CLEVELAND — Colby Lewis tied a career high with 10 strikeouts and Nelson Cruz hit his AL-leading sixth home run Wednesday night as the Texas Rangers beat the Cleveland Indians 6-2.
The crowd of 10,071 was the lowest at Progressive Field since the ballpark opened in 1994.
Lewis (2-0) allowed two runs over 5 1-3 innings. He started in place of C.J. Wilson, who came down with food poisoning on Tuesday. Lewis made 37 pitches in the first inning, but got out of a bases-loaded jam and didn’t allow a hit until the third. He gave up three hits and four walks overall.
Wilson, catcher Taylor Teagarden, reliever Darren O’Day and two strength coaches felt the effects of food poisoning.
Lewis spent the past two seasons with Hiroshima of Japan’s Central League before re-signing with the Rangers in January. He held Seattle to one run in seven innings Friday for his first win in the majors since April 7, 2004.
Neftali Feliz followed three relievers and worked 1 1-3 innings for his second save.
Cruz’s solo shot in the third inning made it 4-0 off Justin Masterson (0-1).
Shin-Soo Choo hit a two-out single in the bottom half and Michael Brantley’s bases-loaded double off Dustin Nippert made it 4-2 in the sixth.
A fan touched the ball in foul territory down the right-field line, preventing Luis Valbuena from scoring on the play. Indians manager Manny Acta argued with the umpires for several minutes. Then Nippert got Asdrubal Cabrera on a groundout to end the inning.
Julio Borbon’s two-run single gave Texas a 6-2 lead in the seventh. He came in hitting .040 (1 for 25) and had two hits to raise his average to .103.
Josh Hamilton hit an RBI double in the first and Elvis Andrus hit a two-out single to make it 2-0 in the second.
A throwing error by Cleveland third baseman Jhonny Peralta led to two unearned runs in the third.
Masterson gave up nine hits and two earned runs without a walk in six innings.
NOTES: The previous low crowd at Progressive Field was 11,408 on April 21, 2009, against Kansas City. … Indians CF Grady Sizemore went 1 for 3 after missing two games with a sore back. He also walked and was hit by a pitch. … Andrus and Hamilton each had three of the Rangers’ 15 hits. … Texas has won seven straight and 10 of the last 11 meetings with Cleveland. … Cruz has nine extra-base hits and 12 RBIs in eight games. … When Texas OF David Murphy reached twice on catcher’s interference Sunday, it was only the sixth time it happened, according to STATS LLC, retrosheet.org and The Sporting News Record Book. Philadelphia’s Pat Corrales did it twice in 1965, joining Brooklyn’s Ben Geraghty (1936) and Seattle’s Dan Meyer (1977) and Bob Stinson (1979).
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