Player of the Game
Yan Gomes hit safely in each of his first three at bats, adding four RBI (now 70 on the season) and his 20th home run of the season to his already impressive season. With his 20th home run of the year, the 2014 Indians become the first Cleveland team with three 20 home run hitters since 2008. Gomes also scored after his first single, giving him two runs on the night and 60 for the year. His Player of the Game score of ….. was the highest by an Indians hitter since Carlos Santana hit two home runs on July 27th.

Feathers Up
After scoring four or less runs in the past nine games (an average of 2.78 per game), the offense exploded tonight for seven and it was a whole lot of Yan. The Indians were already up 3-1 in the third, when Michael Brantley doubled. He remained at second until there were two outs, then Yan Gomes came through with his second hit of the night, an RBI single to push the score to 4-1. After the Twins had scored another in the bottom of the third, it was Gomes who came through again to increase the lead in the fifth. Jose Ramirez singled, then Lonnie Chisenhall walked with two outs to bring up Gomes. Gomes then parked a Trevor May pitch into the daisies that line the outfield wall at Target Field for a three run home run that gave the Indians a five run lead.

T.J. House had a nice start tonight (his fourth consecutive) although it was a short one. In five innings, he allowed just six hits, one walk and two runs. There was just one extra base hit against House and he struck out five while earning the win. One of the two runs scored and three of the seven base runners came in the second inning, when it looked like House had gotten a double play ball up the middle, but Mike Aviles completely missed the grounder and it went into center. The walk and run came after this, so with a little better defense, he may have been spared one more run.

Milestone Alert: Carlos Santana walked again today for the 106th time this season. With this, he tied Les Fleming’s 1942 walk total, good for ninth in Indians history. At his current pace, he could end the season as high as 6th, although he won’t be able to catch up to the top five seasons, all of which belong to Jim Thome. Thome was also the last Indian to walk at least 106 times in a year when he walked 122 times in 2002.

Zach McAllister pitched for the second straight night out of the bullpen and for the second straight night, he stranded the runners that were left on base for him. Tonight, he came in for the sixth inning with two on and struck out all three batters faced to end the inning and save House. He gave up an infield single in his next inning, but struck out two more for five total in two full innings.

Wild Card Round-Up: Things couldn’t have went any better today considering the Indians play-off hunt. The Royals lost to the Tigers and the Yankees lost to Toronto before their game even started, then Oakland and Seattle took losses later. With that, the Indians gained a full game on every single legitimate Wild Card contender.

Feathers Down
Tonight’s game was delayed about an hour before it’s planned start time and T.J. House was removed after just 5+ innings, leading to another long night for the team and the bullpen. The Indians have just one off-day remaining this year (next Thursday) and Terry Francona will have manage his roster intelligently to maximize the time spent on the field by the Tribe’s top players while making sure they have enough rest to play at their maximum level. This is made increasingly difficult by extra inning games, rain delays and early exits by starting pitchers.

Final Score: Cleveland Indians 7 – Minnesota Twins 3

Wild Card Magic #6

On Deck: Tribe and Twins will play their final game against each other of the season at 2:10 EDT in Minnesota. While many fans may prefer to watch football on Sunday, Indians fans shouldn’t miss it as it is Corey Kluber’s second to last start of the season.