No-hit bid yields rare shutout
Starter Clevinger, bullpen stymie bats, snap string of series victories
The Cleveland Indians’ bullpen, one of the stories of last postseason, has been the most dominant in baseball this season.
With Andrew Miller, Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen ready to lock down the final innings, the most viable avenue to beating the reigning American League champs is to get to their starter.
The Astros have failed to do so in both of the first two games of this weekend’s series at Minute Maid Park. In their 3-0 loss to the Indians on Saturday, they were dominated by Mike Clevinger, a shaggy-haired 26-year-old righthander who spent April in Class AAA.
Clevinger no-hit the Astros (29-14) for six innings and completed seven-plus innings in which he allowed only two hits, both singles. Miller and Allen shut down the eighth and ninth innings for the Indians (22-19). Shut out for the second time in 43 games, the Astros matched a season worst with three hits.
“Sometimes you’ve got to give credit to the pitcher,” shortstop Carlos Correa said, “and I think today was one of those days.”
The defeat snapped the Astros’ streak of consecutive series wins at six. They lost consecutive games for the first time since April 26-27, the final two games of their three-game series against the Indians in Cleveland. They enter Sunday afternoon’s finale of their season series against the Indians having lost four of their five meetings. Altuve ends suspense
Jose Altuve broke up Clevinger’s no-hitter with a leadoff single in the seventh inning but was quickly erased when Correa grounded into a double play. Evan Gattis chased Clevinger from the game with a leadoff single in the eighth, but Miller stranded Gattis on base.
The Astros, who lost to nemesis Trevor Bauer on Friday, struck out eight times against Clevinger, who had thrown 93 pitches through six innings and finished with 106. Clevinger commanded his low-90s fastball and complemented it with effective breaking balls and changeups. He induced seven swings and misses on his slider.
Clevinger (2-1) issued two walks. He was perfect until Josh Reddick reached base on an error by first baseman Edwin Encarnacion with one out in the fourth inning.
“He had his stuff today and he made his pitches,” Reddick said. “He missed a lot of barrels and when the barrel was hit it was at somebody.
“You just tip your cap to him and move on to the next day. He just had that day where he was on and we couldn’t figure him out.”
Mike Fiers (1-2) took the loss despite his best outing since his first start of the season April 7 against the Kansas City Royals. He completed six innings for just the third time in eight starts and allowed only one earned run. Appropriately, it came on a 446-foot blast by Lonnie Chisenhall, the major leagueworst 17th home run Fiers has given up this season. Rare shot off the roof
Otherwise, Fiers worked around a walk and five singles, one by Yan Gomes that caromed off the ballpark’s roof and fell into fair territory in left field. A passed ball by Gattis led to the game’s first run to score on a Jason Kipnis single in the second inning. Reddick saved Fiers another run by cutting down Gomes at the plate from right field.
Fiers retired the final six batters he faced and Tony Sipp followed suit with a perfect seventh. Sipp retired Kipnis to open the eighth before Astros manager A.J. Hinch summoned James Hoyt, who allowed two hits, including a run-scoring double to Carlos Santana.
For the Indians’ pitching staff, the shutout was its fifth of the season, each of which has come on the road.
Their bullpen has a major league-best 1.82 ERA and has allowed only nine earned runs in its last combined 83 innings.
The Indians have outscored the Astros 21-16 in their five games.
“They’re good and so are we,” Hinch said. “I think these games have been close to where some small advantages one way or the other have really flipped the games.”