Salazar shakes off illness with 10-K win
Righty outduels Price, holds Blue Jays to 2 runs in 7 innings
TORONTO -- After tossing seven strong innings in a victory over the red-hot Blue Jays on Monday night, Danny Salazar was ready to crawl into bed and hit the hay.
"I just want to go home and sleep right now," the right-hander said following the Indians' 4-2 series-opening victory over the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. Salazar, who lost six pounds in two days after falling ill late last week, missed his scheduled start on Friday and took the mound on eight days of rest in Toronto. He said he was exhausted after he turned in a quality start against the formidable Blue Jays, whom he limited to six hits, two runs and a walk.
"You know in your mind you want to be aggressive, but your body is dead," he said after outdueling ace left-hander David Price.
After tossing only 4 2/3 innings against the Yankees his last time out, Salazar delivered a bounce-back outing to help the Tribe to its sixth win a row. He didn't show signs of fatigue as he registered 10 strikeouts for the first time since June 6. In fact, he seemed to be at his best in his final inning of work, when he struck out Russell Martin and Kevin Pillar before getting Ryan Goins to ground out for a 1-2-3 inning.
Indians manager Terry Francona said he didn't think Salazar's recent bout of sickness was much of an issue against the Blue Jays.
"We were keeping an eye on his endurance just because of that, but I'm glad we waited a few a days [to start him]," Francona said.
Salazar's only costly slip came in the fifth, when he couldn't close out the inning with two away. Goins and Ben Revere hit back-to-back singles before Josh Donaldson tripled to right to score a pair, giving the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead. But the 25-year-old settled down over the next two frames and only allowed a single before coming out after the seventh inning.
Video: CLE@TOR: Donaldson hammers go-ahead two-run triple
"He has a good quick overpowering arm," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "He actually kept the ball down more than we've seen in the past, we haven't seen him a lot. But he has a dynamite slider."