(Feature Image Photo credit to Bob Levey/Getty Images)

In a game that never really broke the Indians way, the Tribe fell to the Houston Astros 7-2 in game one of the American League Division Series. Corey Kluber was out-dueled by Justin Verlander, the offense managed three measly hits, the Astros launched four home runs, and the game was pretty much over before the middle innings were decided. It was a bad time all around.

Let’s start with Kluber. The Indians ace, and 2-time Cy Young Winner, just didn’t have it today. He spun three scoreless innings to start the game, but something seemed — off about his performance. The first clue was when he hit two Astros in the same inning. In his entire 2018 body of work, Kluber only hit two batters, so something was certainly missing with his control. Additionally, it just looked like he was always battling himself. Even in the first inning, he got down 2-0 to the leadoff hitter before getting a ground ball.

In the 4th inning, Houston got on the board with an Alex Bregman blast to left field. The Astros would rally behind a few more hits and score one more on a Josh Reddick RBI single. At this point, it was 2-0, and perhaps (probably? definitely?) Tito should have gone to Trevor Bauer. But he didn’t. The Astros would launch back-to-back home runs off of Kluber in the 5th (Springer and then Altuve) and then the game was all but out of reach. To this point the Indians had 0 hits.

In the 6th inning, the Indians did fight back, scratching together two runs against Verlander, on a wild pitch by Ryan Pressly and… an RBI ground out. Not exactly the fireworks that you hope to see.

Cody Allen made sure to put the game out of reach with a disastrous 0.1 IP in which he allowed 2 hits and 2 runs. Blech.

Offensively, the Indians did about nothing in this game. Lindor had a hit, Brantley had a hit, and Yan Gomes had a hit. That was it. Yonder Alonso in particular looked completely and overwhelmingly overmatched throughout the game.

In all, the Indians will need to do much better in game two. Carlos ‘Cookie’ Carrasco will look to bring the series back to Cleveland 1-1.

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