Player of the Game
The Indians entire offense was involved in one way or another tonight, but the biggest contributor was Lonnie Chisenhall, who takes his third award of the season. His two run, fourth inning double gave the Indians the lead and his sixth inning solo home run extended it to six runs. Overall, he went 2/4 with two runs scored and three RBI.
Feathers Up
It took some time, but the Indians finally got on the board in the fourth, thanks to Michael Brantley, who played his first game back after hurting his right shoulder. With one out, Brantley doubled and was followed by a bloop single from Carlos Santana to move him to third. Abraham Almonte surprised the defense with a perfect bunt between the pitcher and first baseman to score Brantley, then after a Yan Gomes walk, Lonnie Chisenhall took an outside curve to left off the green monster to bring home two more. Jerry Sands scored Gomes on a fielder’s choice and Mike Aviles pushed Chisenhall across with another single. After losing two consecutive games where they scored just one run, the Indians put across five in one inning against Boston.
As we have come to expect, Danny Salazar pitched a tremendous game tonight, marred by just one Travis Shaw solo home run to right. The only time Boston had two runners on in the same inning was in the sixth and a slick Francisco Lindor double play cleared the bases between them. He struck out five in seven innings, allowing just four hits and a walk.
Feathers Down
Small ball both gave the Indians a chance to score and took it away in the first inning tonight against Matt Barnes. Jose Ramirez walked to start the game and stole second. As has been the case almost every single time he has come up with a runner on, Francisco Lindor then bunted and was luckily safe at first with an error. Lindor then created the first out when he was caught stealing. Brantley grounded to first and Ramirez’s hesitation off third before trying to score caused him to be tagged out as well, safely ending the threat.
Giovanny Urshela sat out tonight’s game with a sore right shoulder, the third Indians hitter to go down in the past two weeks with the injury. In addition, Chris Johnson was still out with the spider bite he received in Minnesota giving the Indians a very limited bench. While Brantley was back for the first time after missing four of the last five games, he was only able to DH. With Jason Kipnis expected to come off the disabled list either tomorrow or Wednesday, Terry Francona will have quite a job creating a healthy nine for the next week.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 8 – Boston Red Sox 2
On Deck: Rookie left hander, Eduardo Rodriguez will make his first start against the Indians tomorrow night at 7:10 PM in Boston. Trevor Bauer will go for the Tribe as he will try to recover from a particularly nasty start last time out.
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