A walk-off, three-run home run by Cleveland Indians rookie catcher Yan Gomes in the bottom of the tenth-inning would be the icing on the cake for a 10-8 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Monday afternoon.
The home run was Gomes’ second of the game, having slugged a solo home run off of Hisashi Iwakuma in the fourth-inning.
Gomes would finish the afternoon going three for five with a career high two home runs and four RBI.
In 17 games this season, Gomes is hitting .302 with 4 home runs and 9 RBI, providing solid defense behind the plate in Marson’s absence.
Inconsistent pitching by the Cleveland Indians blew leads in both the eighth and ninth innings, wherein a Kyle Seager solo home run in the eighth-inning and an Endy Chavez solo shot in the ninth-inning off of Indians closer Chris Perez forced the Cleveland offense to respond in the bottom of the ninth.
An error committed by Seattle reliever Tom Wilhelmsen on a groundball by Carlos Santana would allow Jason Kipnis to score from third base, tying the game 7-7.
Following a solo home run by Justin Smoak in the top of the tenth-innning, the Indians would respond in the bottom of the inning with Gomes’ three-run home run to left field, scoring Michael Brantley and Drew Stubbs for the victory.
This was the third extra-inning victor for the Indians in their last nine games, a 4-3 ten-inning victory over Detroit on May 12 and a 6-3 ten-inning victory over Seattle in the first game of the two teams’ four-game series.
The victory completed a four-game sweep of the Seattle Mariners for the Cleveland Indians, who have now won eight of their last ten games and maintain a 2.5 game lead over the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central standings with a 26-17 record.
