CLEVELAND – There’s nothing quite like 4th of July baseball, that is until it stretches into the 5th of July.
For the Indians, they didn’t mind having to play until close to 1am on Monday/Tuesday, as they continued their dominance over the Detroit Tigers with a 5-3 win at sold out Progressive Field.
Mother Nature didn’t allow the game to start until 9:31pm, which was 2 hours and 21 minutes later than the original 7:10 first pitch.
Rain didn’t seem to damper the Indians first sellout since opening day, and first non-opening day sellout since July 4th, 2014 against the Kansas City Royals.
Mike Naploli hit a two-run blast in the 7th inning with the game tied at three to give the Indians the win. It was his 17th homer of the season, and came after Nick Castellanos hit a tying two-run homer in the 6th off Indians starter Danny Salazar.
“We were on a pretty good run, and to get home and be able to play in front of these fans, it’s nice,” Napoli said.
“To start off a series, especially against Detroit, to be able to get a win, kinda of settle down after those two losses. Kind of get on that run and then you lose two and it’s like ‘what’s going on’ and be able to get out here and get a big win, it’s nice.”
On the night, Salazar went 5.2 innings, allowing three runs on eight hits, with one walk and eight strikeouts. He did allow two homers, but did enough to keep the game even until Napoli crushed his homer in the 7th.
“Really good stuff, he left a change-up up for the homerun,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “He had had some traffic, but pitched out of it, and just left one up to Castellanos, and he hit it a long way.”
The Indians bullpen did a solid job shutting down the Tigers after Castellanos’ two-run homer, as Jeff Manship, Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen combined to keep Detroit off the board over the final 3.1 inningsalk
Shaw had two on with no outs in the 7th, but got a double play ball and a fly out to end the Tigers last big threat of the night. Allen did walk a batter in the 9th, but got a double play after it was reviewed to end the game.
The Indians scored single runs in the second and third to take a 2-0 lead over Tigers starter Daniel Norris, who left the game in the 3rd inning with a strained oblique muscle.
After Steven Moya made it a 2-1 game, the Indians got another run to make it 3-1 before the Tigers tied it on in the 6th.
Manship got the win to move to 1-1 for the Indians, while Allen collected his 18th save.
The 12 wins in a row at home is longest American League win streak at home since 2011, when the Indians won 14 straight.
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