CLEVELAND — This one isn’t going to the Smithsonian.
Both teams slopped it up pretty good Sunday in the rubber match of the final trip into Cleveland, but the Tigers’ misplays and misfires proved fatal.
Right fielder Bradley Zimmer blasted a 413-foot home run into the seats in right field off reliever Erasmo Ramirez, breaking a 5-5 in the seventh inning and sending the Indians to a 7-5 win over the Tigers at Progressive Field.
Three of the Indians’ seven runs were unearned. Shortstop Zack Short made a pair of errors. Jose Ramirez was credited with a single on a ground ball that second baseman Willi Castro fielded in shallow right field and then slipped and fell as he was trying to make the throw.
Ramirez, noticing that reliever Joe Jimenez wasn’t paying much attention to him, proceeded to steal second and third.
Jimenez got through the seventh unscathed, but it illustrated the general messiness of this one.
The Tigers put up five runs over the second and third innings against a pitcher they had managed just three runs against in five previous starts and 30.2 inning, Indians ace Zach Plesac.
Manager AJ Hinch didn’t stack his lineup with left-handed hitters, as he might do against a different type of right-handed pitcher. But against Plesac, he started right-handed hitting Derek Hill instead of switch-hitter Victor Reyes. He started the righty Short instead of lefty Harold Castro.
He did it, in a large part, to neutralize one of Plesac’s best pitches, his change-up. In theory, the pitch is less effective and generally less used by right-handers against right-handed hitters.
Hill gave a demonstration on why that is. He blasted a change-up from Plesac 404 feet into the bleaches in left field in the second inning – a three-run homer and his first in the big leagues. It was the Tigers first hit of the game and it came after Plesac had walked the first two hitters in the inning.
There was more messy play in the third. The Tigers scored twice, one on a walk, error and wild pitch, the other on an RBI double by Jeimer Candelario.
Pleasac was at 84 pitches and out of the game after four innings, despite allowing just two hits.
The Tigers 5-2 lead didn’t survive the bottom of the fourth inning.
Starter Wily Peralta, who struck out the side in the third, walked Oscar Mercado with one out. Owen Miller, who homered leading off the second, hit a ground ball into the hole at short. Short made a good play to get to the ball, but his throw to second went into right field.
That opened the gates to three unearned runs – sacrifice fly, single by Austin Hedges and a double by No. 9 hitter Eddie Clement.
Peralta kept grinding, though. He pitched around a leadoff double by Bradley Zimmer and got through the fifth inning.
Ramirez pitched a clean sixth, but the seventh started ominously when Short booted a ground ball by Clement leading off the inning. Clement was thrown out trying to steal second by catcher Grayson Greiner, but he very nearly eluded the tag of second baseman Willi Castro.
He was initially called safe, but it was overturned after video review.
Three pitches later, Ramirez left a cutter over the plate and Zimmer poleaxed it. It was just the second run allowed by Ramirez in 10.1 innings and the second homer in 19 innings.
The Tigers, 45-36 since May 8, were looking to win multiple series in Cleveland for the first time since 2015. They were also looking to overtake the Indians and move into second place in the Central. Neither happened.
