Mercado gets walk-off hit

Indians 2, Reds 1, 10 innings

CLEVELAND — The rookie continues to impress.

Oscar Mercado came to the plate in the 10th inning with the game on the line and came through on a twostrike pitch to send the Cleveland Indians home as 2-1 winners in 10 innings over the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night at Progressive Field.

Facing Reds reliever Raisel Iglesias (1-6), the Indians set the table for Mercado. With one out, Mike Freeman walked and Leonys Martin singled to center field to put runners on the corners. The Reds then opted to intentionally walk Francisco Lindor to get to Mercado with the bases loaded.

Mercado made them pay for it: He lined a single to left field for his first career walkoff hit.

Brad Hand (3-2) pitched two scoreless The Reds’ Jose Iglesias celebrates in the dugout after scoring on Nick Senzel’s double in the fifth inning against the Indians on Tuesday night in Cleveland. innings and struck out four to get the win.

Trevor Bauer, who had been searching for a solid start for roughly six weeks, struggled with his command and had to dance out of some trouble. But, for the most part, he finally found his form in a duel with Reds starter Luis Castillo for much of the night.

Bauer finished with one earned run allowed on six hits and five walks to go with six strikeouts in 7 innings.

Bauer’s biggest pitch of the night came in the seventh inning with the score tied 1-1. A double by Yasiel Puig and back-to-back walks loaded the bases with one out for Nick Senzel, who in the fifth inning had crushed an RBI double off the wall to tie the score.

Bauer induced a grounder right back to him. He quickly tossed it to catcher Roberto Perez, who stepped on the plate and fired to first base for an inningending double play.

The Indians struggled to solve Castillo, who is in the midst of a stellar year and entered Tuesday night sporting a 2.26 ERA. When Lindor led off the first inning with a double off the wall in center field, it seemed to be a positive indicator of what was to come. But that wasn’t the case, as Castillo settled down to allow just one run in six innings.

Castillo paid for only one mistake — a change-up to Carlos Santana in the fourth inning. Castillo left it over the heart of the plate, and Santana belted it to rightcenter for a solo home run, his team-leading 13th homer of the season.