Bullpen great again, Indians top Blue Jays for 3-0 ALCS lead

The Toronto Blue Jays finally generated some offence, beating the Cleveland Indians 5-1 to stave off elimination in the ALCS.

Six Indians relievers then combined to guide Cleveland to a victory that gives the Indians a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series.

Instead, Otero, Manship, and McAllister – the front end of the Indians’ bullpen – only allowed two runs on four hits over the next three-and-two-thirds innings. Kluber lost the strike zone and walked the first two batters of the inning Troy Tuowitzki and Russell Martin. The FS1 cameras showed Bauer’s right hand dripping blood.

After Trevor Bauer’s bloody exit, these remarkable relievers had to stitch together nearly an entire game against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Manager Terry Francona had said that was his plan if Bauer’s finger acted up. “But to get this opportunity tomorrow, it’s awesome”. “I can barely remember last week”.

“Either you win or you go home”, Martin said.

The Jays, who scored 22 runs in their three-game sweep of Texas in the division series, have scored just three times against Cleveland in the first three games of this series. You know, he’s one of those guys who keeps ending up on good teams.

Cleveland starting pitcher Trevor Bauer exited Monday’s ALCS Game 3 with a bloody finger, which he suffered while fixing a drone last week. Napoli was in the playoffs with the Angels in 2007, 2008 and 2009; with the Rangers in 2011 and 2012; with the World Series champion Red Sox in 2013; with the Rangers again a year ago; and now the Indians.

The Toronto Blue Jays earned themselves another game, and if they play the way they did in Game 4 and Game 5, they may yet earn themselves another.

Meanwhile, Sam Peterson was more realistic as he evaluated his beloved Jays, saying they’ll never win this series.

Another run came in the eighth, when Carrera tripled with one out and scored on Kevin Pillar’s sacrifice fly to a diving Brandon Guyer in right field. Napoli also became the fifth player to hit a home run for four different teams in the postseason.

“It’s a good feeling”, Kipnis said. A two-out walk to Jose Bautista put the potential tying run on, but Josh Donaldson’s liner to left field stayed up long enough for Coco Crisp to make a sliding catch. In the 2015 postseason, he was 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA in 7 1/3 innings over nine games.

Calderon is wrong. The Boston Red Sox are the only team in Major League Baseball history to come back from a 3-0 deficit. Joe Biagini allowed an inherited runner to score later in the sixth on Jose Ramirez’s single.

Plus, even though Cleveland used six relievers in Game 3, none threw more than 1 2/3 innings or 28 pitches. He needed 11 stitches to close the wound and was pushed back to the third game of the series after originally being named Cleveland’s starter for Game 2.

Dioner Navarro led off the bottom of the ninth with a single to right before Miller retired three straight, including two by strikeout.

The pitcher doing the work for the Blue Jays, Aaron, is a year younger but is coming out of a breakout season with an astonishing record of 15-2.