CLEVELAND: A reversal of fortune can happen pretty quickly in baseball. On Saturday, the Indians turned a no-hit bid by New York Mets starter Matt Harvey into a 7-5 victory at Progressive Field.
For much of the early part of the game, the Indians looked helpless against the Mets’ ace, and Josh Tomlin’s season debut was off to a rough start.
Mets outfielder Curtis Granderson hit the third pitch thrown by Tomlin (1-0) over the right-field wall for a leadoff, solo home run to give the Mets a 1-0 lead. From there, Harvey sat down the Indians 1-2-3 through the first four innings as he “carved up” the lineup, as Indians manager Terry Francona put it.
Harvey (0-3) was one out away from escaping the fifth with the no-hitter and 1-0 lead intact. Carlos Santana, standing on second after a walk and a steal, was the Indians’ first base runner against Harvey. It was enough to start a rally.
Jose Ramirez followed by drilling a ball to deep center field that Mets center fielder Alejandro De Aza couldn’t track down. Santana scored on the double, and Juan Uribe added a single to left field that scored Ramirez and gave the Indians a 2-1 lead.
Just after being given the lead, Tomlin was forced from the game. After a warm-up pitch before the top of the sixth, Tomlin reached for the back of his right leg and the Indians called for the trainers. Tomlin was removed from the game with what the team called a right hamstring cramp. He allowed one run on four hits and struck out six in his five innings. He had also been cramping since the third inning, perhaps the byproduct of having 17 days of rest.
“I don’t know if it was just the adrenaline of not pitching for that long, but my hamstring kept grabbing at me,” Tomlin said. “I knew it wasn’t anything serious like a pull, it was just cramping up on me when I followed through. That last inning when I went out there, it grabbed at me and stayed there. It wouldn’t really release.”
Jeff Manship entered the game and received some help from Ramirez in left field. Mets third basemen David Wright ripped a ball off the top of the wall in left field and tried to advance to second but was thrown out by Ramirez’s throw from near the warning track.
The Indians kept piling on Harvey in the sixth. Rajai Davis opened the inning with a single, stole second (his fifth steal of the season) and Jason Kipnis followed with an RBI double to the gap in left-center field. Mike Napoli and Yan Gomes each singled home a run to make it 5-1, ending Harvey’s day.
In the seventh inning, Francisco Lindor drove in Kipnis, who singled, with an RBI double, and Napoli added another run-scoring single.
The tough start to the season for relief pitcher Bryan Shaw continued in the eighth. The Mets (4-6) turned a comfortable lead into a close game much like the Indians did Friday night. Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes cut the Indians’ lead in half with a three-run home run, and Neil Walker followed with a solo shot down the right-field line to make it 7-5. Just as quickly as the Indians ended Harvey’s solid day, the Mets turned a comfortable lead into a save situation.
After the Mets got to Shaw, Cody Allen entered, allowed a walk but no hits and recorded a four-out save to close the game, his third of the season.
“I wanted us to win so bad because I wanted to come in here and brag about the way we played today,” Francona said. “That guy [Harvey] was carving us up for four innings. … And then [Tomlin] holds it right where it’s supposed to be and gives us a chance and we played a really good game defensively, on the bases and made everything count. And you look towards the end, we needed it.”
Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Indians blog at www.ohio.com/indians. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RyanLewisABJ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RyanLewisABJ