Indians 7, Tigers 2: Cleveland takes 15th in a row over Tigers

For the 16th time this season, the Detroit Tigers lost to the Cleveland Indians. Coming off a series win against the Orioles, the Tigers travelled to Cleveland for a Tuesday night showdown against the Indians and lost by a final of 7-2.

It was a bullpen game for the Tigers, but none of that mattered as the Indians got on the board in the first inning and were able to continue their dominance over to Detroit for the rest of the evening. The Indians have now won 15 in a row against the Tigers.

With Matthew Boyd out for the time being due to a family matter, the already depleted rotation of the Tigers had to dig even farther into their depth to find a healthy arm to start the game. That healthy arm came in the form of Zac Reininger and his 8.25 ERA, whom manager Ron Gardenhire hoped to get three clean innings out of. Reininger rarely gets through one clean inning out of the bullpen, but perhaps making his first major league start would be the tonic he needed to get on track.

No dice.

Reininger got jumped by the second batter he faced, Cleveland’s young center fielder, Oscar Mercado, for a solo home run and ended up allowing four runs over two-plus innings. Gardenhire had his work cut out for him in trying to manage beat-down bullpen through a game against a team that has owned his Tigers this season. He used Nick Ramirez, John Schreiber, and Gregory Soto in that order after Reininger departed with two runners on and no outs in the third. Ramirez and Soto both allowed runs, but Schreiber was able to put together 2 ¹⁄₃ innings of no-hit baseball with four strikeouts and one walk.

The Tigers got their two runs in the third and fifth inning. Victor Reyes continued his outstanding second half with a run scoring single to left field to score Grayson Greiner which cut the Indians lead to 2-1 at the time. In the fifth, Dawel Lugo participated in Lebron James’ Taco Tuesday by hitting an oppo-taco home run over the wall in right field for the Tigers second and final run of the night.

The one good thing that came out of this game

We finally found out the reason that Tyler Alexander wore the name “Todd the Painter” across his uniform for Players’ Weekend, and oh boy is it glorious. Apparently, in the minor leagues, Alexander used to have longer hair and his likeness was compared to the character Todd from Wedding Crashers by his teammates.

It was fitting, really, as Alexander’s left arm was painting beautiful brush strokes in his first MLB win on Monday.