Francisco Lindor’s productive day off leads Indians over Mariners

Roughly 65 million years ago, a six-mile wide meteor struck the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, forever changing the world as it once existed. About a week after that, the Cleveland Indians lost two games in a row and they haven’t done it again since.

With Friday night’s loss to the Seattle Mariners, the Tribe were in danger of repeating history (and potentially ushering in another ice age) with another loss in today’s matinee. Luckily the avoided that fate and calmed the hot takes for another day.

Francisco Lindor — who was supposed to have an off-day but compromised with Terry Francona to just being the designated hitter — led off the game with a home run and later added a double, which eventually turned into a run scored thanks to some Little League defense from the Mariners.

Lindor’s dinger is easy enough to explain. The shortstop with the most home runs in a season in Indians history hit a ball really hard, and it went really far, as it had 32 times prior. This one left his bat at a blazing 105 miles per hour, though — fast enough that the Mariners right fielder didn’t even bother to take more than two steps back.

Following Lindor’s second hit of the game, a double, he was nearly zinged by an Austin Jackson line drive. After quickly avoiding the ball and rounding third to home, the Mariners defense turned on Yakety Sax and committed two errors in the span of a few seconds, putting Jackson at third. Seattle’s Low-A-at-best defense continued throughout the game with four more errors, including one that landed Lindor on base for the third time.

Lindor wasn’t the entire offense, though he played at least a minor part in just about all of it. The top-third of the lineup all contributed greatly to the win, knocking Lindor home twice on top of his own home run. The aforementioned Jackson had three hits, while Jose Ramirez added a trio of his own, including his 28th home run of the season. A little lower in the order, Yan Gomes went 3-for-5 with a home run that came in the midst of some good old fashioned discussion about shadows on a baseball field. Did you know that shadows can make it harder to see pitches? Wild.

The Indians will look to seal their ninth straight series win tomorrow and conclude their last West Coast trip of the regular season.