Team Updates: Earlier today, it was unofficially announced that this will be the final season that the Indians will be associated with the Carolina Mudcats. They are expected to sign a new deal through 2018 with the Lynchburg Hillcats, who are currently the Advanced A team for the Atlanta Braves.

In addition, Ryan Raburn will require surgery to repair his left knee and will miss the final week and a half of the regular season. This shouldn’t affect the current lineup much as Raburn had played in just four games since coming back from the DL on September 2nd.

Player of the Game
Carlos Carrasco pitched the best game of his life tonight, setting career highs with 12 strike outs and nine innings pitched. He allowed just two hits, posting the best start of the season since Josh Tomlin gave up just one in Seattle. In addition to being his first complete game, it was Carrasco’s first complete game shut out. His final POG score of 12.60 was surpassed only by Tomlin in his one hitter and Lonnie Chisenhall’s three home run, nine RBI game against Texas.

Feathers Up
Carrasco had one of his best sliders of the season and combined with the free swinging Astros lineup it lead to another twelve strike outs in nine innings for Carrasco. While Houston isn’t much of a test for a strong starter, this start just continued Carrasco’s dominance since returning to the starting rotation. In his eight starts since rejoining the rotation, he has allowed more than one run just one (against Detroit last time out), has pitched at least five innings in each start and struck out 58 total. Carrasco earned his eighth win of the season (5-1 since rejoining the rotation) after not winning any games from the end of 2011 through the beginning of this year.

For the second night in a row, Yan Gomes provided the Indians offense, knocking in both of the Tribe’s runs after pushing across three in last night’s game. Tonight, he came with a strategy against Brett Oberholtzer, going the other way in for both of his hits. The Astros shift more than any other team in baseball and Gomes took advantage, with the first hit going through a hole to the right side of second, scoring Carlos Santana from second. In his next at bat, he hit a line drive to right that got by a diving Jake Marisnick for a triple. Had the outfield been in a more standard position, it would likely have been a single and Michael Brantley would not have been able to score from first as he did.

Feathers Down
Again, the Indians had a hard time scoring against a questionable pitching staff and a much worse defense. Tonight, they were aided by an error and three other plays that should have been called as such (one was the Gomes triple noted above with the other two coming with Tyler Holt at the plate), yet were unable to score more than two runs.

Final Score: Cleveland Indians 2 – Houston Astros 0

Wild Card Magic #: 8

On Deck: The Indians will work for the series win in the final game of this four game series, Thursday night at 8:10 PM. This will be the Indians final game of 2014 against an AL West team.