Joey Cantillo v. Paul Skenes was never going to be the most fair of pitching battles, but Cleveland did not help themselves at all. Multiple outs in the basepath, poor defensive efforts, and an inability to capitalize with runners in scoring position left Cantillo with the loss.
Joey pitched well enough and was holding his own in the first five innings. Cantillo pitched into the sixth inning, giving up four earned runs on seven hits and three walks. Cantillo struck out seven batters. In the sixth inning, Pittsburgh
only had a 2-1 lead, but back to back doubles with no outs forced Vogt to got to Franco Aleman. Aleman gave up two hits and a walk, allowing an inherited run and an earned run to score.
Hunter Gaddis had a solid outing. His only blemish was a walk. Will Dion pitched the eighth and ninth, allowing two runs on two hits and striking out four.
The offense was, in a word, lackluster and looked like there was a chance to get to Skenes early on. In the bottom of the third Gabriel Arias hit a single. Petey Halpin and Steven Kwan hit back-to-back one out singles with Arias scoring on Kwan’s perfect bunt.
A strike-em-out, throw-em-out play with Bazzana at the plate retired the side as Kwan attempted to steal second base. In the bottom of the fourth, Chase DeLauter got on base via a walk and went first to third on Brayan Rocchio’s single to center. Kyle Manzardo flied out to center and resulted in a double play as Chase DeLauter was thrown out at home. Once again a Cleveland runner did not slide into home. While it makes some sense that someone with CDL’s injury history wouldn’t readily slide into a base, it is still frustrating that it happened in back-to-back games.
The Twins come to town for a four game series starting tomorrow. It will be a righty face off as Joe Ryan takes the mound for Minnesota and Tanner Bibee gets the start for Cleveland. First pitch is at 6:40 PM.
