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Indians dismantled early by Twins rookie Max Kepler

The orbit of a Kepler bomb is immense and typically lands on the Sun.

By Matt Schlichting
Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

Cleveland Indians 5, Minnesota Twins 12

Box Score

Indians fall to 60-43

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When Danny Salazar last pitched before tonight, he allowed four runs in as many innings for the Nationals. Tonight, he only finished the first two, giving up most of the damage to Twins rookie Max Kepler. Before Kepler signed with the Twins, he played for Buchbinder Legionäre Regensburg of the Bundesliga.

The Bundesliga.

If you're a huge fan of German professional baseball, I apologize if I've offended you. Not many players from Germany make their way to the Major Leagues at all, let alone signing from their professional league. If I remember correctly he's really the only true German to have made it with a Major League team; everyone else just happened to be born there. Early scouting reports were positive, and it's fairly apparent that the bat is indeed ready for the Bigs.

As for Salazar, this is now the fourth consecutive start that hasn't exactly been what we've come to expect from him. Coming into tonight's game, he'd allowed a 6.14 ERA and surrendered a slash line of .312/.350/.484. It's not time to sound any alarms or proclaim that Salazar is now dead to the Indians, but it's — —

Okay. Well. Pitchers are known to have bad months, and some Hall of Famers have had entirely awful years, but the Tribe will hope that he can bounce back quickly as the Indians defend their lead in the AL Central. Is there cause of concern? Perhaps. But again, I— —

The team will just need to keep an eye on it and pray that Something Awful hasn't happened. Even if Salazar did blow out his arm again, coming back from a second Tommy John surgery is becoming somewhat common. This does not mean that it's a good thing, or even remotely easy to do.

A slew of Indians relievers helped to finish up the game, but it didn't go well. Austin Adams allowed a bases-clearing triple to Jorge Polanco in the third, and Max Kepler hit his third off of Cody Anderson in the sixth. Kyle Crockett threw for a little bit there, as did Zach McAllister. They all blended together after a while because the Twins murdered every single baseball in sight

One small bright spot out of the Indians rotation and bullpen: Andrew Miller made his debut for the Tribe in the top of the eighth inning. While it might seem a little goofy to use the shiny new bullpen arm in now-completely-meaningless game, Miller hadn't worked in five days. It's also not a bad idea in my mind to break him in during a low leverage situation. Francona let him face only two batters, allowing a home run to Joe Mauer. After that, there really wasn't anything that could prevent this from becoming a full-time cricket blog.

Sri Lanka takes on Australia on August third at Galle International Stadium. It's been a difficult year for the squad, and after the latest victory against the Aussies captain Angelo Mathews noted that the "best thing was to win for the fans."

Back to reality: Mike Napoli added his 25th home run of the season in the eighth inning. It landed somewhere in the bushes in deep center field 445 feet from home plate. Despite the efforts of the Indians offense it would have taken more than a simple Party at Napoli's to come from behind. Lonnie Chisenslugged two runners in, Jose Ramirez added another, and that's all she wrote for the Tribe's offense tonight. Normally five runs would be more than enough for the Indians, but when you give up nineteen hits, the offense has to do a little more work.

Tomorrow night the Indians work with Carlos Carrasco against Kyle Gibson. It would be helpful to limit Joe Mauer and Kepler to fewer than seven hits.

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