Guardians Beat Oakland, Win Fourth Straight Series
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Cleveland wrapped up it's homestand against the A's on Sunday afternoon with a nice performance all the way around. Cal Quantrill pitched quite well after allowing a first inning solo homer, the Guards got some timely hitting and never looked back after taking the first inning lead.
Sunday's 6-3 win over Oakland wrapped up a 5-2 homestand. The Guardians are now 10-3 over their last 13 games and they are 3.5 games behind Minnesota at the top of the AL Central. The Twins and Tampa Bay Rays are scheduled to play this afternoon.
Oakland starter Cole Irvin proved to be tough for a good chunk of the game. After he allowed three runs in the first, he retired 13 straight batters before the Guardians got to him again. Myles Straw broke an 0-for-14 stretch with a base hit in the sixth, Amed Rosario doubled him home and Josh Naylor added an RBI single later in the inning.
Jose Ramirez had a 3-RBI day to lead the way for Cleveland.
Cal Quantrill twirled one of his two finest performances of the season so far. Rivaled only by his outing against the Reds on May 19, he gave up just that solo home run to Ramon Laureano in the first inning and scattered three other hits.
Bryan Shaw, Trevor Stephan and Emmanuel Clase shut down the A's the rest of the way to preserve the win. Stephan gave up a pair of solo home runs in the eighth inning, but Oakland never really threatened to take the lead.
Jose Ramirez Makes Club History ... Again
Cleveland's third baseman continues to play at an MVP-caliber level this year. With his 2-run double in the bottom of the first inning, Ramirez earned his 37th extra-base hit of the season. He tied former Indian Roy Weatherly (1936) as the only players in club history to have that many extra-base hits the team's first 56 games of the season.
Ramirez has 473 career extra-base hits, which puts him 11th all-time in team history (since 1901). Next up on the list - a couple of big thumpers from the middle of the order in the 90's: Albert Belle (481) and Manny Ramirez (484).
Coffee Baseball?
Sunday's 11:35 am E.T. start time sure was unusual for Guardians fans. Part of Major League Baseball's exclusive streaming deal with NBC's Peacock, today's game was the only game being played across the big leagues during the first two hours of the game before traditional games began this afternoon.
According to Elias Sports, this is the first time Cleveland has played a game before noon local time since October 2, 2004 at Minnesota when the first pitch was thrown at 11:10 am. The Metrodome staff needed ample time to flip the field over to host a Big Ten football game that evening between the Golden Gophers and Penn State.
Oddly enough, the game was suspended after 11 innings because of time constraints in flipping over the field. The Indians lost 6-5 in 12 innings the following day when the Tribe and Twins played a doubleheader.
Prior to that, the team hadn't played a pre-noon game since April 20, 1998 in Boston, as part of the Red Sox's observance of Patriot's Day. Boston has been hosting games that day since 1968.
Hit The Road
The Guardians are idle on Monday before opening a 3-city, 12-day road trip. The first two series feature interleague play against the Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers before the team heads to Minneapolis to play the Twins.
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