Indians news and notes: Corey Kluber pitches AL to win & home field advantage

Still mad about the Indians not being able to rally for victories against the Yankees' bullpen? Well don't be—a team of NL all-stars had that same problem Tuesday night.

The AL carried a 4–2 lead into the fifth inning for Quintana, Herrera, Betances, Miller, Harris & Britton to nail down. That is one wordy and effective legal team right there. Their dream was always to play for the Indians but now they represent injured people.

Those serious lawyers weren't as serious as the man who pitched the second inning, though. Corey Kluber may have gotten hit by a batted ball, but he retired that batter and the two that followed to pick up the pitcher win. He threw a couple pitches that were particularly nasty, as ussghe.

We won't speak of how the AL scored those 4 runs and will also refuse to discuss the MVP, who might as well have been Pete Kozma.

• Because it wasn't enough of a ridiculously over-loved stat, MLB announced before the game that they will give awards to the AL an NL batting average leaders. Yuck.

Stray observations

• Daniel Murphy and Tyler Naquin have the same ability to make a lot of solid contact.

• Andrew Miller faced Jonathan Lucroy and Jay Bruce back-to-back. And that's the order I desire them in.

• Francisco Lindor batted a couple times and was robbed of a bases loaded BABIPingle by Murphy. The Indians' struggles with the bases loaded continue.

Non-ASG News and Notes

• Danny Salazar's trade value is the 34th highest in baseball, according to the always-excellent Fangraphs trade value series. That 11-year-old "newsbreaker" from the offseason probably still thinks the Yankees can get him for Brett Gardner.

I don't know about you guys, but I'd much rather have Salazar than numbers 31 and 32.

• There are zero Indians on this list of the 25 players who have most outperformed their Steamer wRC+ projection. It's surprising to not see Jose Ramirez on there, but it's probably a good thing that our guys are producing in line with expectations—means we have less regression to worry about, in theory. Ramirez had a projection of 88 and is currently at 108, so he probably isn't in the top 35, either.

• An actual major league umpire called this Max Scherzer pitch a strike. Surprising that the Yankee-Indian strike zone hasn't made one of these articles yet.

• Fangraphs says the Tigers can't afford to be sellers at the deadline.