Indians edge Brewers, 3-2

WP: Corey Kluber (9-2); LP: Junior Guerra (3-4); Save: Cody Allen (10); Home runs: Mil - Travis Shaw (14); Cle - Jose Ramirez (19)

sigh. A box score.

The Cleveland Indians (31-28) tipped the Milwaukee Brewers (37-24) 3-2 at Progressive Field in Cleveland tonight, giving the Crew their first consecutive losses since the end of April.

I love baseball, and find everything about it exciting and mentally challenging. This was a boring game. The MLB draft the last couple of days was more exciting. Both teams had eight hits. Both teams had one home run. Corey Kluber beat Milwaukee, but he didn’t dominate them. The Brewers collected seven hits off of him in seven innings, but the only inning they had more than one was the only inning they scored in.

Brewers’ starter Junior Guerra was OK. Apparently Quality Start and OK are the same thing. He worked six innings, allowing seven hits. BUT - he walked a guy. The only guy who walked all night, for either team. And he scored. That was the difference in the game.

The Indians took the lead in the bottom of the second with two runs on the walk and three singles, plating two. Milwaukee’s inning of chance against Kluber was the third, when they also had three hits, including a double from Manny Pina. Lorenzo Cain drove him in with a one out single to halve the Cleveland lead, but without that walk that was all they would get. Of course, Kluber doesn’t walk anybody. He hasn’t walked anybody since he walked Domingo Santana a month ago. Seriously.

With two down in the bottom of the third Jose Martinez drove a high Guerra fastball into right, and it just edged out of the park to push the lead back up to two. Guerra gave up two doubles and a single over his final three innings, but just one hit in each inning and no more runs. His final line was six innings, seven hits, three runs (earned), that walk, and four strikeouts.

Dan Jennings worked a perfect innings and a third, which was good to see after his last two outings. Corey Knebel needed some work and worked around a double in his ²⁄₃ of an inning, with a strikeout.

The Brewers trailed 3-1 into the ninth, and Indians closer Cody Allen was on to finish things. For the second game in a row he allowed a home run, this time another foul pole shot by Travis Shaw. So Shaw’s homer was barely a dinger, too, although not due to distance. Allen retired the last three to preserve the Cleveland victory, striking out Jonathan Villar to end it.

Milwaukee looks for the split of the two game set, against the Indians’ Carlos Carasco (6-4, 4,50), who DID dominate Milwaukee last month in a 2-0 win. Chase Anderson (4-4, 4.45) tries to stop the two game skid in its tracks (and three losses in four).