NewsLittle right for Tribe but Pavano in loss
Seventh inning offers only real chance against Sox
By Anthony Castrovince / MLB.com
06/29/09 11:45 PM ET
CLEVELAND -- Off the bat of Ryan Garko, the ball rolled down the first-base line at Progressive Field on Monday night and was scooped up by White Sox starter Gavin Floyd. If it was ruled fair, it was an inning-ending groundout. If it was ruled foul, the Indians still had a chance to erase the two-run, seventh-inning lead staring them in the face. Those familiar with the fate of the Tribe in this season gone awry know the outcome. While the ball was initially ruled foul by home-plate umpire Scott Barry, crew chief Tom Hallion overturned the call. That play wasn't the only one that undid the Indians in a 6-3 loss to the Sox, but it was certainly a moment representative of the reeling Indians' rancid luck. "[Barry] had a good view of it, made the call, and they reversed it," said manager Eric Wedge, who was ejected for arguing the call. "They shouldn't have reversed it. Bases loaded? Two-run game? Seventh inning? Ridiculous." That also would have been a good word to describe Chris Perez's Tribe debut in the ninth. Through plunking and walking batters, not covering first base on a potential double play and giving up back-breaking hits, Perez let the Sox run away with the game with a four-run outburst. Up until that point, it had been an entertaining pitchers' duel between Carl Pavano and Floyd. Pavano made good on his attempts to improve the faulty mechanics that hounded him in his three previous starts. He got off to a rough start, giving up a run each in the first and second innings, but quickly righted himself. He worked seven effective innings, allowing just the two runs on five hits with no walks and six strikeouts. He induced 11 ground-ball outs. "I felt better than I did the last couple outings," said Pavano, who had been bothered by a stiff neck and sore right shoulder. "The first couple innings, it took me a while to find it. I gave up a couple runs, and that was enough for Gavin." Indeed, it was. Floyd was masterful for 7 2/3 innings of work in which he held the Tribe scoreless on five hits with two walks and five strikeouts. It was a punchless display for a Tribe club that scored exactly one run from the fifth inning of Saturday's game through the eighth inning of this one -- a span of 22 innings. The Indians didn't even have a runner in scoring position against Floyd until the seventh inning. And that's when the controversy erupted. Shin-Soo Choo walked, Jhonny Peralta singled and Travis Hafner walked to load the bases with two out and the Tribe trailing, 2-0. Garko came up looking for something to drive. But when he swung at an 0-1 curveball, he sent it scooting down the line. "It was not a very good swing in that spot," Garko said. Garko was momentarily bailed out when Barry, a rookie ump, called the ball foul after Floyd picked it up and fired to first. But Sox manager Ozzie Guillen complained, the umpires huddled and Hallion came back with the new ruling of a fair ball and a groundout. Wedge stormed on the scene and was ejected in a matter of seconds. Replays backed up the reversal, but Wedge didn't think the umps should have been in a position to reverse it. "It was the home-plate umpire's call, and he called it foul," Wedge said. "And then they huddled, and [Hallion] told me [Barry] got blocked out. I saw him, and he had the best look at it. I saw the replay, and he had the best look at it. And he told me he got blocked out. You can't reverse that call." Reverse it they did, and the score remained 2-0. That's the score Perez was sent out to preserve in the ninth. Newly acquired from the Cardinals for Mark DeRosa, Perez wanted to impress his new bosses and the Indians' fans. Instead, he hit Alexei Ramirez in the head with a slider, then hit Jermaine Dye with a fastball, then walked Jim Thome to load the bases. Perhaps Perez was rattled by the sight of Ramirez sprawled on the ground. Ramirez left the game, but the Sox said he was all right. "After that, I just didn't fully trust all my stuff," Perez said. "I became a little tentative out there." It showed one out later, when Perez didn't cover first on a potential 3-6-1 double play off the bat of A.J. Pierzynski. "Not covering first, that was the big play," Perez said. "I had a mental lapse, and it snowballed from there." Did it ever. The Sox scored a run on that fielder's choice, then added to their lead with Chris Getz's RBI double and Gordon Beckham's RBI single to make it 6-0. The Indians finally got on the board with three runs in the ninth, on homers from Choo and Garko, but it didn't matter. The call in the seventh didn't go their way at a pivotal moment, Perez's outing didn't go his way and the game went the same way 12 of the last 15 have gone. "You can't let it beat you," Wedge said. "We're not going to let it beat us. These guys always fight till the end. We're going to do nothing but get better. We just have to be better sooner than later."Anthony Castrovince is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
