Reaction: Cleveland Indians Lose In Extras Despite Kluber’s Dominance

In a matchup of two team’s aces, Cleveland Indians Corey Kluber and Chicago’s Chris Sale lived up to expectations. Sale went eight innings and had seven strikeouts. Coming off of their second winning series of the season, Kluber continued his dominance. He had 11 strikeouts through seven innings and finished with 9 innings pitched, striking out 12 in a no decision.

Key Moments

Third Inning

The pitching matchup was dominant throughout. With two of the more talented pitchers on the mound, both teams needed to take every opportunity and run with it. The Indians got the scoring going as Roberto Perez scored on a sacrifice fly, hit by Jose Ramirez.

Ninth inning

With the game now tied at one, the White Sox had an opportunity to score with the meat of their order up.  Chicago got a runner to first base with one out, but Kluber pitched out of the situation as Chicago’s Adam LaRoche hit into a double play, leading to extra innings.

Tenth Inning

Cleveland went down 1,2,3 to start the extra innings part of tonight’s game. There were no extra chances for the Tribe unfortunately.

Zach McAllister came in to replace Kluber. With former Cleveland Indian J.B. Shuck in scoring position, Carlos Sanchez came to the plate down 0-2 in the count and drove in Shuck with a line drive to left field. Game over.

The Positives

Corey Kluber is on a roll and looks to be in the zone like he was last season. Kluber did everything he could and then some to put his team in a position to win. Obviously it is not because of him that the team was unable to pick up a “W”.  Over the last two Kluber starts, he has pitched 17 innings, while striking out 30 and giving up only one rune. He has been completely untouchable.

The Negatives

Cleveland’s offense still disappoints and does not look like they will reverse course soon with the amount of scoring consistency that is given. It is such a let down and frustrating that the team could only produce one run despite a great pitching performance. I understand Sale is one of the best as well, but the lack of consistency has been a regular thing. If the team could have cut down the number of occurrences, they would have been above .500 right now.

Check It Out

The Tribe looks to get back on track tomorrow at 8:10 PM with Trevor Bauer starting against Chicago’s Jose Quintana. Bauer is 2-1 with a 3.67 ERA while Quintana has a 2-3 record and a 4.39 ERA.

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Next: Series Preview: Cleveland Indians @ Chicago White Sox