Tribe drops opener in St. Louis

ST. LOUIS » The Indians had just four hits, and their seven-game winning streak was snapped by the Cardinals, 4-0, on June 25.

THE SCORE CARDINALS 4, INDIANS 0

The start of the game was delayed because of bad weather.

Spot starter John Gant pitched one-hit ball over a career-high seven innings for St. Louis. Gant allowed only an infield single to Yan Gomes that hit third base in the third inning.

Tribe manager Terry Francona said he was impressed with Gant.

“He kept us off balance. He threw the breaking ball that was kind of in and out of the zone and got us to chase,” Francona said. “I just thought he really pitched. Didn’t overwhelm you with stuff but (we’re) lucky the third base bag got in the way of Gomes (infield hit) or we wouldn’t have had anything. That was about it.”

Mike Clevinger (6-3) allowed two runs over five innings. It was the second-shortest outing of the season for Clevinger, who allowed six hits and walked two. Clevinger had pitched at least six innings in five straight starts before facing St. Louis.

Francona said Clevinger began to cramp up in the fourth inning, and the team pushed him for one more before calling it a day.

“He had a high pitch count,” Francona said, “and man, we just didn’t want to do something we couldn’t undo, so we figured that was enough.”

St. Louis took a 2-0 lead in the third. Matt Carpenter singled for one of his three hits, and Greg Garcia walked. With one out, Ozuna hit a one-out double to score both runners.

Kolten Wong added an RBI double in the sixth, and Harrison Bader singled in a run in the eighth. It was Wong’s first extrabase hit with runners in scoring position this season.

This was Cleveland’s first visit to St. Louis since 2012, and the Indians fell to 15-9 all-time against the Cardinals.