Cleveland Indians: Making sense of Friday’s loss in Kansas City

The Cleveland Indians had a victory seemingly locked up until things changed quickly in the ninth inning with Cody Allen on the mound.

The Cleveland Indians had another lackluster game on offense Friday night in Kansas City.

The team managed 10 hits but only went 2-8 with RISP. Yet that didn’t seem to matter as Yonder Alonso mashed two home runs and the Indians held a 4-3 lead entering the bottom of the ninth inning.

Bring in Cody Allen and finish off the 38-90 Kansas City Royals, right? Not quite.

I left the room for a minute to grab some water and returned only to see that Allen allowed a home run on his first pitch. That made it 4-4. Before anyone could tweet out their anger he allowed another home run, this one the walk-off, three pitches later.

It was a shocking finish and one that took away the fun, lighthearted discussion of the field flooding during the game. Flooding puns should have been the focus of recaps, not the fact the Indians actually lost the game.

As with most losses this season, this doesn’t change the reality that the Indians are headed to the postseason as AL Central champions. But it does affect their seeding and is not just a good sign overall when your closer blows it in such fashion against a team with 90 losses in August.

Many are quick to point out that this is Allen’s fourth blown save of the season. Brad Hand had five during his time in San Diego this season. There is no disputing this is a statistical fact.

But that doesn’t make it any better when this is happening just over a month out from the postseason against a glorified Triple-A team. Allen is still a great reliever but clearly something is up and the Indians need to figure out who can be relied upon to enter games late in the postseason.

The best move may to be to give Allen work earlier in games so he can figure out whatever is wrong. Or the team may just have to go out and make a trade for a reliever as insurance in case Allen continues to struggle.

One blown save isn’t going to change much in the way Terry Francona trusts and uses Allen. However, having this big division lead allows Francona to get creative and allow anyone who is struggling to get some work in what may be low-stress situations.

It is easy for fans to be angry after a loss like the one seen last night. That’s all part of being a fan. Some may try to be high and mighty and say that if you are angry then you don’t understand the game, but to that I say let people have emotions.