The Indians didn't have to play catch up baseball Tuesday night because of Mitch Talbot's pitching. The offense, given a chance to play pressure-free baseball, pounded Jake Peavy.
In notching his team-best sixth victory of the season, Mitch Talbot scattered six hits and didn't walk a White Sox batter in his seven innings of work Tuesday night.
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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Indians have been outscored, 30-18, in the first inning this season. Before they even get their eyes open and their legs loose, they're already behind.
"It's tough when you have to climb out of a hole right off the bat," said manager Manny Acta.
Tuesday night, Mitch Talbot gave his teammates a chance to leave their shovels in the bat rack by pitching six scoreless innings before giving up a run. Jason Donald and Shin-Soo Choo put that peaceful interlude to good use with home runs in the third inning as the Indians beat Chicago, 7-3, at Progressive Field.
Jason Donald got the full hero's welcome from Shelley Duncan and the rest of his Indians teammates when his first big-league homer gave the Tribe a 1-0 lead in the third inning.
Victory in itself has been a rare occurrence. To do it without having to come from behind with sirens blaring -- they've come from the back of the pack in 10 of their 17 wins -- is even rarer. To do it with a combination of power and guile borders on the mystical.
The Indians have hit the third-fewest homers in the AL. Tuesday night they looked like Power Inc., as Donald started the third with a drive to the left-field bleachers off Jake Peavy for his first big-league homer. Choo followed one batter later with a long homer to right center for a 2-0 lead.
Travis Hafner almost made it three in a row with a ground-rule double that sailed over Andruw Jones head in right field, bounced off the warning track and into the stands. Russell Branyan scored him with a single to make it 3-0.
"It was exciting to see Jason Donald do that," said Acta. "He lit a fire under us."
Said Donald, "I think that's the best I've got in me. If that didn't go out ..."
Donald didn't know if the Indians retrieved the ball or not. "I hope they did," he said.
Indeed they did. It cost the Tribe a couple of autographed balls and tickets, but Donald's first home run ball was secured.
"We've given up a lot of runs in the first inning," said Choo. "It's only the first inning. Look what we did in Baltimore when we were shut out and scored eight runs in the ninth. But when our pitchers go 1-2-3 in the first, you say, 'OK, let's go.'"
Talbot (6-3, 3.73) faced the minimum number of batters in five of the first six innings. It was his second victory over Chicago this season. He beat them April 16 with a complete game for his first big-league victory.
"I thought Talbot was fantastic," said Acta. "That's what so great about this game of baseball. On any given day, a guy like Mitch can beat a guy like Peavy. I'm very proud of my kids. They had some very good at-bats against a very good pitcher, but I think Mitch deserves all the credit because he didn't make us play catch-up baseball and gave us an opportunity to score runs."
At the end of last season, Talbot was a 26-year-old right-hander buried in Tampa Bay's farm system. He was out of options and coming off a season in which he missed a big chunk of time with shoulder and elbow problems.
"Sooner or later, you reach a breaking point," said Talbot. "The options were the breaking point."
In December, the Indians traded catcher Kelly Shoppach to Tampa Bay for Talbot. Today he has six big-league victories.
"It's cool for me to go from a guy in Triple-A to a guy having success in the big leagues," said Talbot.
Said White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, "It looked like Talbot had 10 strikeouts in the first three or four innings."
Actually, he had three in the first three innings and four in seven. What Talbot did was throw strikes. He threw 74 percent of his pitches (57-of-77) for strikes. He threw first-pitch strikes to 16 of the 25 batters he faced.
After the Indians made it 6-0 with three more runs in the sixth against Peavy (3-4, 6.05) on Jhonny Peralta's double and sacrifice flies by Luis Valbuena and Lou Marson, Chicago made it 6-3 with two runs off Talbot in the seventh and one against Chris Perez in the eighth.
Then the Indians turned to guile. Valbuena squeezed home Austin Kearns with a one-out bunt to make it 7-4 in eighth. The Indians PR staff was unable to uncover their last squeeze bunt because for the last seven years it was all but banned by former manager Eric Wedge, who did not think it was good baseball.
Good or bad, it helped them win a game Tuesday.