Cleveland Indians: 3 takeaways from a comfortable 5-2 win in Chicago

The Cleveland Indians bounced back after two tough losses with a 5-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox to split the series.

Francisco Lindor began the game with a home run and even though the Cleveland Indians ended up trailing after the first inning, the team pulled out a much-needed 5-2 win in Chicago this afternoon.

Mike Clevinger allowed two runs, one earned, in the first inning. The White Sox would not score in the game’s final eight innings.

The offense didn’t have a great day but it was much better than the combined three runs in the past two games, both of which were Indians losses. Winning is all that matters so fans can be happy with the series split and hope things turn around at home against Minnesota.

Here’s a look at some things that stood out from this win.

Help via home runs

The Indians scored three of their five runs via home runs, with one hit by Lindor to leadoff the game and the other hit by Jose Ramirez in the seventh. That home run was the one that gave the Indians the lead they would never relinquish.

The negative number for the offense is the mark of 1-9 with RISP on a day when the Indians were outhit 7-6 by the White Sox. The team has to be more consistent with runners on, as not all teams will be as bad as the White Sox. Leave runners on against the Yankees or Astros and wins are unlikely.

One of Clev’s best starts

Mike Clevinger’s best start of the year heading into today came on April 21 when he pitched a complete-game shutout against the Orioles. This start is arguably just as good.

Clevinger allowed one earned run and struck out 11 batters, compared to only three strikeouts on April 21. He also only allowed five hits and walked one batter on exactly 100 pitches.

The top four pitchers in this rotation keep outdoing each other and it is amazing to watch. After all this success I will be shocked if Corey Kluber is the only starting pitcher from the Indians to make the All-Star Game.

Hoping for dominance at home

The Indians are only 16-20 on the road this year, but are 20-11 at home. There is a nine-game homestand beginning tomorrow in which the Indians will play the Twins, the White Sox and the Tigers. There is no reason why the team shouldn’t at least go 6-3 in that span.

Next: Determining when Francisco Mejia will get his shot

I know the Indians didn’t pull away in the division until the latter half of the season last year. Still, this team could really use this upcoming homestand as the launching point for a nice cruise to another division crown.