Yan Gomes provides only Indians offense in 3-2 loss to Mariners

Mariners 3, Yan Gomes 2

box score

Tribe falls to 27-30

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Recap

It's a narrative that has become all too familiar this season: the Indians wasted a solid start from Corey Kluber by displaying a near complete lack of ability to score. On Friday, the Indians sat just one game out of .500. Tonight, they fell back to three games below the even mark.

Kluber wasn't exactly dominant tonight, at least not in the way we've come to expect. Still, he did more than enough to give his team a good chance to win. He finished the game with some uncharacteristic numbers, striking out just four and walking three, but he managed to keep things mostly in check despite some early shakiness.

Each of the first two innings saw Kluber giving up RBI doubles, one from Robinson Cano and one from Logan Morrison, respectively. Cano's double, though, shouldn't have driven in anyone. Morrison reached on a single to lead off the game, but the next batter, Austin Jackson, grounded into what should have been a double play. Mike Aviles, paying homage to erstwhile Tribe SS Jose Ramirez, bobbled the grounder and only managed to get the lead runner. Cano went oppo, driving a ball into the left field corner to score Jackson. That was the first of four doubles in the evening off Kluber. The second M's double of the night came from Morrison's bat, driving in Brad Miller who had just stolen 2B. That put the M's up 2-0, but despite giving up two more doubles, the Klubot would allow no one else to score over five more innings. N

Unfortunately the Indians, with one exception, also didn't allow themselves to score. To paraphrase LGTer Aging Phenom from the GameThread: the way the Indians have hit against Seattle, you'd have no idea they were fortunate enough to miss Felix Hernandez' spot in the rotation. Roenis Elias basically shut the Indians offense down, and Yan Gomes was the only player to provide any sort of spark. Gomes smashed his first homer of the year, a solo shot to right in the bottom of the 2nd, to bring the game to 2-1. That would conclude the Indians' scoring until the bottom of the 9th, when Gomes would hit another solo bomb. Outside of Gomes, the Indians managed just four hits and left eight on base.

Oh, but the bullpen did their part, too. Nick Hagadone gave up half as many runs in three batters as Kluber did over seven innings, allowing a third Mariner run to score in the 8th off of a walk-double-single sequence. That run was just enough to ensure that Kluber would still be on the hook for the loss despite Gomes' homer in the 9th. If that ain't the definition of picking up your starter, then I don't know what is.

This was a pretty dumb game. I hope the next two are less dumb.

Win-Expectancy Chart

Source: FanGraphs

Roll Call

GameThread

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