Glasnow was almost as good as Cleveland's Kluber./JEFFREY S. KING
Saturday, 2 a.m.
It doesn’t matter how good a pitcher is if his offense is shut out. What’s he supposed to do? Hold a team to negative runs?
It doesn't matter how good he is if the other guy is better.
However, to the Tampa Bay Rays, a team with one eye on its future, it matters.
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Wendle led off the game with a single, but the Rays got only one more./JEFFREY S. KING
Young Tyler Glasnow was superb for the Tampa Bay Rays Friday night. The only problem was that Corey Kluber was superb-er. Glasnow went seven innings and allowed only two hits and one earned run. But Kluber went seven, allowed only two hits and no earned runs. As a result, the Cleveland Indians beat the Rays 3-0.
Glasnow is now 0-2 on the season. Kluber, going for his third Cy Young Award, is 17-7.
Pham got the Rays' second hit./JEFFREY S. KING
"He’s outstanding," Rays manager Kevin Cash said of Kluber. "We know how good he is. You have that opportunity in the first inning, and you get excited and think maybe he’s going to have one those few off nights. It was a mistake thinking that. He got really nasty really quickly. We just couldn't get anything going offensively.
"You know how talented the guy is on the mound. It’s not like he had a really good start. He does it every five days. "
Cash, however, was impressed with Glasnow, too, suggesting it was his best game as a Ray.
"I was really impressed with the way Tyler threw the ball for us," Cash said. "He was just awesome to watch. He went toe-to-toe with one of the best in the game. We just couldn’t get anything going offensively."
The only two hits the Rays managed were a leadoff single by Joey Wendle and a fourth-inning single by Tommy Pham.
The Indians scored on a solo homer by Edwin Encarnacion. A wild pitch by Ryne
Stanek allowed two runs in one inning./JEFFREY S. KING
Stanek and a single by Michel Brantley led to two more runs in the eighth.
"It's definitely up there," Glasnow said when asked to rate his effort. "It's probably in the top two. I don’t really know how to rank it. Everything was clicking tonight and felt pretty good. That home run wasn’t very good. Kluber was pretty challenging."
The Rays try to even the series tonight at 7:10 p.m. Blake Snell goes for his 17th win against Cleveland's Shane Bieber.
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