After a disappointing start to their recent home stand, the Cleveland Indians bounced back by beating the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday afternoon. An off-day on the schedule gave the team a little bit of time to rest on Thursday.

Tonight the Indians kick off a ten-game road trip by playing the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards. Most ballclubs play better at home than on the road, but not the 2015 Indians.They are 15-23 at Progressive Field and 18-15 elsewhere. Unfortunately for the Indians, the Orioles quite enjoy playing in Baltimore; they are 22-13 at home this season.

Corey Kluber will pitch for the Indians tonight. Although Kluber is near the top of the league in several pitching metrics, such as most starts, most innings pitched, and most strikeouts, his win-loss record is a disappointing 3-9, and his ERA of 3.65 is considerably higher than the 2.44 he posted in 2014. It doesn’t help matters that when Kluber’s the starting pitcher, the Tribe bats tend to take it easy. The Indians score an abysmal 2.18 runs per nine innings when Kluber is in the game, the worst “support” for any starter in the major leagues.

Pitching for the Orioles is lefty Wei-Yin Chen, whose 2.89 ERA in 2015 is ninth-best in the American League. Chen had his best outing of the season earlier this week, pitching eight scoreless innings against the Philadelphia Phillies, striking out nine batters while walking only one.

It’d be nice if the Indians could go 8-2 on this ten-game road trip and come back to Cleveland over .500. Then again, it’d also be nice if I had a tree full of rubies and emeraldsĀ  in my backyard. Heck, it’d be nice if I even had a backyard. So let’s just say I hope they win more than half of the ten games. That could happen, right?

Tonight’s starting lineups:

 

Feel free to comment below. As always, no wagering. And that goes double for you, Pete.

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