Kansas City Royals @ Cleveland Indians
Wednesday July 29 2015, 12:10 ET, Progressive Field
TV: STO, MLB.TV
Radio: WTAM
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Given that the season is effectively over, the Tribe is pretty much playing for pride now. And they certainly showed real spirit last night, before Tito (as usual) found a way to lose. In the 9th, sitting on an eight-man bullpen, he chose to keep Bauer in to face the top of the lineup for a fourth time for no good reason whatsoever.
Anyhow, the Tribe has a real chance to win with Corey Kluber up today. He's basically been almost as good as he was last year, but sorely lacking in run support. Time and again he has performed well only to find that the offense has been unable to score even three runs.
The opposing pitcher is LGFT Jeremy Guthrie, who hasn't performed at all well this year. In 19 games he has a 5.35 ERA/4.73 FIP for a barely above replacement level fWAR of 0.3. The Tribe scored 4 ER against him in 5 IP at home in April, but over in KC in early June he had one of his best starts of the year, conceding just a solo homer (to Brandon Moss) in 5.2 IP.
Having just been promoted to take David Murphy's spot on the roster, Tyler Holt gets an immediate opportunity in LF, with Michael Brantley switching to DH.