Cleveland Indians continue to deliver when injuries strike

Injuries can drain the life from a ball club. Yet again, the Cleveland Indians delivered late to ease the burden of a tough situation.

Throughout the grind that is Major League Baseball’s regular season, injuries are bound to happen. If anything is certain, it is that injury bug has infected this year’s Cleveland Indians. Two crucial, and serious, injuries have taken place of late.

Michael Brantley went down on August 8 with an apparent ankle injury (still currently on the DL, although mild in nature) that seemed much more serious at the time than it was. Upon the injury, where Brantley sat on the turf in left field defeated, the energy in the stadium had been drained.

Not only had Corey Kluber‘s complete game gem been seemingly wasted, but the steady bat of Brantley appeared to be lost for the season. That can really do something to the energy within a stadium. After two grinding at-bats from Edwin Encarnacion and Austin Jackson, up stepped Yan Gomes to salvage the evening.

The same sort of deflating injury issue appeared last night. Andrew Miller and Carlos Santana both left in the sixth inning (Santana due to back issues, and Miller re-aggravating his knee tendinitis) and the crowd had gone silent again.

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It was one of those murky situations where Tom Hamilton’s voice could be heard from the press box as the crowd knew all too well what happened with Miller could risk the Tribe’s World Series hopes.

It creates a deadly silence with a stadium. Dropping this game would leave a huge cloud over the evening, and just add issue to an already worrying fan base. Roberto Perez just wouldn’t let that happen on this night.

Following the slew of injuries the Tribe needed something positive to happen in the eighth inning, and it certainly did.

A Lindor walk and an Austin Jackson single set the stage. Edwin, once again, came through (114 wRC+, .896 OPS with RISP in the 2nd half) when needed. He delivered a clutch single to left to score Lindor and tie the game at 4-4.

Although Jay Bruce and Bradley Zimmer struck out to end the eighth inning, the momentum was there again – the crowd could feel it. Then this happened in the ninth:

Nights like this go a long way for morale. Losing your top outfielder one night, and losing your top bullpen arm another are troublesome and this creates issues and tests depth. But testing depth and taking on those issues becomes much easier when you’re riding a high of a walk-off the night before.

This group will be fine. September call-ups are around the corner to provide depth, and allow for the likes of Miller and Brantley to come back when they’re ready.

Next: Miller and Santana leave Monday night with injuries

If there’s one thing this group has shown over the last few years is that they are resilient. An injury or two won’t derail the mission, and I wouldn’t expect that to change in the coming months.