Cleveland Indians: Carlos Carrasco remains the ace in April

Carlos Carrasco has opened the season as the Cleveland Indians’ best starting pitcher, and continued to hold that title with a great start Friday.

Cleveland Indians fans never want to see the team lose, but the result is only more frustrating when a great pitching performance is wasted.

That happened again Friday night when Carlos Carrasco went eight innings, allowing just three runs in what ended up being a 3-1 loss.

While the end result is frustrating, Carrasco proved that no matter what the offense does for him, he is going to have a great outing.

It was his fifth start of the season, and the three earned runs he allowed were the most he has allowed in a start in 2017. His ERA made a slight jump to 2.04, but is still over two points better than Corey Kluber, who is sitting with a 4.19 ERA.

His K/9 is fourth on the starting staff among qualified starters, so everyone but Josh Tomlin, but his 0.79 WHIP is the only one under 1.00 on the staff.

The entire staff has not yet made it through five times, but Carrasco is clearly the ace to this point in the season. He has yet to have a bad start this season, even though he has picked up two losses due to a lack of run support.

His dominance is a bit of a surprise given the fact he is coming off an injury, but it was not like he had any structural damage in his hand. Perhaps the bigger surprise is not that Carrasco has been great, but that he is the only starter who has not had one awful outing this year.

The entire starting staff was expected to be the best in baseball, and while things have begun to turn around, Carrasco is the only one who has consistently come in and held opposing teams to a low run total. Kluber has bounced back and only allowed three runs in his last 16 innings pitched, but 13 runs in his first 18 1/3 innings takes away his crown of ace, at least for the month of April.

Kluber is now clearly headed back in the right direction, and it is up to Danny Salazar to follow his and Carrasco’s lead. With the offense continuing to struggle, the starting pitchers are going to have to be nearly perfect until everyone figures it out at the plate.

The bullpen has the talent to hold leads, yet a combination of shaky starting pitching and inconsistent offense has not allowed the team to pick up as many wins as they should have to this point.

Next: Brantley and Ramirez, fast starters

The good news is that fans know Carrasco is going to give the team a great chance to win every five days. It is up to the rest of the staff to follow his lead.