Player of the Game
Carlos Santana won a well deserved Player of the Game for his two out, two run single in the seventh inning. This hit brought the game within one run and, combined with a walk, gave him a final POG score of 2.52. His 17th Player of the Game of the year is the fourth most in a single season since I started keeping track in 2007. Asdrubal Cabrera had 20 last year, Grady Sizemore had 18 and Jhonny Peralta had the record 21 in 2008.
Feathers Up
Casey Kotchman had a pretty good defensive game, making one diving stop and alertly throwing to second after cutting off a throw from the outfield to get an overzealous runner. Kotchman’s defense has been fantastic all season at firstbase and it will be the only thing about him that Indians fans miss when he is not on the team next year.
Milestone Alert: Justin Masterson recorded his 500th strike out as an Indian tonight, then went on to strike out a couple more. Overall it was a bad game for Masterson, but it could have been much worse.
Feathers Down
The Indians played Royals baseball tonight, getting 10 hits, but just three runs while allowing ten hits and six runs.
Travis Hafner went 0-3 tonight, making him hitless over his first two games back. Manny Acta has said that he will only be able to play about 3 games a week due to residual pain so he will probably only be able to play about 5 more games this year. This will make it all that much harder to get that elusive 200th home run as an Indian.
The Twins postponed game against the Tigers combined with the Indians loss puts the Tribe back into last place by a half a game.
Play of the Game
Carlos Santana’s two run single up the middle that brought
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 3 – Kansas City Royals 6
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