The best games are played at midnight.
After waiting two-hours and thirty-nine minutes the Cleveland Indians (29-25) were able to host the Tampa Bay Rays (30-24) without the interruption of delays and heavy rain.
The streaking Indians headed into Friday’s game with hopes of securing an early win in the three game series, and improve their overall season record against Tampa Bay to 2-2.
With zero hits and zero runs from both clubs in the first two innings, the game could have gone in favor of either team. But in the top of the third inning when Tampa Bay’s Matt Joyce hit a home run deep right center, the storm of heavy hitters and homers quickly flooded the field.
Yunel Escobar scored a run off of Joyce’s homer, followed by Kelly Johnson off of Evan Longoria’s deep center hit. James Loney followed with a homer that allowed Longoria to score a run. The Rays had five runs and four hits in the third, and led the game 5-0.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Indians cut the lead to three after Nick Swisher and Mark Reynolds scored runs, closing the inning with two runs, one hit, and one error.
The Tampa Bay Rays anticipated road wins in Miami and Cleveland.
“That’s the way we have to keep doing it,” left fielder Kelly Johnson said, speaking on his performance in the Miami Marlins four game series. “We can’t score early and put it in cruise control. We’ve just got to keep plugging away, keep trying to score as many runs as possible.”
The Rays had one hit and no runs for four straight innings after their 5 runs in the third.
But Loney’s 8th inning homer—his second of the game—gave them a 6-2 lead over Cleveland, who were cold for the last four innings. When Desmound Jennings and Jose Lobaton scored runs in the ninth inning, and Escobar scored his second run of the night, the Rays lead increased to 9-2 and all of the hope the Indians had of a comeback was gone.
This is the 27th consecutive game that Longoria has gone without a homerun.
Both teams had identical records coming into the game. Each team had a 29-24 record, a 12-14 road record, and both were 17-10 at home. After three delays and waiting almost five hours to play, the Indians were thrown off their game and never recovered from the early runs by Tampa.
Heavy rain is expected during both Saturday and Sunday games, which means more delays and midnight games are to come.
