Player of the Game
After four innings without score for the Indians, Mike Aviles ended an even longer drought with the first Indians home run in Cleveland this season. The two run shot tied the game in the fifth after Jason Kipnis had smashed a single off the wall in right. Aviles hit off Jason Vargas went out to left with a few feet to spare over the giant wall. In addition, he walked in each of his first two at bats, doing a much better job of proving to Terry Francona that he deserves to bat in the number two spot.
Feathers Up
With 1.1 perfect innings of relief including two runners stranded, Zach McAllister pitched his second straight positive relief outing. Combined, he has pitched 3.1 innings with 3 strike outs, 2 hits allowed and two walks in those two games.
Milestone Alert: While not as sharp as he can be, Kluber was still good enough to strike out the five batters necessary to reach 500 in his career. Doing so in just 80 games, he became the second fastest Indian to reach that mark after Herb Score, who did it in 68. He now ranks 39th in career strike outs in Indians history.
Feathers Down
After a relatively solid, although nowhere near flashy, start for the Indians defense they pulled a couple odd ones today. In the first, Jason Kipnis made threw a ball from less than forty feet from first and yet managed to miss Carlos Santana by almost as much. This play was weird, but didn’t cost the Indians anything, unlike the next error. In the second with a runner on second Omar Infante hit a ground ball to Jose Ramirez that glanced off his wrist and into the outfield. This time, a run did score although the scoring decision that called it a single and an error made it an earned run.
As his FIP will surely show, Corey Kluber pitched much better than his results would show today, striking out five and walking just one unintentionally in 6.1 innings. A combination of bad luck, poor defense (as mentioned above) and no control of base runners lead to four earned runs on ten hits for the Tribe ace. While this is his second disappointing game in a row (he gave up five in six innings last time out), his problems still stem more from run support and a poor defense than anything he is doing wrong on his own.
As mentioned, the Royals and particularly Jerrod Dyson, were unstoppable on the bases today. Dyson stole three bases, one uncontested and two on consecutive pitches during an Alcides Escobar at bat in the second. While Dyson deserves credit for his speed and base running ability, Indians catchers have a long way to go to replace Yan Gomes and his laser arm.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 2 – Kansas City Royals 6
On Deck: Trevor Bauer will finally return to the rotation after missing his last start with food poisoning. He will face former Indian Jeremy Guthrie of the Royals at 6:10 pm at Progressive Field in Cleveland. This could be what the Indians offense needs as Guthrie has allowed a higher ERA (6.06) against the Indians than any other team he has faced for at least 15 innings.
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