Lake County Sentinel
Indians power their way past Royals 9-2
BY ANDREW GUARINO
INDIANS BEAT WRITER
The Cleveland Indians defeated the Kanas City Royals by a final score of 9-2 Sunday afternoon from Progressive Field inDowntown Cleveland. It featured Carlos Carrasco's first startsince his battle with leukemia. Carrasco's last start was on May 30th of last season when he gave up six runs in 6 1/3 innings pitched.
Cleveland wasted little time getting the offense going on Sunday afternoon, They got the first two runs of the game in the first. Jose Ramirez reached on an error by Royals third basemen Erick Mejia. Two batters later, Carlos Santana walked; Franmil Reyes singled to the right, which scored Jose Ramirez; and Domingo Santana followed up with a single that scored Carlos Santana, although Domingo was thrown out trying to get to second by Royals' right fielder Franchy Cordero. The Indians added two more runs in the third. Cesar Hernandez got the inning going with a lead off single, followed by another single by Jose Ramirez, which was a line drive at fielder Coredo, whomisplayed the ball and it rolled all the way to the wall. Thisallowed Hernandez to score and Ramirez to get to third. The official ruling was a single for Jose and then a two base error, which prevented Jose from getting an RBI. Then Francisco Lindor doubled down the left field line to score Ramirez.
Carlos Carrasco shut down the Royals nine up, nine down through the first three innings. Adalberto Mondesi got the Royals' first hit of the day in the fourth inning, a one out double left field. Two batters later, Salvador Perez hit an RBI single to make it 4-1 Cleveland. That didn't last long as the Indians got that run back and more in the bottom of the fourth courtesy of the long ball. Chang and Hernandez got back-to-back singles to lead off the home half of the fourth before Jose Ramirez put a ball in the right field seats to make it 7-1 Tribe.
In the top of the fifth the Royals cut the lead by one run again as a Whit Merrifield single scored Maikel Franco to make it 7-2. In the bottom half of the sixth, Jose Ramirez hit his second home run of the day to make it 8-2. In the bottom of the seventh, Domingo Santana got a one out double, which advanced Carlos Santana to third. Bradley Zimmer was due up next and got an RBI sac fly to make it 9-2 Cleveland.
Nine to two would be the final score. Carlos Carrasco was great -his final line was six innings, five hits on two runs, one walk and ten strikeouts. Jose Ramirez had a great day at the plate with two home runs, one from each side of the plate; the fifth time in his career he has done that (stat courtesy of Sports Time Ohio). Ramirez also finished with four RBIs. Francisco Lindor continued to struggle, going 1 for 5 with two strikeouts. The Royals had a bull pen game as they used eight different pitchers. They had Ronald Bolanos start; he went two innings, giving up two runs on three hits. None of his runs were earned.
Looking ahead: The Chicago White Sox come into town for the first of two visits this season. The White Sox were the only team in the American League Central Division that gave the Indians trouble during the 2019 season. At Progressive Field, the White Sox were 5-5 and outscored Cleveland 47-44. The pitching matchupwill feature Aaron Civale for the Tribe and Dylan Cease for the White Sox. It will Cease's first career start versus the Indians. Civale saw the White Sox two times in the 2019 season he was 1-1 with 5.56 ERA, giving up seven runs (only five were earned) while he walked six and struck out eight. The player to watch this series for the Indians is Franmil Reyes. In the 2019 season, Reyes played seven games against the White Sox,hitting 400; he had five runs batted in, walked three times, and struck out seven
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POSTED 07/26/2020 20:14
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Photo by Ben Zedner