Cleveland Indians: 3 takeaways from a wild 7-5 win over the Rangers

In a game that had wild pitches, near home runs, heartbreaking home runs and high pitch counts, the Cleveland Indians came out on top of a long crazy battle with the Rangers.

Well wasn’t that a wild game? Can’t imagine Rob Manfred is too happy with the nearly four-hour game between the Texas Rangers and the Cleveland Indians. But it certainly gave fans a long night of entertainment.

The Indians took the first game of this series, 7-5. If this first game is any indication it’ll be a fun one. A few numbers that stood out were Francisco Lindor going 3-5 with an RBI in the leadoff spot. Rajai Davis also went 2-3 and had a stolen base.

Rangers starter Cole Hamels threw three wild pitches on the night. This game saw two bullpens try to outdo each other for the worst performance, and thankfully for the Tribe, their bullpen was slightly less atrocious.

Trevor Bauer pitched a beauty

We haven’t even talked about Trevor Bauer yet. This game was so long it felt like it’s been days since he pitched at the time of me writing this. Bauer worked 6.2 innings allowing only two runs. It was the second run that did him in; however, as it tied the game and sent Bauer packing.

It was still a remarkable performance for Trevor, as he racked up 11 strikeouts. The biggest problem for him was his pitch count. He kept getting behind batters and while he didn’t let it get to him, it brought his pitch count to 122 in just 6.2 innings. Fans who were discouraged after the rough starts of Carlos Carrasco and Josh Tomlin can rest easy knowing just how good the Tribe pitchers can be.

The Indians somehow found other, interesting ways to score

The Indians scored seven runs in the win. None of which came from the long ball. Let’s talk about how they got them, because it was… interesting.

The first Tribe run came after Jose Ramirez struck out but reached on the wild pitch. Yan Gomes was then promptly hit by a pitch. Brandon Guyer then hit a ground ball to third but a catching error by Drew Robinson allowed the Indians to avoid the double play and for Ramirez to score.

The Indians also hit a couple of pretty stupid bunts. Rajai Davis had a fine bunt where he actually almost reached base, but it brought a horribly struggling Roberto Perez to the plate, and the inning promptly ended after two strikeouts. We aren’t going to talk about Perez’s actual bunt. If I could find video of it, I would show you. But it was so bad I can’t talk about it.

Thankfully, the bad bunt didn’t kill the Indians’ eighth inning rally thanks to three straight singles from Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez and Yonder Alonso. This game could be a spark for the Tribe as they managed to find ways to score without the long ball for the first time in a while.

The bullpen did not have a good game but Beliveau saves the day

As mentioned, it was not good game for either bullpen. The two ‘pens each allowed four runs apiece, with the game seeing a total of ten pitching changes. Cody Allen did not have his best outing by any means. Of the 41 pitches he threw, only 23 were for strikes while walking two. He allowed a run in the ninth that kept the game alive for Texas.

Jeff Beliveau then came in to finish the game for Cleveland. He got behind in the count 3-0 to Joey Gallo, but he then threw two strikes to bring the count full. After Gallo fouled off the next pitch, Beliveau blew him away with only a 90 mph fastball. This gave him just his second career save.

Next: Indians: Breaking down Zach McAllister’s rough start to 2018

The Indians will be back at it again today against the Rangers at 6:10 pm once again. Hopefully this game won’t take four hours to be decided and we can all get some rest.