Nelson Cruz Powers Rangers Past Indians

Nelson Cruz hit two solo HR’s and ended up with three RBI to power Texas past Cleveland, 8-5, in the second game for both teams.  Elvis Andrus, plucked from the Braves organization also homered for Texas.  Cruz hit his first off of starter Fausto Carmona and launched a bomb served up by Rafael Perez in the seventh.

Carmona gave up seven hits and six runs in just five innings.  Vicente Padilla looked pretty sharp for Texas.  Padilla pitched five plus innings and had some pretty timely strikeouts.  Asdrubal Cabrera, Mark DeRosa, and Grady Sizemore all struck out twice against Ranger pitching.

Ben Francisco homered for The Tribe in the loss.

If I were Eric Wedge, I would start trying to fire my pitchers up a bit.  The two supposed best pitchers on the staff and a couple of relievers gave up 17 runs in two games and the rest of the rotation (Pavano, Lewis, and Reyes) is basically untested.  The Indians must get better pitching because the offense is going to produce at some point with consistency.

It’s still a bit early to hit the panic button and Indians fans are probably wondering if The Tribe is that bad or The Rangers are just that good.  I’m not sure which is correct, but I do know that Cleveland fans will have brighter days to look forward to.