And just like that, the Indians are back atop the AL Central. The road to postseason baseball is littered with the corpses of division rivals and it was nice to see the Tribe chip away at their Central foes in Kansas City over the weekend. Despite scoring just 5 runs over three games, it proved to be just enough to eke out a series victory over the Royals, on the road no less. Cleveland improves their record to 17-13.
I'm pretty short for time today so here's a quick rundown on some of the events that transpired during this series:
- Francisco Lindor continues to show he has the ability to be a real power threat in the lineup as he hit his 8th home run of the season during Saturday's 3-1 win. He still leads the team in this category, and also sports a team-leading .922 OPS as well. He does it all! Frankie's ninth inning blast put the cherry on top of a great late-inning comeback win, as the Tribe scored 3 runs in the final two innings to knock out the Royals.
- Has the Catcher Formerly Known As Yan Gomes returned to us? It seems there is hope for him yet. In his last 13 games stretching back to 17th April, Gomes has started to turn things around at the plate. He slashed .353/.463/.471 during that span with 4 doubles, 5 walks and just 3 strikeouts in 42 plate appearances. Caution alert: this is the mother of all small sample sizes but where Gomes is concerned, I take every small piece of encouragement I can find. Let's watch this space carefully and see if he can keep it up until the end of the month.
- Josh Tomlin pitched his best game of the season during Saturday's win, lasting 7 innings and giving up just 3 hits for 1 earned run, with 3 strikeouts and zero walks allowed for good measure. It was an encouraging outing from Tomlin and he dominated the Royals lineup. Now he needs to ride this momentum into his next start.
- Carlos Santana hit not one, but two game winning hits this weekend. On Saturday he smashed the go-ahead home run in the top of the ninth inning to win the game and tie the series at one apiece. Then in the blazing Kansas City sunshine on Sunday afternoon, he lined a single inches past Royals' starter Danny Duffy to score Gomes in the top of the fifth. It was the only run of the game and proved just enough for the Tribe to hold onto for the victory. Clutch Carlos at his best.
- As predicted, Mike Clevinger took Corey Kluber's turn in the rotation and did a fantastic job on Sunday. Clevinger pitched 5.2 innings of scoreless ball, allowing just a single hit. He did struggle with his command at times, issuing 4 walks, which didn't help with his pitch count. He struck out 5 batters and his off-speed stuff was working really well, particularly his changeup. Overall I thought he looked composed out there and certainly not out of his depth. I hope he can stick around for more than just the spot-start and gets a fair shot at a permanent gig in the rotation.
- Sunday's uniforms were absolute fire. Both teams wore retro uniforms to salute the Negro Leagues and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, with KC donning replicas of the 1942 Monarchs and the Indians opting for the 1946 Cleveland Buckeyes. I would absolutely love to see the Tribe wear those Buckeyes uniforms again this year. Just look at them:
That's all I got folks. The Tribe are now in Toronto for a three game series before finally returning back to Cleveland on Friday. Trevor Bauer pitches tonight and will be looking to improve after his last outing, that terrible shellacking he received from Detroit. He'll face the Jays' Marcus Stroman, he of the single-digit-pitcher variety that I hate so much (just pick a number with two digits dammit!)
Thanks for reading.
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