Chris Assenheimer
The Chronicle-Telegram
CLEVELAND — Inclement conditions may have delayed the first pitch by two hours and three minutes Saturday, but rain couldn’t douse the flame rising from the Indians’ red-hot start to the season.
With quality starting pitching and plenty of offense once again serving as the recipe for success, Cleveland won for the 10th time in 12 games, turning back the Orioles 8-3 at Progressive Field.
You can’t stop the Indians these days, and opposing teams are finding out it’s pretty tough to contain them as well.
“It’s still early and nobody knows what’s going to happen, but I think we are playing really well,” said veteran second baseman Orlando Cabrera of his new club, which stands atop the Central Division tied with Kansas City at 10-4 on the season. “I think we have what it takes to win. We’re pitching well and we’re scoring runs.
“We have to carry this momentum through the season. We’re going to have some rough parts. We’re a strong team. We just have to stay away from injuries.”
Effective outings from the rotation and consistent run support to back it up has carried the Indians during their successful start.
Both were on display against Baltimore, which couldn’t master Cleveland’s starting pitcher Josh Tomlin nor keep the Indians’ sizzling sticks in check during the second game of the series.
Though admittedly not at his best, Tomlin (3-0, 2.75 ERA) was still able to offer up enough to keep his team in the game, allowing two runs on six hits over six innings. Both of his runs came on solo home runs.
“I thought he had to labor a little bit today,” Indians manager Manny Acta said of Tomlin. “He didn’t have his best stuff but he’s always in control out there. He knows what to do.”
Tomlin, 26, has pitched well above his age and experience since joining the Indians’ rotation for 12 starts late last year. He is the only Cleveland pitcher to last at least five innings in each of his first 15 career starts and the first pitcher in the majors to accomplish the feat since Kyle Kendrick did it for the Phillies in 2007.
Tomlin has done nothing fancy to maintain the streak, throwing his four pitches for strikes on a consistent basis, while letting his defense do the work behind him.
“If I go out there and throw strikes, I feel like we have good enough hitters that we have a good chance to win,” he said.
That theory was certainly proved correct Saturday, as the Indians’ offense went to work early and often against Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie, a former Cleveland pitcher, who was the club’s first-round draft pick in 2002.
Guthrie entered the day with an impressive 0.64 ERA through his first two starts, but the Indians scored six times off the right-hander within the first three innings.
Cleveland scored twice in the second, then with Shin-Soo Choo’s one-out solo homer providing the spark, added four more in the third.
“That’s huge,” said Tomlin of the early output. “It frees you up to go out and throw strikes and not worry about giving up solo homers and stuff like that.”
The Indians have awarded their starting pitchers with early leads often this season, scoring 42 of their 75 runs within the first four innings. Cleveland is 8-1 when scoring first.
“Everybody wants to pitch with the lead,” Acta said. “The offense scoring runs early is always huge.”
The Indians also got some offense late, with Orlando Cabrera putting the game away on a towering two-run blast to left field off Baltimore reliever Michael Gonzalez in the seventh.
Cleveland, which started the year with two straight losses at home, has won six straight at Progressive Field, going for No. 7 and a three-game sweep of the Orioles today.
Contact Chris Assenheimer at 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com.
