Higuera's been a mess lately.
CLEVELAND — It has come to this. After starting the season 13-0, the Crew is one game over .500 after their 9-6 loss to the Indians at Municipal Stadium.
The loss was the Crew’s sixth straight loss and 18th in their last 20 games. The Crew has slid all the way down to fifth place in the AL East, a division they had a lead in on May 3.
Worse yet, the Crew was supposed to be able to avoid such collapses because they had a stopper in Teddy Higuera. But Teddy hasn’t been able to stop anything.
“When your stopper doesn’t stop, and you’re not playing particularly well at the time, you’ve got a chance to have a pretty good losing streak, and that’s what we’ve got,” manager Tom Trebelhorn told the Milwaukee Journal.
I wouldn’t call it pretty good. I’d call it lousy. Damned lousy.
Higuera was clubbed around for 11 hits and eight runs in six innings. He’s now 4-5 after starting the season 4-0.
“That’s frustrating in itself when your best pitcher can’t hold a lead,” Treblehorn said about Higuera.
There were some positives. It was nice to see Paul Molitor at the top of the order and Cecil Cooper went 2 for 4. The Crew did score six runs, which should have been enough for Higuera. But no one’s been doing enough to get the Crew to a victory.
“Usually when you give Teddy a lead late in the game, it’s all over,” Jim Gantner said. “He just hasn’t been himself. We played good tonight, but not good enough.”
