects to make his next start.
"I think it was more precautionary than anything," he said. "I mean it was just being safe. Obviously if maybe I would've kept going, it could've been a coin flip of what would've happened later on to my lat. But my back was getting tight and I didn't want it to pull on any part of my arm and stuff that matters, you know?"
Offensively, the Indians (6-3) gave Clevinger an early lead against Blue Jays starting pitcher Marcus Stroman. With two outs, Jake Bauers in the first inning doubled off the right-field wall. Carlos Santana followed by doubling down the left-field line, and Tyler Naquin sent a single to left field to make it 2-0. In the fifth, Brad Miller walked, moved to second on a groundout and scored via Jose Ramirez's single back up the middle to extend the Indians' lead to 3-0.
The Blue Jays (3-8) cut the Indians' lead to 3-1 in the eighth. Billy McKinney doubled and Richard Urena walked with Oliver Perez on the mound, bringing the tying run to the plate. After Adam Cimber entered the game, a Danny Jansen single made it 3-1 before a 6-4-3 double play off the bat of Lourdes Gurriel Jr. ended the inning. Brad Hand, in the ninth, picked up his fourth save of the season.
