Cleveland Indians: Offense provides glimmer of hope

The Cleveland Indians are a team who will succeed because of their pitching–or that’s what we all think. But the offense gave an early pick me up to give fans some hope.

There aren’t many Cleveland Indians‘ fans out there that can say they expect the offense to carry this team, or do what they did in Wednesday night’s win. And many can’t deny that the players they were high on–Francisco Lindor, Tyler Naquin or Yan Gomes–weren’t the ones to do most of the damage. It was Carlos Santana who has often been “ripped” for being too patient. Or Mike Napoli who by definition of many fans is “on his way out”.

But not on Wednesday when the starting pitching of Carlos Carrasco was less than impressive, those offensive “has-beens” came up huge to help vault the Indians to their first win of the season. It’s one game. Literally just a speck in the season. But is it something we can be excited about to start the year? With the slow starts experienced in the past, we’ll grip at any positives we can.

Mother nature seems intent on keeping us in limbo as the weather in Cleveland forced Thursday’s game to be postponed. So we’ll have to wait until Friday as the Indians travel to Chicago to face the White Sox. But it’s not expected to be much nicer there. Maybe the best way to avoid a slow start in April is to play as few games as possible? Mother nature may need a call-up if that’s the case.

With Michael Brantley still out, it was to be seen who would step up and be the big bats in the lineup. Jason Kipnis got things off to a good start, and Santana quickly dispelled rumors of being too patient. Naquin and Lindor are by no means in a “slump”, but it was an unexpected display from Napoli and Santana that helped lead the way.

Their home runs indeed stood out, but even more than that was the solid contact that Tribe hitters had all night against the Red Sox. Juan Uribe‘s sacrifice fly was hit hard, and even Rajai Davis just missed a home run. If not for some great glove work from Jackie Bradley, Jr. in centerfield–it could have been worse for the Sox.

More guardians: Napoli's homer lifts Tribe to victory

I’m not crowning this team an offensive juggernaut or anything of that sort, but it was a great game for the Indians in the sense of they scored early, had a letdown from their starter and then battled back to get the win. Carrasco might not look this bad again all year, and for them to get a victory like this now? Let’s just hope that this isn’t a brief trend–we need the strong start in Cleveland to make the late-season runs at the playoffs matter.