Streak Ends, but Tribe Still Win

CLEVELAND - It wasn't even a bad pitch that ended the Cleveland Indians' scoreless streak. An unearned run against Aaron Laffey on his own throwing error halted the starting rotation's run of 44 1/3 consecutive shutout innings, but didn't interrupt their string of dominant outings.

Laffey pitched the Indians to a 4-2 victory over the Oakland Athletics on Thursday, completing a three-game sweep and giving the surging Indians eight victories in 10 games.

"When you talk about five guys - to do it day in and day out it's impressive," Laffey said. "It's just been an incredible week of starting pitching for us."

Cleveland completed a 6-1 homestand in which it allowed runs in just four of 64 innings. The starters went 6-0 with a 0.16 ERA and haven't allowed an earned run in 50 1/3 innings.

In the rotation because of an injury to Jake Westbrook, Laffey (2-2) allowed just the unearned run and five hits in seven innings, struck out six and walked one. He lowered his ERA to 1.35 and has gone seven innings in each of his past three starts without giving up an earned run.

Cleveland's scoreless streak, which began last Friday, ended in the second when Laffey charged Rob Bowen's weak grounder and threw it into right field, allowing Bobby Crosby to score from second.

"When it's an error like that it's kind of disappointing, especially to break a streak like that," Laffey said.

The streak was the longest by Cleveland's starters since Bob Lemon, Gene Bearden, Sam Zoldak and Satchel Paige strung together 47 scoreless innings in August 1948 - all threw complete game shutouts.

Oakland AB R H BI BB SO Avg.

RDavis cf 4 0 1 0 0 1 .281

DBarton 1b 4 0 0 0 0 3 .224

EBrown rf 4 0 1 0 0 0 .269

FThomas dh 3 0 2 0 1 0 .222

Cust lf 4 1 1 0 0 0 .243

Crosby ss 4 1 2 0 0 0 .261

Hannahan 3b 3 0 1 0 1 0 .245

DoMurphy 2b 3 0 0 0 0 3 .208

MSweeney ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 .323

Bowen c 3 0 0 0 0 0 .167

RSweeney ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 .276

Totals 34 2 8 0 2 9

Cleveland AB R H BI BB SO Avg.

Sizemre cf 3 1 0 0 0 3 .268

Peralta ss 3 3 2 1 1 0 .221

BFrancisco lf 4 0 3 1 0 0 .344

Garko 1b 4 0 1 1 0 1 .234

Hafner dh 2 0 1 1 2 1 .222

FGutierrez rf 4 0 0 0 0 2 .236

Shoppach c 4 0 1 0 0 2 .236

JCarroll 2b 3 0 0 0 1 1 .175

AMarte 3b 4 0 1 0 0 1 .115

Totals 31 4 9 4 4 11

Oakland 010 000 001 - 2 8 0

Cleveland 102 000 10x - 4 9 1

E-Laffey (1). LOB-Oakland 7, Cleveland 8. 2B-Garko (7). HR-Peralta (7), off Casilla. RBIs-Peralta (14), BFrancisco (5), Garko (18), Hafner (19). SB-RDavis (3), Peralta (2), Hafner (1). CS-RDavis (1), AMarte (1). GIDP-Cust, FGutierrez.

DP-Oakland 1 (Crosby, DoMurphy and DBarton) Cleveland 1 (JCarroll, Peralta and Garko).

Oakland IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA

GSmith L, 2-3 4 2/3 7 3 3 3 7 102 3.26

Devine 1 1/3 0 0 0 0 3 15 0.55

Casilla 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0.93

Gaudin 1 1 0 0 1 1 22 3.46

Street 1 0 0 0 0 0 9 3.63

Cleveland IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA

Laffey W, 2-2 7 5 1 0 1 6 100 1.35

JLewis H, 3 1 1 0 0 0 1 20 2.82

RBetancourt H, 3 1/3 2 1 1 1 0 25 7.31

Kobayashi S, 2 2/3 0 0 0 0 2 10 1.86

Casilla pitched to 1 batter in the 7th.

HBP-by GSmith (Sizemore). WP-GSmith, Kobayashi. T-3:16. A-26,764 (43,545).