Player of the Game
As he has over the last month, Carlos Carrasco looked to over-shadow another brilliant start from Corey Kluber with one of his own. Carrasco gave up just a single earned run in 7.2 innings tonight, striking out ten. He allowed just four singles and stayed out of trouble until he was removed in the eighth, outside of an error filled fourth. In the eighth, he gave up a single to Ben Zobrist, who stole second, then scored one pitch after Marc Rzepczynski was brought into the game. While Carrasco didn’t exactly out-pitch Kluber this time through the rotation, he has out-pitched him since rejoining the rotation in August, earning an average of 6.40 POG points per game since then while Kluber has earned just 5.20 per game. No one else on the team has come even close to these numbers over any stretch of time.
Feathers Up
Milestone Alert: After taking an 0 for 3 in last night’s game, Michael Brantley knocked his 200th hit of the season in Tonight’s game, a fourth inning single against Alex Colome. Brantley is the first Indians hitter to reach this milestone since Kenny Lofton in 1996. He is now also tied for 26th most hits in a single season in Indians history with Carlos Baerga (1993) and Joe Carter (1986).
Milestone Alert Part 2: Bryan Shaw has been slowly working towards the Indians all-time record in appearances and tonight, he set a new high with hit 80th. If Cody Allen pitches tomorrow night, this team would sport the first and third most used pitchers in Indians history.
Feathers Down
With just one game left in the season, there seems to be no reason to make any changes to the Indians offense and they continued in their sorry state tonight. Against the Rays and Alex Colome, the Indians were unable to score, leading to their eighth scoreless game of the season. In addition, they have been held to a single run 20 times and two runs 26 times for a total of 54 of their 161 games.
The Indians defense was also disappointing as has come to be expected. Although only one error was called in the one run fourth, Jose Ramirez started the inning out with a poor throw to first, leading to an infield single. David DeJesus was safe on the play, then went to third when Lonnie Chisenhall bobbled a possible double play ball, then threw it into right field. He would go on to score the first run of the game.
Tonight was not a good showing for Yan Gomes. He struck out in all four at bats, including one to end the game and had two terrible throws trying to catch runners stealing second. The second runner ended up coming around to score, solely because of the steal.
Final Score: Cleveland Indians 0 – Tampa Bay Rays 2
On Deck: The Indians will play their final game of the season Sunday afternoon at 1:05 PM EDT. T.J. House will pitch after six days off with Alex Cobb starting for the Rays.
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