This Indians team has a lot of weapons at their disposal and tonight, on a chilly and windy Thursday evening at Progressive Field, the Tribe tapped into the home run power to score all four runs in a tight 4-3 win over the Houston Astros. In a tautly-played three game series against the AL West leader this week, the Indians (12-9)managed to take two of three against the Astros (14-8) in a series decided by a total of four runs.

Keep the ‘Stros in mind. They may very well be an obstacle in October. The Indians will get their last regular season look at them in Houston for a weekend series starting May 19th.

After a brief rain delay pushed the start time to 6:25pm, Indian’s starter Corey Kluber almost lost his grip on the game in the first inning. A leadoff line drive off the bat of Josh Reddick deflected off Michael Brantley’s glove and then a chopper from Nori Aoki reflected off Kluber’s glove and Francisco Lindor’s bare hand put Astros on first and third just three pitches into the game. Kluber responded by reaching into his magic hat and finding two strikeouts as well as a spectacular full speed, lunging catch against the wall in right field by Abraham Almonte that easily saved the Indians from an early 3-0 deficit and may have saved the entire game.

It would not be the last disappearing act that Kluber pulled in his first three shaky innings.

Edwin Encarnacion immediately responded in the 2nd with a first pitch, line drive home run that looked something like this:

It was EE’s 4th home run of the season and his first at his new digs in Progressive Field and it tied the game at 1-1. Kluber, however, relinquished the lead on a Marwin Gonzalez home run in the 2nd inning. It was Gonzalez’s 2nd career home run off of Kluber and he went 2-2 with a walk to end the evening with a career .500 average (7 for 14) against the Tribe ace.

Kluber found more trouble in the third as he gave up hits to four out of five Astros, scoring two and loading the bases with two out before getting number nine hitter Matt Kemp looking on an 0-2 curveball. Kluber’s first three innings were not pretty (3 IP, 7 hits, 2 BB, 4 K) but he quickly settled into a groove and allowed only one hit over his remaining four innings.

Meanwhile, Almonte led off the 5th with his first home run of 2017 and Yan Gomes followed with a double and after a ground out by Carlos Santana, Astros manager A.J. Hinch did not hesitate to turn the middle innings over to reliever Chris Devenski.

If you’re not familiar with Devenski, he may actually be a little more Goose Gossage rather than Andrew Miller since he averages two innings per appearance although he only has two saves the past two seasons. He’s a modern day stopper and his numbers in six appearances this year have been filthy (14.1 IP, 7 hits, 1 BB, 27 K, 1.26 ERA).

Devenski lived up to his reputation initially by getting Lindor and Brantley to end the 5th, striking out the side in the 6th, and then K’ing Almonte in the 7th to make it four in a row. A 3-2 walk to Yan Gomes and Devenski’s 5th strike out on Santana brought up Francisco Lindor with two out.

And then Francisco Lindor did this new Francisco Lindor thing where he hits a home run whenever the Indians trail a close game.

 

A no doubt about it, see ya later, 456 foot absolute tater to the Astros bullpen. 14,452 Indians fans jumped to their feet and sang Lindor’s praises in unison. The home run sent Devenski, known in Houston as The Dragon, to the showers and gave the Tribe their final margin of victory, 4-3.

Cody Allen did not escape the 9th without heart palpitations but a leadoff single by pinch hitter Jose Altuve was erased by a fine throw on a steal attempt by Yan Gomes and Allen stranded the next two who reached by singles by getting Carlos Correa on a popout and then whiffed Brian McCann to preserve Kluber’s third victory of 2017.

With Detroit’s loss to the Mariners tonight and the White Sox idle, the Indians move back into 1st in the Central at 12-9. They look for their third win in a row Friday night when they host the Mariners (10-13) for the start of a three game series. Plenty of good seats remain.

 

More Edwin Encarnacion

For anyone concerned about Encarnacion’s slow start, consider it’s also only the second time that he’s hit as many as four home runs in April in the past four years. EE has averaged 39 home runs per season over the past five years and has 313 for his career.

Here’s some fun with Excel where we graph out Edwin’s career home run per plate appearance by month for his career and see that April is by far his least powerful in terms of home runs. Do you prefer pie charts or bar charts?

 

Let’s Talk About Yan Gomes Real Quick

Don’t look now, but Gomes went 1-1 tonight with two walks and finished a game with a batting average as high as .200 since April 29th, 2016 – nearly an entire calendar year.

After starting the season with two hits in his first 30 at bats (.067 avg.), Gomes actually has hits in each of his last six starts and is slashing .500/.611/.643 in 16 plate appearances. He struck out 10 times in his first 33 plate appearances this year, but only once in his last 20.

Perhaps most importantly he nailed two more Astros base-stealers on Thursday night and now has thrown out 54% on steal attempts this season (7 of 13). Gomes has always been much better than the league average 28% throwing out runners in his first four seasons behind the plate (41% in 2013, 32% in ’14, 33% in ’15 and 37% last year) but his current rate puts him among the league leaders.

Perhaps Gomes is coming around after a long hiatus?

2 Comments

  • Peter says:

    Gomes starting to hit would be a huge help in the lower third of our order

  • Jimbo says:

    Side note about the winning pitcher: Corey Kluber played AA ball in San Antonio at the AA affiliate of the San Diego Padres (the San Antonio Missions). They’re giving away replica Kluber jerseys at their game tonight, which is pretty cool! Pedro Martninez also pitched for the Missions when he was in the minor leagues.