Kyle Gibson
By JEFFREY JONES
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) — José Ramírez had three hits including his 36th home run, drove in two and stole his 40th base as the Cleveland Guardians beat the St. Louis Cardinals 5-1 on Friday night to move closer to the AL Central crown.
Greenfield veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson went six innings and suffered the loss for the Cardinals.
Gibson (8-8) allowed four runs (three earned). He struck out two and walked three, allowing multiple home runs for just the fifth time in 29 starts.
“Felt really good, (but) we’d like to have two pitches back,” Gibson said.
“Especially against this lineup, I feel like (Gibson) actually navigated it well,” Cardinals manager Oli Marmol said. “You’ve got a ton of lefties in there, a lot of guys that make contact, they’re in the air quite a bit, they don’t swing and miss. He gave us a shot.”
Gibson is scheduled to make his final start of the season Thursday at Colorado. The Rockies are scheduled to start Kyle Freeland (5-8, 4.95).
Cleveland’s Ben Lively (13-9) pitched five innings, allowing just one earned run and three hits while striking out two and walking one. It was his third consecutive start of allowing fewer than two runs.
“A couple times in the past, I’ve kind of chilled out a little bit, thinking I’ve got it figured out a little bit, and bad things happened,” Lively said. “You know what you’re doing, (so) keep going. I’ve got plenty of time in the offseason to think about it.”
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Cleveland 5, St. Louis 1
| Cleveland | St. Louis | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ab | r | h | bi | ab | r | h | bi | ||||
| Totals | 34 | 5 | 8 | 5 | Totals | 32 | 1 | 7 | 1 | ||
| Martínez lf | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Winn ss | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Manzardo dh | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Burleson lf | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Fry ph-dh | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Goldschmidt 1b | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Ramírez 3b | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | Arenado dh | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| J.Naylor 1b | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Donovan 2b | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Thomas cf-rf | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Nootbaar cf | 4 | 0 | 2 | 1 | ||
| Giménez 2b | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Walker rf | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Brennan rf | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Saggese 3b | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | ||
| Straw cf | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Pagés c | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| B.Naylor c | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Baker ph | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Schneemann ss | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Herrera c | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cleveland | 001 | 111 | 010 | — | 5 |
| St. Louis | 000 | 100 | 000 | — | 1 |
E_Saggese (1). DP_Cleveland 2, St. Louis 0. LOB_Cleveland 6, St. Louis 7. 2B_Saggese (1), Burleson (20), Nootbaar (17). HR_Ramírez (36), Giménez (9), Thomas (6). SB_Ramírez (40).
| IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO |
|---|
| Cleveland | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lively W,13-9 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Avila H,1 | 1 | 2-3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Sabrowski S,1-1 | 2 | 1-3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| St. Louis | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gibson L,8-8 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | |
| Matz | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Umpires_Home, Shane Livensparger; First, Brian O’Nora; Second, Brennan Miller; Third, Chris Conroy.
T_2:22. A_33,967 (44,494).
