Player of the Game
Carlos Santana knocked in the Indians first run of the game with a fielder’s choice in the fourth, then knocked in the Indians third run in the sixth with a solo home run. He scored a second time in the eighth after hitting a single, coming home on Juan Uribe‘s home run.
Feathers Up
The Indians continue to excel at two different aspects offensively that they had major issues with in 2015. Today, Carlos Santana hit his 15th home run, matching Mike Napoli for the team lead. Last season, only Santana surpassed 15 home runs for the entire season and he only hit 19. Both Napoli and Santana are currently on pace for well over 30. The second area was on the bases where Rajai Davis stole his 21st and Francisco Lindor his 12th. Michael Brantley lead the team last year with 15, but this year, the Indians have one well beyond and two other on pace to beat that mark. As a team, the Indians stole 86 in 2015 and already have 53 this year in just 69, third in all of baseball.
Bryan Shaw has pitched in three of the Indians last four games and has been nearly perfect after blowing three in a row before that. In his last three, he has pitched 2.2 innings and struck out five including all three batters faced tonight. He’s allowed just one hit and stranded that runner as well as one of Carlos Carrasco‘s on Sunday.
Continuing on the theme of new found power, Francisco Lindor jacked a solo shot in the eighth to break a 4-4 tie. After Carlos Santana singled, Uribe hit his third home run in as many days to improve the lead to three. It was Lindor’s 8th, Uribe’s 5th and the team’s 83rd on the season after 141 last year. They are currently on pace for about 195 as a team.
Feathers Down
Josh Tomlin gave up his requisite home run early today, in the first, but unfortunately, it wasn’t with no one on base as he had planned. Jason Kipnis committed an error on a routine ground ball from Brad Miller and an odd flip over the ball from Michael Martinez allowed him to move to second. Right after, Evan Longoria knocked out a 0-1 fastball to give the Rays a two run advantage.
Martinez made his second uncredited terrible play tonight in the fifth when Dan Jennings hit a ball off the top of the wall in right. Instead of turning around and fielding the ball off the wall for a single or at worst a double, Martinez let the ball get behind him, then roll most of the way to center before he finally recovered it and threw it in. Jennings ended up on third and scored on a ground out. This was Martinez’s second straight game starting in right field as Terry Francona believes his bat against a left handed starter is good enough to make up for the difference between him and either Tyler Naquin or Lonnie Chisenhall in the field. The two runs that scored against him due to mistakes in the field would state otherwise.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 7 – Tampa Bay Rays 4
On Deck: Corey Kluber and Ian Snell will keep this thing going for game two of three against the Rays tomorrow night at 7:10 PM.
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