Cleveland Indians: 3 takeaways from the Friday night victory

The Cleveland Indians kept their winning streak going with a 10-4 victory over the Oakland Athletics on a night when a top talent returned.

Friday night was a perfect one for the Cleveland Indians and fans in attendance. The weather felt like we were in San Diego, a star player returned, there were $1 hot dogs and the Indians had a big day on offense en route to a victory.

The team didn’t falter against the Oakland Athletics like they did last week and picked up a dominant 10-4 victory.

That gives the Indians five straight wins and maintains a 11.5-game lead in the division. The Indians are back at it this afternoon, but let’s first take a look back at what stood out from this latest win.

Cookie is back

With all the talk of how great Trevor Bauer and Corey Kluber have been, fans may have forgotten that Carlos Carrasco was set to return soon. He did just that on Friday and picked up his ninth victory on the season.

Carrasco made his first start since June 16 and logged 5.1 innings, allowing three earned runs on seven hits. Not too bad considering it came against a real team and not a team like the Royals.

He appears to be back to full health after he was drilled by a line drive back on June 16. Adding Carrasco back to this rotation makes what was arguably the best rotation in baseball even stronger.

A big night at the top

The Indians offense finished the game with 10 runs on 10 hits. Eight of those hits came from the top four batters in the lineup, while that group also drove in seven of the runs.

Francisco Lindor, Michael Brantley, Jose Ramirez and Edwin Encarnacion are the key pieces in this lineup and it was nice to see them carry the team to a big win. This came on a night when the Indians only left two runners on base. That is a nice change from what we have seen throughout the year.

One away from 50

The Indians enter today’s game with 49 wins. For all the talk of how the Indians have struggled this year, they can become just the sixth team in baseball to reach the 50 wins mark this season.

It has not been a perfect season but the Indians have the largest division lead, and it is not even close, and have had the division won since February. The milestones will come along the way and win No. 50 would be a nice step to make toward another division crown.

Next: Nothing wrong with Trevor Bauer’s All-Star comments

The two teams are back at it this afternoon.