House set for second start for the Indians

Published 7:00 am Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Picayune’s T.J. House is expected to make his second career start in the Major Leagues tonight.

The 24-year-old southpaw is the scheduled starter for Cleveland as the Indians wrap up a three games series against the Chicago White Sox on the road at U.S. Cellular Field.

House is coming off a loss against Baltimore on Friday night in which he made his Major League debut as a starting pitcher.

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That wrapped up a crazy week for the former Picayune High all-state standout, as he traveled from Rochester to Syracuse to Cleveland to Columbus to Baltimore.

House, whose mother Darlene was one of a handful of family members to make the trip to Camden Yards to see his first start on Friday, made his big league debut with the Indians at Jacbos Field in Cleveland on Saturday, May 17. Three days later, the club optioned him back to Triple-A Columbus. He unpacked his belongings and brought his baseball equipment to Huntington Park. Less than 24 hours later, he rejoined the Indians at Camden Yards to take Zach McAllister’s spot in the rotation.

“My mom texted me and she goes, ‘I think you’re going to go back up,’” House said. “I’m like, ‘No, everything will be all right. They’ll be fine.’ An hour later, they called me and told me I was going back up and I’d start Friday.”

In his first career big league start, House allowed five runs on 11 hits in six innings.

“I learned that I’m capable of pitching up here,” House said. “I definitely made a few mistakes and those are easy to adjust. One of the major things is just pitching off the plate a little bit, not necessarily having to be constantly over it. I think that’ll help me in the long run.”

House hopes to earn his first big league win tonight, and he may have some much needed help in doing so.

Indians All-Star second baseman Jason Kipnis was expected to join the team Tuesday in Chicago and will start Wednesday, manager Terry Francona said.

Kipnis, who has been on the disabled list with a strained right oblique since May 2, made a pair of rehab starts at Triple-A Columbus over the weekend. He played five innings on Friday, going 0-for-2 with an RBI groundout, and hit a home run on Saturday while playing seven innings.

“He’ll be here and he’ll start on Wednesday barring anything unforeseen,” Francona said. “But he feels pretty good. He really wanted to play today, but he’s kind of raring to go.

“Yeah, we’re not going to play him 10 in a row. We don’t need to do that. That’s not fair to him, but having him back will be a nice lift for us.

“He brings, even when he’s got three games under his belt, you know other teams have to respect who he is and what he can do, so that’ll be a nice guy to have back.”