Rodon allowed six earned runs as a personal five-game winning streak came to an end.
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Rodon walked a pair of Indians batters in the fourth and Jose Ramirez made him pay for it with a two-run triple. During the skid, he has surrendered 47 hits, including 10 home runs, in 27 2/3 innings.
Crisp, who also doubled, went deep to left with none out in the sixth to chase Rodon (7-9), who allowed six runs to match his season high and lost for the first time since July 31. He went 0-5 with an 11.48 ERA in August before being taken out of the rotation. Tomlin struck out Tim Anderson and retired Melky Cabrera on a fly out to strand Eaton and the White Sox never threatened again.
Tomlin won for the first time since July 30, when he was 11-3 with a 3.43 ERA.
The opener against the White Sox will start a string of 13 straight April games against American League Central Division foes, as they follow the Chicago series with three contests against the Detroit Tigers before heading to Minnesota for a four-game set with the Twins and three games against the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The Sox took a brief lead in the third when Tyler Saladino singled and scored on Adam Eaton’s RBI triple to right-center field off Indians right-hander Josh Tomlin. When you look at the pitch charts for his first walk (to Mike Napoli) and his second walk (to Carlos Santana) in the fourth inning, he threw enough strikes to strike out both. Rodon can not afford to relax against the first-place Indians (83-61), who hold a six-game lead in the American League Central and are on track to claim their first division title since 2007. But Francona said neither he nor his team are feeling pressure as they try to wrap up the division. “He won’t be ready to catch every day, but having him back will be really nice”, Francona said. “We’re going to lose games, but the way we’re losing games is not right”, Lindor said.
“I feel like I didn’t deserve to have that happen”, said a frustrated Bauer, who was penciled in to start the third game of the playoffs.
Ramirez also scored that inning on Brandon Guyer’s bloop single off Rodon to give the Indians a 3-1 lead. C Yan Gomes (shoulder) was the DH at Double-A Akron on Wednesday and is expected to come off the disabled list Friday, possibly in time to catch ace Corey Kluber when the Indians open a pivotal series against Detroit.
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The successful promotion was paired up with success on the field, as the White Sox blew out the Indians 8-1 in the game. Jose Abreu was at DH with Todd Frazier switching from third to first base.
