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Indians Open Toronto Series with Rough Loss
July 31, 2010 By Kevin Mulhall
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What started out as a fantastic pitching duel between Justin Masterson of the Tribe and Shaun Marcum of the Toronto Bluejays turned ugly in the bottom of the fourth when our Neighbors from the North exploded for six runs, thanks largely in part to a laser beam grand slam off the bat of Jose Bautista, and never looked back.
The Indians followed up their horrible series against the New York Yankees by demonstrating the same youthful lack of hitting discipline that held them to a total of ten runs during their series with the Bronx Bombers. Without trying to minimize the stellar outing of Toronto starter Marcum, who went seven strong innings allowing only one run on three hits, fanning a season-high ten Indians and improving to 10-4 on the season, I for the record find it completely disheartening that the Tribe had the floor mopped with them against a guy who in his last three outings with them was 0-3 with a 5.45 ERA.
If there was anything that could be said to have been worse than the effort put forth by Tribe hitters during the evening it would be Indians pitching coach Tim Belcher completely ignoring the warning signs leading up to the blast by Bautista in the fourth. Before the major league home run leader's blast, Masterson showed some obvious signs of control issues, consistently missing his mark on the outside corner and getting behind in pitch counts. Rather than stepping out and calming his ace or possibly suggesting Masterson rework his pitch locations, Belcher waited until after the four-run shot to come out and talk things over. Poor coaching, poor hitting and a pitcher falling apart are a sure fire recipe for an embarrassing loss. The lone positive for the evening, if you want to call it that, was Justin Germano coming in and pitching 2 2/3 scoreless innings.
With the loss the Indians drop to 42-61, 19-34 on the road. With the loss the Tribe have extended their losing streak to three straight games; dropping seven of their last ten. The Indians resume series play with the Jays tomorrow at 1:07, right hander Jake Westbrook (6-7, 4.65 ERA) is scheduled to take the mound against Toronto rookie Brett Cecil (8-5, 3.89 ERA). Here's to hoping the Tribe can break their losing ways and return to the level of focus they had immediately following the All Star break.
