After being shut out by the Kansas City Royals on Friday night, the Cleveland Indians came into the second game of their three-game series hoping to get back on the winning track. While the pitching matchup of Carlos Carrasco against Jason Hammel seemed to heavily favor the Tribe, baseball is an unpredictable thing, and you never really know what is going to happen.

In the early stages of the game, the matchup went as expected. While Hammel got through the first inning unscathed, he immediately gave up a solo home run to Carlos Santana to lead off the top of the second inning. After Edwin Encarnacion lined out to center field, Jose Ramirez singled to left, and Bradley Zimmer homered to right field to give the Indians a 3-0 lead before Hammel retired Austin Jackson to end the inning.

Meanwhile, Cookie Carrasco was mowing them down, allowing just one hit and one walk in his first four innings of work. That all came to an end in the fifth inning. Jorge Bonafacio and Brandon Moss led off the innings with back-to-back singles. Whit Merrifield then doubled to center scoring both men. Zimmer made a nice play to keep the ball in front of him, and likely could have kept Moss from scoring, but he slipped coming up with the ball. Carrasco then began pitching defensively, walking the strugging Alex Gordon after having him down in the count 0-2. This put two-men on base with no outs. Alcides Escobar popped a bunt back out to Carrasco, but Mike Moustakas doubled to right field, scoring Merrifield and Gordon, and giving the Royals a 4-3 lead.That was all she wrote for Carrasco, who was replace by Nick Goody. Unfortunately the Royal explosion didn’t stop as Goody immediately gave up a two-run home run to Lorenzo Cain to make it 6-3 Royals. Goody was able to get out of the inning, but by then the damage was done.

The beating continued in the seventh inning. We’ll spare you the gory specific details, but the Royals batted around the lineup for the second time of the day, and by the end of the inning, they led 11-5. The main victim was Dan Otero, who gave up five runs in just a third of an inning, and saw his Earned Run Average jump from 3.20 to 5.40.

The Indians got a pair back in the top of the eighth inning when Jason Kipnis singled and Michael Brantley doubled to put two men on. Daniel Robertson pinch-ran for Brantley, and Carlos Santana drove both Kipnis and Robertson in with a double to center field. Of course, the Royals got one right back in the bottom of the eight when Eric Hosmer singled and scored on a double by Salvador Perez to make it 12-5. That score stood as the Royals took the first two games of the series against the Indians.

This was a rough loss. Rick Manning and Matt Underwood openly talked about the Indians’ lack of intensity lately as the Tribe dropped to 28-26 on the season. The starting pitching, expected to be a strength has been disappointing due to both injuries and poor performance. Trevor Bauer, Danny Salazar, and lately Carlos Carrasco have all been guilty of not attacking hitters and trying to make the perfect pitch. Josh Tomlin is simply limited. Now there’s speculation that Salazar may return to the rotation to give Tomlin a day of rest. Mickey Callaway is a great pitching coach, and Terry Francona is a wonderful manager, but something needs to change for the Tribe, and soon. The baseball season is long, and there’s plenty of time left for the Indians to right the ship, but they don’t want to get themselves too far behind the eight ball.

The Tribe is back in action tomorrow to wrap up the series against the Royals. Hopefully both they and the Cavaliers can get back on the winning side of things tomorrow.

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