The Royals are still eight games back in the division, but the Indians still have six more games against the defending World Series champions, including a three-game series to finish the regular season.
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The two teams have split the first two contests of their three-game set, the last of which will be played Sunday at Progressive Field. Carlos Santana led off with a walk, and was safe at second on a throwing error by second baseman Travis on a grounder hit by Jason Kipnis, putting runners at first and second with no outs.Francisco Lindor singled to center, the Indians’ first hit of the game, loading the bases with nobody out. In a spectacular blown save Friday night, he gave up back-to-back home runs to Jose Ramirez and Tyler Naquin in the ninth inning. After his walk-off sacrifice fly Thursday night and his improbable walk-off inside-the-park home run Friday night, it seemed like he was destined to tie the game and reveal to us regular humans that he was sent from beyond to be our hero.
Osuna, who has blown only three saves in 31 chances, was happy to get back on the mound as quickly as possible.
Blue Jays manager John Gibbons had no doubt that Osuna would rebound from Friday’s performance. “Everybody blows a game every now and then, if you’ve been watching baseball at all”.
If they bring Sanchez back to the majors for the postseason, I have no issue with giving him some rest, but they should probably bring him back a week or so ahead of the postseason to appear in a few games to shake some rust off. Stroman has kept the ball in the park in a pair of career encounters (one start) versus Cleveland, allowing one run in 6 2/3 innings on July 1 before walking away with another no-decision.Kluber won his fourth straight start and improved to 5-0 with a 1.65 ERA in his last seven turns on Tuesday, when he allowed one run in six innings of a 3-1 triumph over the Chicago White Sox.
As mentioned above, Tomlin allowed three home runs Saturday night, and that came in only 4.1 innings of work.
Kluber comes into Sunday’s start on a roll.
Tomlin’s struggles as of late call into question whether he should remain the team’s fifth starter.
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The loss drops the Indians to 70-51 with one more game against the Blue Jays this afternoon. Blue Jays 3B Josh Donaldson, still bothered by a jammed right thumb, was not in the starting lineup Saturday.
