Cleveland Indians: 3 takeaways from the comeback against the Royals

The Cleveland Indians have found ways to win ugly games as they pull another win out of the hat tonight against the Royals.

Wasn’t that a fun game? The Cleveland Indians took an early lead against the Royals with a two-run first inning before the Royals tied the game in the bottom half of the inning. The Royals took the lead in the next inning and a few short innings started to make things look bleak for the Tribe.

But it’s hard to count this Cleveland Indians offense out of any game. Brandon Guyer saved an extra run from the Royals offense in the fifth inning, but it was Yan Gomes who gave the lead back to the Indians.

Gomes hit the team’s eighth grand slam of the season. That puts the Indians just one grand slam behind the Cincinnati Reds for the lead in baseball. Two Indians players have seen two grand slams this year: Yonder Alonso and Michael Brantley, who hit his first this year. Here are the takeaways from a great Indians comeback. The win gives the Indians a 10.5 game lead in the AL Central.

Shane Bieber struggles early

Our site has talked about the success of Shane Bieber a lot recently. Unfortunately this was not an efficient start for Bieber. We haven’t seen Shane Bieber perform this poorly since his first game against the Minnesota Twins.

Bieber had his usual amount of hits allowed with nine but they came back to bite him tonight as he allowed four runs against the lowly Royals offense. He managed to allow a total of ten base-runners and saw his streak of allowing one run or less to come to an end.

This was the lowest number of strikeouts Bieber has allowed in his career. Fortunately for the Tribe; despite his early struggles Bieber managed to pull himself together and stop the scoring after the second inning before being pulled after the sixth.

The offense keeps finding ways to win

The Indians offense got off to another hot start. They jumped all over the Royals in the first. The Indians started the game off with three straight singles and after a Brandon Guyer walk, Yonder Alonso hit a sac fly to give the Indians their second.

After that the Indians offense went silent for a few innings. While the Royals managed to jump on the Indians, Danny Duffy held the Indians in check. Then Danny Duffy walked two Indians batters before Yonder Alonso singled. Yan Gomes did the rest of the work.

Gomes hit a grand slam to give the Indians their lead and they never looked back. Gomes himself made a great defensive play in the eighth and seemingly won the game for the Indians. This was the second night in a row that the Indians hit a grand slam and it was the second night in a row that it gave them a lead.

Bullpen holds strong

The bullpen didn’t let Gomes’ effort go to waste. They game in to pitch three scoreless innings. They weren’t without their stressful moments. Aside from Yan Gomes’ valiant efforts in the eighth, Cody Allen managed to put fans on the edge of their seats in the ninth.

But the bullpen managed to hold things together as Allen worked out of his jam to earn his franchise record tying 139th save. The bullpen has now bounced back to hold three Indians wins without allowing a run in any of those outings.

Next: Lindor deserves an All-Star nod

While the Indians thrive against lefties their, stars stayed quiet tonight. But a win is a win. The patience of the Indians hitters allowed them to rally. The Indians will look to make it a sweep with Trevor Bauer on the mound tomorrow.