Cleveland Indians: 3 takeaways from an ugly 7-1 loss in Minnesota

The Cleveland Indians couldn’t bring runners home and made some mistakes in the field en route to dropping a second straight game in Minnesota.

The Cleveland Indians have now dropped two straight games in Minnesota after rattling off six straight wins.

The Indians have been outscored 14-5 these past two games, although not all the runs scored by the Twins were earned. More on that in a bit.

The killer for the Indians today was leaving men on base, as the Indians were only outhit 8-7 by the Twins. The problem was the 11 men left on by the Indians. They left more guys on base than they had hits! It’s always something new with this team in 2018.

Let’s take a look at some things that stood out from this loss.

Bauer’s outing ruined on one play

Trevor Bauer had himself a solid day. He struck out 11 batters in 5.2 innings. The problem was the runs that came in, although only three were earned.

The Indians were only down 3-1 in the bottom of the sixth with Bauer on the mound. A runner was on first when a routine ball was hit right to Jason Kipnis. He couldn’t make the play and the Twins proceeded to score four runs in the inning.

Bauer looked like he was ready to freak out, but he kept his cool on the mound. It is just hard to give a team two extra outs along with two extra baserunners and shut things down.

The loss can’t solely be blamed on Kipnis, and he even helped the Indians score their lone run with some smart baserunning. But plays like this coupled with his rough showing at the plate will only leave fans frustrated.

All the men left out there

The Indians went 0-9 with runners in scoring position and left a total of 11 men on the bases today. That did more to hurt Bauer than anything else.

Perhaps the most frustrating at-bat came in the third inning when I was listening on the radio as I went out to grab a giant iced coffee from Dunkin. Greg Allen was at the plate with the bases loaded and a grand slam would have won an individual a brand new truck, as announced on the radio broadcast.

Instead, all three runners were left stranded. Games like this are going to happen, although that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

Quiet days for the stars

All the talk heading into the game was how great the trio of Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez and Michael Brantley have been so far this season.

The trio responded by going 3-12 on the same day Lindor was announced as the American League Player of the Month. The three stars did combine to draw three walks compared to just one strikeout, so not all bad.

Next: Indians: Who will be the fifth man in the rotation?

The only real positive on offense today is that Bradley Zimmer picked up two hits after missing nearly a month of action. Aside from that, this was a game to forget.