Cleveland Indians: 3 takeaways from an exciting 6-2 victory vs. KC

The Cleveland Indians bounced back on Saturday with a comfortable 6-2 win over the Kansas City Royals after a tough loss on Friday night.

That was a fun one.

The Cleveland Indians started this series against the Kansas City Royals with a real dud of a game. The offense went off, but the final result was rather frustrating on Friday night.

Things got back to normal today with a 6-2 victory over the Royals in a game that saw two players go nuts on offense, while three pitchers combined for quite the successful day.

Let’s take a look at some things that stood out from the win.

The dominant duo at the top

Francisco Lindor and Michael Brantley combined for seven of the team’s nine hits on the afternoon. They also drove in four of the six runs. Edwin Encarnacion and Yonder Alonso combined to drive in the other two runs, and were also the only other Indians players to record hits on the day.

Brantley had a great day, but it was Lindor who shined in this one. He went 4-4 with two home runs and two doubles, pushing his average up to .311 on the year.

This new duo at the top of the order is off to a great start, but we must also see how they do against some better competition.

A normal day for the bullpen

After so much focus on the negatives surrounding the bullpen, things got back to normal in this one. Mike Clevinger left the game after 7.2 innings of two-run baseball, handing the ball off to Tyler Olson.

The left-hander, and new dad, got his one out to end the eighth, leaving it to Cody Allen to come in to close out the game. Allen did just that on 10 pitches in the top of the ninth.

This was nice to see after collapses and overall bad pitching over the past two weeks. It also helped that the offense put up six runs, although that wasn’t enough to win on Friday.

Let players express themselves

Seeing Mike Clevinger wear cleats with a design on them once again was very cool. He knows he will likely get fined after already receiving a warning from the league office, but he doesn’t care.

https://twitter.com/Mike_Anthony13/status/995018075727638528

Letting players design their cleats is an awesome idea that would likely land with younger fans. Instead, Clevinger is likely going to get fined for expressing himself. On his shoes.

Next: Tyler Naquin’s hot start to be slowed with trip to DL

I understand this has to do with uniform regulations and all that fun stuff, but this just comes off as extremely lame and out of touch on the part of the league. Players designing their cleats is much more fun and peaceful than some of the other changes Rob Manfred has in mind.