It took two different attempts in 2016 to finally play the home opener.

 

 

Baseball is finally returning to Progressive Field, as Carlos Carrasco will take the mound for the Indians at 4 p.m.*** on Tuesday, while James Shields will start for the White Sox.  (***barring any type of weather-related delay)  As I wrote last year, the Indians haven’t had the best luck with home openers.  They tend to have miserable weather, be a miserable game, or some combo of both.  This is the 22nd time that the Indians have played the White Sox in their home opener; the last time was in 2011 when Chicago won 15-10.  That was the game where the White Sox jumped all over Roberto Hernandez (the artist formerly known as Fausto Carmona) and had a 14-0 lead by the end of the fourth inning.  The Indians mounted a comeback against Mark Buehrle and the Chicago bullpen starting in the bottom of the sixth, but this was a day where 10 runs just wasn’t enough to win.

I’m a little uncertain what to expect from tomorrow’s game.  The Indians hit James Shields well after he joined the White Sox last year, but he managed to shut them down and held them to just one run in September.  He also had a strong outing against the Tigers last week, allowing just 1 ER on 2 hits in 5.1 IP.  While I normally would have a lot of faith in Carrasco, I’m still a bit worried about his rough spring.  Not that those stats matter, but with the elbow issues and some of the command issues I saw, I’m still concerned that he could get knocked around.

My other concern is the offense – the Indians really struggled to score runs this past weekend, particularly with runners in scoring position.  Hopefully they can improve upon that now that they’re returning to the friendly confines of Progressive Field.

Lineups:

 

Indians White Sox
DH
Carlos Santana
2B
Tyler Saladino
SS
Francisco Lindor
SS
Tim Anderson
LF
Michael Brantley
LF
Melky Cabrera
1B
Edwin Encarnacion
1B
Jose Abreu
2B
Jose Ramirez
3B
Todd Frazier
3B
Yandy Diaz
DH
Cody Asche
CF
Tyler Naquin
RF
Avisail Garcia
C
Yan Gomes
C
Geovany Soto
RF
Abraham Almonte
CF
Jacob May
SP
Carlos Carrasco
SP
James Shields

 

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