Player of the Game
Corey Kluber couldn’t have done much more in his campaign for the 2014 American League Cy Young award than he did tonight. Kluber went eight shut out innings and struck out ten, his 11th game with double digit K’s this season. He did allow five hits, but only one went for extra bases, a Kevin Kiermaier triple. He finished the season with 235.2 innings, 269 strike outs, just 64 earned runs and 51 walks. This was his 18th win of the season and his team high 18th Player of the Game award.

Feathers Up
Jose Ramirez broke open the scoring the first inning and his solo home run was all Kluber would need. It was just his second home run of the season and it came on the seventh pitch of a great at bat against Chris Archer. It was a good thing this ball left the park as the Indians would hit safely just two more times for the rest of the night.

KKKKKKKKKluber Watch: In his final start of the season Kluber did nothing but add to his amazing strike out numbers already posted. In his 33rd start of the season, he added 11 more strike outs for a total of 269 to end the year. With those K’s, he is now cemented with the sixth most strike outs in a single season in Indians history. Tonight, he surpassed Bob Feller’s 1941 season (260), Feller’s 1940 season (261), Herb Score’s 1956 season (263) and Luis Tiant’s 1968 season (264). The top five seasons with more strike outs than Kluber are owned by just two pitchers, Bob Feller (348 in 1946) and Sam McDowell (325 in 1965, 304 in 1970, 283 in 1968 and 279 in 1969). A note about these seasons, the pitchers averaged 38 starts and 301 innings per season, giving them significantly more chances to strike batters out than Kluber’s 33 starts and 227.2+today innings. Because of this, Kluber’s K/9 of 10.29 is the third best in franchise history, behind just McDowell’s 1965 (10.71) and 1966 (10.43) seasons.

Milestone Alert: In addition to Kluber’s personal numbers, he helped the staff as a whole break the Major League record for strike outs in a single season. The record was set just last year by the Detroit Tigers and was 1,428. With Kluber’s ninth strike out of the night, 2014 the Indians tied that number, then added a couple more from Kluber and Cody Allen to finish the night at 1,431.

Feathers Down
It may be greedy to ask for more milestones after all those that have already happened this month, but Michael Brantley was unable to record his 200th safety of the season tonight after reaching three times last night and coming into the game with a 15 game hitting streak. Brantley went 0-3 tonight with the Indians other hits coming from Carlos Santana and Mike Aviles.

Final Score: Cleveland Indians 1 – Tampa Bay Rays 0

Wild Card Magic #1

On Deck: The second to last game of the Indians 2014 season will take place tomorrow night at 6:05 PM in Cleveland.