The Aftermath: Three Takeaways from the Indians' 2-1 Loss To Minnesota

The Cleveland Indians had their three-game winning streak snapped in extra innings against the Minnesota Twins.

The Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins combined to use 17 pitchers in a 12 inning game on Saturday night at Target Field that saw very little offense. The Twins came away with a 2-1 win thanks to a walkoff RBI single by Joe Mauer.

The Indians and Twins have met 18 times this season. Both sides have won nine of those contests, with one more left to play on Sunday.

Cleveland scored its lone run within the first three batters of the game against Minnesota starter Hector Santiago. Rajai Davis led off with a double, moved to third on a single off the bat of Jason Kipnis, and came plateward thanks to a sacrifice fly by Francisco Lindor. It was all the club would manage on the night.

The Twins were similarly offensive-challenged, scoring their only run before the 12th on a leadoff second inning home run by Miguel Sano off Indians’ starter Mike Clevinger.

Mauer’s walkoff came against Tribe reliever Joe Colon, the tenth arm used by manager Terry Francona in the game. Colon allowed a single to Brian Dozier, then balked him over to second, setting up the dramatic victory. Whether Mauer should have been pitched around is a question that can be asked, but won’t work to change how this one ended.

#TheFlow in the flow

Clevinger’s outing was incredibly encouraging given the news earlier in the day that Danny Salazar would be returning to Cleveland to have his sore forearm evaluated by doctors and would miss at least his next start. Clevinger, along with Josh Tomlin, will now find himself back in the rotation for the foreseeable future, beginning in Chicago later this week.

In four innings on Saturday, the rookie gave up just the one run on two hits and two walks, while striking out five and setting down the last five batters he faced. Since being recalled from the minors on August 4th, Clevinger has tossed 25 innings, yielding nine runs on 19 hits, walking 15 and striking out 26. That’s a 3.24 ERA, a 1.73 strikeout to walk ratio, and 9.36 strikeouts per nine innings.

While Clevinger’s role down the stretch was meant to be as a bullpen weapon, plans change as injuries and performance dictate. Stretched out from 43 pitches in his last “bullpen day” start to over 60 on Saturday, the 25-year old should be good to go even longer Thursday against the White Sox.

Pen continues to impress

The game-winner against Colon snapped a streak of 15 consecutive scoreless innings from the Indians’ bullpen, going back to the final 2.1 innings of Thursday’s series finale with the Houston Astros. A unit that for a good deal of the season was a weak link for the Tribe has become, particularly since the acquisition of Andrew Miller, one of the more dominant in all of baseball.

By nearly every statistical metric, Cleveland’s bullpen is among the top five in the American League since August 1st, and hasn’t just been the big names like Miller and Cody Allen. Bryan Shaw, Zach McAllister, Clevinger, Dan Otero, and Jeff Manship (his two previously most recent outings notwithstanding) have all been solid over the past month and a half.

With expanded September rosters, Francona has a wide array of relief arms to choose from for the final three weeks of the regular season. But this is also the time to start zeroing in on what the composition of the pen will be for a potential postseason run.

76.4%

Entering play on Saturday, the Indians were 55-16 in games in which they scored first. After the quick first score and a second inning in which the first two hitters walked, it seemed the club could be on its way to another W, but Santiago settled in. After a free pass with two outs in the second to Kipnis, he set down 12 of the next 13 he faced, and his bullpen preserved the tie long enough to set up Mauer.

So the Tribe is now 55-17 when scoring first in 2016, a winning percentage of 76.4 percent, which is exactly what one would expect from a team with a pitching staff among the best in all of MLB. Getting out to early leads from here on out down the stretch would be a quality step towards securing the franchise’s first divisional title since 2007.