Tomlin good, but Twins’ staff better
CLEVELAND — The aim is for Josh Tomlin to keep the baseball in the ballpark, instead of soaring toward the outfield seats.
As Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona noted on Friday afternoon, if his right-handed starter is going to serve up a home run or two, the hope is that they are solo shots, rather than backbreaking three-run blasts.
Tomlin passed all tests on Friday night. He limited the Twins to one solo homer — Miguel Sano belted his ninth pitch of the evening beyond the right-field fence. And, as fate would have it, that proved to be enough backing for Minnesota's pitching staff.
The Twins topped the Indians 1-0 at Progressive Field,
in an old-fashioned pitchers' duel. Tomlin and Ervin Santana swiftly traded zeroes after the top of the first and pleased the league's pace-of-play overlords. The game took only 2 hours, 30 minutes in all.
Sano crushed a 90-mph sinker that sat in the middle of the zone for his teamleading 10th home run of the season. That was Tomlin's only major mistake, but he took the blame for the loss.
"It's tough to put the guys in a hole against a guy who is going as good as Santana is going," Tomlin said. "A lot of that is on me. To get down 1-0 early on, he can kind of find his groove and you saw what he did. The early mistake cost us the game."
Cleveland's bats, meanwhile, went cold yet again.
The Indians struggled to score for much of their nine-game road trip until they erupted for six runs on Tuesday and seven more on Wednesday. Perhaps Thursday's off-day stifled their momentum. Or, perhaps, Santana demonstrated why he boasts a 1.50 ERA through eight starts.
Santana limited the Indians to a pair of harmless singles (and five walks) across seven scoreless innings.
"He got in on our lefthanders with his cutter and fastball," Francona said. "He has walks, but I'm not sure all of them are because he's not commanding. I think he's kind of navigating his way through the order."
Tomlin didn't disappoint, either. He held the Twins to six hits and one walk over eight innings. He tallied a season-high seven strikeouts and he tossed a season-high 105 pitches.
Tomlin endured a miserable April, in which he registered an 8.87 ERA, but he has fared far better in a couple of May outings. He has held the opposition to two runs over 15 innings.