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Indians 7, Royals 3
Tribe improves to 55-38
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Anyone who watched last night’s game could feel the bile rising during the 6th inning of tonight’s game. Danny Salazar had been electric for the entire game, but things started to break down and it looked, for a brief second, that we could be in for a repeat of yesterday’s disaster. The only difference was that tonight, the shakiness only started after the Indians were already up 6-0. Not even a mini-meltdown by Salazar and another appearance from Bryan Shaw could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
As with most Indians wins this year, the fact that the Tribe even had a chance was thanks to a tremendous effort by the starting pitcher. Danny Salazar was lights out for five innings, allowing just five singles, striking out seven, and walking none. He was firing on all cylinders, with filthy stuff and on-point command for the majority of the start. That all started to fall apart in the 6th, when back-to-back-to-back garbage pile singles got the ball rolling for the Royals and put them on the board. A two-out wild pitch scored another run for KC before Danny could get the third out. The 7th started just as auspiciously for the Dzar, when he walked his first batter of the night and gave up a single and a passed ball to put runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs. Alcides Escobar mercifully fouled out, but someone named seriously named Cheslor Cuthbert hit a sac fly to plate another run for the Royals. Salazar would finally exit - an inning too late, perhaps - and Kyle Crockett recorded the final out of the inning.
Sounds like things got pretty bad, right? To quote a famous LGT commenter: "nope." None of those runs really meant much in the long term, because the Indians were up a comfortable 6-0 by the time Salazar started to come undone. The scoring started off with a #PartyAtNapolis two-run bomb in the 1st inning. The Indians loaded the bases with no outs in the 3rd, but frustratingly managed to plate just one run. If it wasn’t for the Tribe’s 5th inning, this game could have ended in a pretty infuriating manner.
Thankfully, Carlos Santana came through with the big clutch hit in the 5th. Slamtana smacked a bases loaded, one-out single to break the game open, and Juan Uribe added an RBI single to put the Tribe up 6-0.
After Salazar’s two innings of struggle, Bryan Shaw worked a 1-2-3 inning, and Francisco Lindor added an icing-on-the-cake homer in the 9th as a final middle finger to KC. Cody Allen closed things out uneventfully and just like that, the demons of last night were exorcised.
With Detroit getting demolished by Minnesota, the Indians gained a game on the 2nd place Tigers and evened the series with Kansas City. Carlos Carrasco will go for the Tribe tomorrow in the rubber match.