Roster Update: Michael Bourn abandoned his appeal of his one game suspension today, taking it on a day that he usually would have been given the day off anyway. The suspension dates back to June 16th against the Cubs.
Player of the Game
After getting off to a rocky start, Corey Kluber put together another fine outing, although it wasn’t the near perfection we have grown to expect in recent days. Kluber was perfect from the second batter in the second through the first batter in the sixth, however, striking out 14 overall in eight innings. The Tribe ace allowed just four runs, three earned on seven hits with all the runs coming in the first and sixth innings.
Feathers Up
Rays starting pitcher, Matt Moore, looked as good as he ever was over the first three innings, but a poor defensive play to start the fourth may have got him a little rattled. Jason Kipnis was safe with a single that got caught in the Tampa Triangle, then Francisco Lindor followed with a solid liner to left on a 3-1 count. With Michael Brantley at bat, Moore helped out with a wild pitch to advance the runners, then after Brantley hit a sacrifice fly to score Kipnis, Moore advanced Lindor again with another wild pitch.
Moore gave away a couple more and the lead in the following inning after Giovanny Urshela extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a two out single. Another wild pitch moved him to second, but ultimately a Mike Aviles walk made that moot. Kipnis brought home Urshela with a single to left, then Lindor followed with a single up the middle to score Aviles. Probably the weakest hit of the inning, Brantley followed with a ground ball single up the middle that scored Kipnis, moved Lindor to third and knocked Moore out of his first MLB start in more than a year.
The Indians bullpen didn’t let Kluber have all the fun. Bryan Shaw pitched a perfect ninth with two strike outs to earn the win and Cody Allen got his first save since June 13th by striking out all three batters faced. Allen has now saved 15 of his 16 save opportunities and struck out 55 batters in 34 innings. In all, Indians pitchers struck out 20 Rays batters today including ten of the last 12 batters faced and at least two in each inning from the third on.
Mike Aviles came through with the solo home run on the first pitch of the tenth inning that gave the Indians the lead. This ultimately gave the Indians the win and a four game sweep of the Rays. This, just the Indians second sweep of the season, couldn’t have happened at a better time. After losing three in a row to the Orioles, the Indians dropped to a season worst 12 games out of first place and eight games under .500 (just one win better than their low mark on the year). With the Royals, Tigers and Twins all playing poorly (each are 5-5 or worse in their last ten and Kansas City has lost three in a row), this was the perfect opportunity to make up some distance and the Indians now sit just 8.5 games back in the Central and four back in the Wild Card race.
Feathers Down
After three days of near perfection, the first inning today was an abrupt return to normalcy. After retiring the first batter, Corey Kluber allowed three straight singles to score one run, aided by a poor throw from Brandon Moss in right. Evan Longoria then stole third and on the throw attempt by Yan Gomes, the ball sailed into left field allowing Longoria to score an unearned run. This gave the Rays two runs in the first, matching their total for any entire game in the first three matches of the series.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 5 – Tampa Bay Rays 4
On Deck: After wrapping up the series in Tampa, the Indians will head into their second series in a National League park. In game one, Friday night at 7:05 PM in Pittsburgh, the ground ball pitcher Charlie Morton (4.28 ERA) will face off against Trevor Bauer, who is the only Indians pitcher with a hit so far this year.
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