Cleveland Indians: Recapping the harsh loss to the Twins

The Cleveland Indians continue to struggle against their division foe as the Twins light the Tribe up for nine runs.

Isn’t is funny how the Twins play bad baseball against every team except for the Cleveland Indians? Two of the Tribe’s best pitchers couldn’t get it done against a sub .500 team. Carlos Carrasco had his old struggles arise again against the Twins. He had to toss 20 pitches before he even recorded his first out.

Despite the Tribe’s struggles, they still sit at the top of the division; but their lead is diminishing. They’ll have to step things up against their under performing foes if they’d like to stay as the frontrunners in the dismal AL Central. Here are the biggest takeaways from the loss.

Carlos Carrasco’s injury could doom the Tribe rotation

Carlos Carrasco left today’s game after sustaining an arm injury in the second inning. Carrasco took a ball to the elbow area after a hard liner from Joe Mauer came right at him. Obviously this is big news for the Tribe Carrasco is a huge  part of the team’s rotation. He was a Cy Young contender last year and continued to be a pivotal part of the team this season.

Despite his struggles, the team needs a healthy Carlos Carrasco. Here is the official diagnosis.

Here’s to hoping for negative x-rays and a speedy recovery!

Carrasco didn’t pitch well when he was in the game

It was a bad game for Carlos Carrasco all around. Aside from the injury, the Twins got to Cookie early. He allowed four runs on four hits. All of those runs came in the first inning and two of them came before he was able to record an out.

Carrasco has run into these struggles a lot this year. His 4.24 ERA is reflective of his days before the team placed him in the bullpen. Obviously there’s no need for Cookie to head back to the ‘pen. He’s shown flashes of his “ace-like” self this year and is still the team’s number two. Perhaps if he goes on the DL he will have a bounce back similar to Corey Kluber‘s in the 2017 season.

If Carrasco does end up on the DL than it will bring up a whole new issue for the team to resolve. All the more reason for the team to trade for some pitchers at the time trade deadline.

The bullpen has been improving, but they aren’t good enough for a long game.

I mentioned before that the bullpen has been improving. But asking them to carry the load for 7+ innings is a bit of a stretch. The Indians bullpen gave up five runs in today’s outing. Oliver Perez gave up his first run of the year in the midst of his 1.2 innings of work. Zach McAllister‘s struggles arose again as he allowed another run on three hits in his 2.1 innings of work.

Tyler Olson has regressed mightily since last season. In this game he allowed two runs on two hits after recording just one out. Adam Plutko, who is set to start tomorrow pitched two innings… BUT HEY BRANDON GUYER PITCHED A SCORELESS NINTH INNING.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Indians use Plutko tomorrow; if they even use him after he pitched out of the bullpen tonight.

Next: The odd sight of an average Kluber start

The Indians have changed their starter to “TBA.” TBA will be making his first start of 2018 for the Indians. I’d mention the continued struggles of the the offense but I feel like I’m beating a dead horse. Let’s hope the Indians can bounce back tomorrow.