CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Indians have been inconsistent at the plate and out of the bullpen all season long.
Now they can’t even get on the same page in their postgame interviews.
After right-handed reliever Edward Mujica gave up five runs in the 10th inning of Cleveland’s 8-3 loss to the San Diego Padres on Saturday night, Indians manager Eric Wedge pinned the blame squarely on his pitcher.
“His fastballs were up and over the plate,” Wedge said. “You can’t pitch like that if you want to survive up here. You can’t throw balls in the top of the strike zone.”
Mujica pointed the finger at home plate umpire Rob Drake.
“I didn’t know what the umpire wanted,” Mujica said. “I threw a couple pitches to (Padres designated hitter Tony Clark) that I thought were pretty good pitches and the umpire didn’t call them.
“I threw my ball down and over the plate, but he just wouldn’t call them.”
The Indians had been on a short stretch of games where their offense was on fire and their bullpen was lights out. After scoring three runs off San Diego starter Cha Seung Baek in the first inning, it looked like Cleveland might be off to another solid night.
“We were doing a good job of getting to him early,” Wedge said. “Then he made an adjustment and we didn’t. He shut us down.”
Baek retired the final 16 batters he faced, and 20 of the final 21. It was Ben Francisco’s single off reliever Heath Bell in the ninth that finally broke the streak.
Meanwhile, the Padres hitters were picking away at the lead. Left fielder Justin Huber hit a solo home run off Cliff Lee in the third, former Indian Jody Gerut singled in Khalil Greene — who barely slid under the tag of catcher Kelly Shoppach — in the fifth and Gerut hit a solo homer off left-hander Rafael Perez to lead off the eighth.
“I made that one mistake to Huber — the home run ball,” said Lee, who failed to become the first AL pitcher to 11 wins. “But things went pretty good for me. I got behind in the count a few times and it seemed like it was one of those games where I had to battle more than I’m used to, but I felt pretty good.”
The knockout punch came in the 10th. Former Indians slugger Brian Giles hit a one-out double down the right-field line to put Padres on second and third. Cleanup hitter Adrian Gonzalez was intentionally walked before Clark was unintentionally walked to give San Diego a 4-3 lead. With Gerut and Giles already doing damage to their former team, it was third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff’s turn.
Kouzmanoff, who was in an Indians uniform just two seasons ago, hit a 1-1 fastball 415 feet into the left-field bleachers — the seventh grand slam the Indians have surrendered this season.
“That pretty much did us in,” Lee said. “They have a good team and they did a good job swinging the bats tonight.”
The Padres outhit the Indians 13-4, with the former Tribe members providing some of the biggest blows. Gerut, who had an outstanding rookie season in Cleveland in 2003, went 3-for-5 with a pair of RBIs and a run scored, Giles went 1-for-5 and scored a run and Kouzmanoff went 2-for-5 — he added a double to his third career grand slam — with four RBIs and a run scored.
The Indians scored their runs after Grady Sizemore and Francisco were walked in the first. Ryan Garko hit a one-out single to score Sizemore, and Shin-Soo Choo, hitting for the first time in the No. 5 spot, hit a double to score Francisco. Garko scored the final run on Jhonny Peralta’s groundout to shortstop.
“It’s really disappointing,” Wedge said. “We got those three runs in the first and then couldn’t do anything. (Baek) throws that cutter up there and knows how to work both sides of the plate. We can’t cover everything and we decided to stick to our game plan.”
Ahhh … consistency.
Contact Shaun Bennett at 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com.

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