Cleveland Indians: Keeping up with the Wild Card chase

The Cleveland Indians are alive and well in the AL Wild Card hunt, but they could use some help from an NL powerhouse and a fellow AL Central foe.

There was drama on the west coast last night, and although it didn’t involve the Cleveland Indians, it did directly affect them.

The Kansas City Royals held a 1-0 lead over the Oakland A’s in the bottom of the seventh when Matt Olson homered to tie it. Seth Brown would drive in the go-ahead run later in the inning with a double.

Two runs were all the A’s would need to avoid losing their second straight game to the Royals.

To the south, the Tampa Bay Rays were visiting the Los Angeles Dodgers. The score was tied at two apiece until the bottom of the seventh, when the Dodgers rallied for five runs.

The Rays countered with three runs of their own in the eighth, but that was all they could muster. Tampa Bay fell to the Dodgers, 7-5.

The A’s gained a considerable leg up in the quest to host the AL Wild Card Game, as they now sit two games ahead of the Rays. The Rays are in a less comfortable position, with only a half-game lead over the Indians for the second spot.

The Indians still face the Tigers twice more this week, while the Rays finish up a two-game series in Los Angeles tonight before returning home for a four-gamer against Boston.

These next few days theoretically offer the Indians a chance to climb over Tampa in the race for the second Wild Card spot. They’ll march Aaron Civale and Mike Clevinger to the mound as they close out the 2019 season series against Detroit.