Guardians Baseball Insider

September 19th, 2015 Columbus Clippers

This will be the final edition of Indians Baseball Insider’s “This day in Indians minor league history” as the minor league season comes to an end. The Clippers did play another game on September 22, 2015, but they lost in the AAA championship to Fresno, so we don’t need to revisit that.

Instead, we will end our run with the final game of the 2015 Governors’ Cup between the Clippers and the Indianapolis Indians. After spending the entire 2015 regular season in Akron, 24 year old Mike Clevinger made his second play-off start for the Clippers as they looked for their tenth International League championship and third in five years (they went on to win their eleventh in 2019). Chris Volstad made the start for the Indians.

Playing on the road, the Clip Show got things started in the first with two outs when Jesus Aguilar doubled, then scored on an Adam Moore single. Moore was caught going to second, however, so they scored just the solo run. It was then time for Clevinger.

He struck out one in the first and two more in the second with no base runners allowed. While the first two hitters in the third reached via single, he retired the next three in a row to keep the shut out. The Clippers added another run in the fourth very similarly to the first with an Aguilar single followed by a Moore double. Michael Choice also doubled, but Moore held up at third and was ultimately stranded there.

Clevinger walked his first, Josh Bell, in the bottom half, but added another K. Erik Gonzalez tallied another single run in the fifth with a solo home run, then Clevinger managed to work around consecutive singles again the bottom half. The Indians would then go down in order until the eighth when Gustavo Nunez lead off the inning with a single. While Clevinger struck out the next two hitters, he hit his pitch count and was pulled for C.C. Lee, who struck out the final batter of the inning to earn a hold. In the ninth, former Cubs closer made his final professional baseball appearance to go for the save with a three run lead.

Marmol struck out John Bowker and Mel Rojas with a Keon Broxton single between. He then got Dan Gamache to ground out to Audy Ciriaco to close out the Clippers’ tenth International League championship victory.

Interestingly, Moore and Choice each had three hits while Aguilar had a pair, accounting for eight of the nine Clippers hits (Gonzalez’s homer was the other). Clippers pitching combined for 10 strike outs and just one walk.