Cleveland Indians waste another good outing from Corey Kluber

Twins 3, Indians 2

Box Score

Tribe falls to 3-6

Corey Kluber entered Friday's game against the Twins without a win, even after two very strong outings to start the season. The trend continued unfortunately, as Kluber pitched well again, but a lack of offense and some uncharacteristic mistakes led to another Tribe loss.

Kluber was in fact very good Friday, especially early on.  He struck out five of the first seven batters he faced and had a perfect game going through five innings.

The sixth inning is where Kluber got into some trouble (and got little help from his defense), starting with an Oswaldo Arcia single and a wild pitch from Kluber.  Catcher Chris Hermann singled to right to score Arcia and later scored on another Kluber wild pitch.  In 2014, Kluber had only three wild pitches the entire season, so the two wild pitches in the sixth were certainly an odd sight.  The Tribe's ace would settle down and hold the Twins scoreless in the seventh and eight innings, before exiting in the bottom of the ninth in a 2-2 game.

The Indians scored a run in the fifth inning after a Mike Pelfrey wild pitch and added another in the sixth on a Brandon Moss home run.  Moss' blast to left center was his first of the year and his first as an Indian.

After a scoreless ninth and tenth innings, a walk-off Trevor Plouffe home run off of Bryan Shaw ended the game.  Shaw earned the loss to drop to 0-1 on the year.

Both Michael Brantley and Lonnie Chisenhall had two hits on the evening for the Tribe.  Zach McAllister, who earlier in the day lost his spot in the starting rotation, pitched 1.2 scoreless innings in relief.

With the loss, the Tribe now sits 5.5 games behind Detroit and 4.5 games behind Kansas City in the AL Central.

Danny Salazar is expected to make his season-debut as tomorrow's starter for the Indians.  Salazar threw six shutout innings April 10th for the AAA Columbus Clippers.  He struck out seven while not allowing a walk in the start.  The Twins will turn to their ace, Phil Hughes, for tomorrow's action.  Hughes has not been sharp to start the year, as he is 0-2 with a 5.25 ERA after two starts.

Win Expectancy Chart:

Source: FanGraphs

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