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Tribe wins in extra innings
yahoo sports
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Shin-Soo Choo sat at his locker in the Indians
clubhouse, the bruise on the outside of his right knee just larger than
a baseball and turning every shade of red and blue imaginable.
‘’It’s nothing,’’ he said with a smile.
Driving in the winning runs must have made the pain go away in a hurry.
After getting hit by a pitch early in the game, Choo delivered a
two-out double in the 10th inning Saturday night that sent Cleveland to
an 11-9 victory over Kansas City - despite blowing a seven-run lead in
a testy affair marked by three ejections and a pair of bench-clearings.
‘’What a crazy kind of emotional game,’’ said Indians manager Manny
Acta, who was among those thrown out during an eventful third inning.
‘’Just glad we came out on top.’’
Light-hitting Yuniesky Betancourt helped force extras when he homered
in the eighth inning for the Royals, completing their bit-by-bit
comeback from a 9-2 hole.
With two outs in the 10th, Choo pounded a pitch from Greg Holland (0-1)
to center field that Jarrod Dyson tracked down at the wall. He appeared
to have the ball in his glove before it popped loose, and Jason Kipnis
and Michael Brantley came around with the go-ahead runs.
Jairo Asencio (1-1) earned his first major league win by pitching a
clean ninth inning, while Chris Perez set the Royals down in order for
his second save of the season.
‘’Always you try to win games,’’ Choo said, ‘’but especially tonight.’’
Choo was plunked by Jonathan Sanchez in the third inning, sending both
teams streaming onto the infield. Sanchez and Choo have some history:
The left-hander broke Choo’s thumb last season by hitting him with a
pitch. Choo wound up on the disabled list for nearly two months.
‘’I know it’s not on purpose. The catcher set up inside,’’ Choo said.
‘’But I still have the memory from last year. Maybe I was a little
sensitive.’’
Tempers were still simmering in the bottom half when Cleveland starter
Jeanmar Gomez hit Mike Moustakas leading off the inning. Plate umpire
Gary Darling immediately tossed Gomez along with Acta and third baseman
Jack Hannahan, who rushed into the middle of the fray.
Royals manager Ned Yost was also in the middle of the scrap, losing his
hat as he got into Hannahan’s face between the mound and first base.
‘’I don’t really know what they were thinking,’’ Yost said. ‘’They had
to go to their pen early. We had to go to our pen early. It’s one of
those things.’’
Carlos Santana, Jose Lopez and Kipnis each drove in a pair of runs for
the Indians, who have come alive after a miserable five-game stretch to
start the season. They scored seven times in the first inning while
taking the series opener, and piled up 14 hits on Saturday night.
Things soured for Sanchez early in the third, when Brantley ripped a
one-out triple to the wall. Asdrubal Cabrera followed with an RBI
single, and Sanchez plunked Choo on the right knee.
Choo started jawing at Sanchez as he headed toward first base, and the
Royals starter dished the trash talk right back at him. Hannahan rushed
at Sanchez before the umpires and coaches from both teams intervened,
restoring order before tempers boiled over.
‘’I hit him twice. I have nothing against him,’’ Sanchez said. ‘’I just
wanted to come in with those pitches. But if you’re going to miss, miss
in. I’m not going to miss over the plate.’’
The Indians immediately pounced on the rattled Sanchez, piling up five
runs before he was finally lifted from his Kauffman Stadium debut after
2 2-3 innings.
The Royals got a pair of runs back in the third, but Cleveland scored
another run in the fourth and added three more in the fifth - Kotchman
went deep leading off the inning, and Kipnis followed a base hit by
Jason Donald with his own homer to make it 9-2.
Then Royals’ rally started in the most innocuous of ways.
Betancourt singled to lead off the fifth inning, and an RBI double by
Moustakas and an RBI by Escobar on a double-play groundout made it 9-4.
Kansas City added two more runs in the sixth. Butler ripped a one-out
double to left field, and an error on Kipnis at second base allowed
Betancourt to reach first and keep the inning alive for Moustakas,
whose RBI double pulled the Royals within three runs.
Hosmer’s run-scoring double and Butler’s RBI single made it a one-run
game in the seventh, and Betancourt finally tied it on a 2-2 pitch from
Vinnie Pestano leading off the eighth.
Choo made all the hard work coming back moot.
‘’We were down seven and you want to hold the fort, so you can chip
your way back into,’’ Yost said. ‘’We did tonight, but we just couldn’t
get that one extra run to close the game out.’’
NOTES: Indians RHP Ubaldo Jimenez pitches the series finale against
Royals RHP Luis Mendoza. ... The Indians have homered each of their
first seven games, the fourth-best season-opening stretch since at
least 1918. ... Royals starters allowed seven runs in 34 innings over
their first six games. They’ve allowed 12 in 6 2-3 innings against
Cleveland.
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