Cleveland Indians waste strong performance from Carrasco, drop second straight

Once again, the Cleveland Indians failed to offer any run support for a solid starting pitching performance as they dropped their second straight to the Royals.

The Cleveland Indians got one heck of a starting pitching performance from veteran Carlos Carrasco, but the offense struggled to offer any support yet again as the Tribe fell 3-0 to the Kansas City Royals for their second straight loss Wednesday.

The loss spoiled Roberto Clemente Day for Carrasco and fellow Tribe Puerto Rican teammates, Francisco Lindor and Roberto Perez.

Carrasco tossed seven strong innings, allowed just one run, seven hits, struck out six and did not walk a batter.

It was the 33-year old’s first start of this season in which he did not allow a walk as he looked like a guy who could have gone the distance had he not reached 100 pitches.

The lone run Carrasco surrendered came in the top of the sixth when the Royals pieced together three straight singles from Cam Gallagher, Whit Merrifield, and Adalberto Mondesi.

Offensively the Indians offense looked lifeless. They failed to score a single run off Royals starter Danny Duffy in 5.2 innings.

In fact, the only time they had a real shot at getting to the 31-year old southpaw was in the bottom of the fifth inning when they had the first two batters reach on a walk by Perez and a single by Delino DeShields.

The inning was set up nicely with the top of the order up and nobody, but leadoff hitter Cesar Hernandez made a questionable decision by deciding to lay down a sacrifice bunt. Yes, it was “successful in terms of placing pushing runners to second and third with one out. But after a walk to Jose Ramirez to load the bases, Lindor flew out to center (though not deep enough to score Perez) and Carlos Santana struck out, leaving the bases loaded.

The score remained 1-0 until the top of the ninth when the Royals scored pair of runs off Phil Maton. A wicked hop led to a triple for Edward Olivares scoring Alex Gordon and then a Lopez single plated Olivares giving Kansas City a 3-0 lead.

Cleveland had a shot against Royals closer Greg Holland but managed just a two-out triple by DeShields (his third hit of the game).

The loss drops the Indians to 26-17 and bumps them into a second-place tie in the American League Central with the Minnesota Twins and behind the Chicago White Sox for first place The Royals improved to 16-28 on the year with the victory.

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On Deck: The Indians and Royals will conclude their four-game series tomorrow at Progressive Field with first pitch at 6:10 pm EST. Aaron Civale goes for the Tribe while the Royals will counter with rookie Brady Singer.

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