Cleveland Indians: 3 takeaways from the series against the Yankees

The Cleveland Indians started off hot, but ended up splitting the four-game series against the New York Yankees. Here is what stood out.

The Cleveland Indians returned home after a rough trip to Boston and got off to a great start.

The Indians defeated the New York Yankees in the first two games of a four-game series, but the bats disappeared as the teams split the series.

The combined score from the four games was 14-13 in favor of the Indians, yet the Indians scored a combined two runs in the final two games while the Yankees pushed across just three runs in the first two games.

A combination of great pitching, defensive blunders and quiet bats helped and hurt both sides, but taking two from a contending team like the Yankees is still a positive from the weekend.

Here is what stood out from the series.

The starting pitching remains elite

Corey Kluber kicked things off Thursday with a complete-game shutout, striking out 11 and allowing just three hits. Sonny Gray had a solid start for the Yankees, allowing two earned runs in six innings, but it is impossible to beat Kluber when he is playing at his current level.

Trevor Bauer, Danny Salazar and Carlos Carrasco added great starts of their own, although Carrasco’s was marred by a misplayed fly ball, while Salazar couldn’t get any help from his offense.

Even with the two losses, fans got to see this starting rotation in peak form. If Bauer is going seven innings consistently and Salazar is doing the same the next day, this team is set to contend once again after some fans were calling for a trade just one week ago.

The group needs to keep up the great work, but this type of pitching in August seems to signal that the rotation is locked in.

The plague of inconsistency

The Indians offense has become painfully unpredictable as the season has gone on. After combining for 12 runs in the first two games of the series, the Indians managed to score one run on both Saturday and Sunday on a combined eight hits.

No amount of great pitching can help the Indians in the postseason if the offense shuts down, which could lead to an early exit in October.

While it was nice to see Jason Kipnis make his return Sunday, having him in the leadoff spot was a killer. He went 0-4 to drop his season slash line down to .229/.288/.395. Having a sub-.300 on-base percentage is bad enough, but having that lack of production in the leadoff spot is hard to believe.

Terry Francona is loyal to his players, but keeping Kipnis in the leadoff spot just doesn’t make logical sense.

Frazier’s Cleveland debut

There were some Indians fans sad to see Clint Frazier be traded to the Yankees a year ago. However, the return of Andrew Miller and the ensuing dominance helped ease the pain.

Frazier made his Cleveland debut Thursday against Corey Kluber, but the hype around his Progressive Field debut was not as high as some may have expected.

The fact Frazier never actually played a game for the Indians means most fans never saw him play in an actual game until Thursday. While a top prospect, he was still just a name that brought in the proven talent of Miller.

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If the trade was lopsided in favor of the Yankees, fans may have been talking about his Cleveland debut a bit more. But with Miller anchoring the Indians’ bullpen, Frazier was a fair price and it will be hard to find too many Indians fans still upset about the deal.