Indians Right the Ship with 10-4 Victory Over Phillies

The Indians found their offense yesterday afternoon and for the first time in three games piled on the runs. It was bad news for the Phillies. They were the ones on the receiving end of the offensive explosion and the end result was a 10-4 shellacking at the hands of the Tribe.

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After experiencing an offensive power outage over the past three games, the Indians were looking for a chance to get back to playing the way they had been playing throughout the month of May. Mission accomplished as the Indians piled on 10 runs on 11 hits and 5 walks. They also got back into hitting the ball with serious authority – Mike Aviles, Nick Swisher, and Jason Kipnis all homered. Mark Reynolds also continued his impressive start to the 2013 campaign with a two-run double off of Phillies starter Cole Hamels.

Meanwhile, Corey Kluber pitched well in his 6 innings of work. He limited the Phillies to just 3 runs on 6 hits while striking out 5. Even more impressive, Kluber did not allow a walk to a single Phillies hitter. It may not have been enough to turn the tide in Kluber’s favor as many fans prefer to see Trevor Bauer fill his spot in the rotation, but it did prove that he is capable of turning in a quality start if need be.

Closing out the game for the Indians in the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings for the Indians was Cody Allen, Nick Hagadone, and Matt Albers. Both Allen and Hagadone turned in scoreless innings of relief work. It was a positive development for Hagadone who has struggled mightily in his two most recent appearance.  As for Albers, he allowed the Phillies fourth and final run of the day during the ninth inning.

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The Good: The return of the power. After three straight games with absolutely no offensive production, it was nice to see the Indians get rolling again. The three home runs bring their season total to 50 home runs on the year. They hit 136 in all of 2012. We’ve emphasized it before, but watching this team hit home runs makes it a lot more fun to be an Indians fan.

The Bad: Ryan Raburn went 0 for 4 on the day and it’s beginning to look as if he is falling back down to Earth a bit in terms of his production  Naturally, there was no way he was going to continue hitting home runs every other at bat or maintain a batting average in the upper .300’s, but the drop off now has become a bit alarming. Let’s hope it’s just a mini slump and not a sign of things to come.