Indians can’t overcome poor outing by Tomlin
CLEVELAND — Josh Tomlin gave it up early and the Indians could never quite catch up.
Tomlin allowed four runs on nine hits in 2 ⅔ innings on Saturday night in a 5-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox. The Indians tried to rally behind homers by Edwin Encarnacion and Carlos Santana, but it wasn't enough.
Encarnacion hit his second homer in as many games, a two-run drive into the bleachers in leftcenter in the fourth off left-hander David Holmberg (1-0, 2.74 ERA) that cut Chicago's lead to 4-2.
Santana made it 4-3 in the sixth with homer into the bleachers in left field off Dan Jennings. The White Sox added an insurance run in the eighth to make it 5-3 on a sacrifice fly by Kevin Smith.
Chicago led 4-0 after two innings and it could have been more, but they kept running into outs. They had two runners thrown out at the plate and another thrown out trying to steal third.
"He had traffic starting with the first hitter," said manager Terry Francona, referring to Tomlin (3-8, 5.73). "He couldn't a feel for his breaking ball (curveball). That's been his real good pitch since he's been on this roll."
Tomlin came into the game having allowed eight earned runs in his last 22 ⅓ innings.
"He didn't walk anybody, which was fortunate," Francona said. "We were also fortunate that they were so aggressive on the bases or he might not have lasted that long."
Tomlin allowed three straight hits to start the game. Jose Abreu's single, the third straight hit in the first, gave Chicago a 1-0 lead. Tomlin hit Avisail Garcia to load the bases, but Melky Cabrera was forced at the plate on Todd Frazier's grounder to Jose Ramirez at third. Matt Davidson followed with a two-run run single to make it 3-0. Frazier was cut down by catcher Yan Gomes trying to steal third.