CLEVELAND (92.3 The Fans) -- The Indians' offense struggled to make contact on offense Saturday afternoon against the Kansas City Royals.
Cleveland left eight runners on base in a 3-2 loss to Kansas City in 10 innings.
With the international tiebreaking rule in effect, the Royals started their 10th inning with Brett Phillips on second base. Phillips moved over to third base from an Erick Mejia sac bunt. In the next at-bat, Kansas City third baseman Maikel Franco’s sac fly to center to score Brett Phillips gave the Royals the 3-2 lead.
Cleveland had a chance to tie or take the lead in the bottom of the 10th. Greg Allen was the international tiebreaking rule running on second. Bradley Zimmer went to first on a hit by a pitch. The Indians (1-1) didn’t take cash-in with runners on first and second with no outs. Cesar Hernandez, Jose Ramirez, and Francisco Lindor each struck out to end the game.
The Indians started their ninth inning with a chance to win the game. Lindor led off the inning with a base hit and moved to second on a Carlos Santana walk. Franmil Reyes moved both runners over after a 4-3 groundout. The Royals international walked right fielder Daniel Johnson to load up the bases. However, Cleveland couldn’t get the go-ahead run to come after as the inning ended with Oscar Mercado and Roberto Perez striking out.
Kansas City (1-1) got off to a hot start in the first inning of Indians pitcher Mike Clevinger. The right-hander for the Indians gave up back-to-back solo home runs to DH Jorge Soler and catcher Salvador Perez – making it 2-0 Royals.
Cleveland responded with its own two runs in the bottom of the third inning. Bradley Zimmer and Cesar Hernandez each hit a single with Hernandez’s single advancing Zimmer to third. In the next at-bat, Jose Ramirez drove in Zimmer to cut the Kansas City lead to 2-1. Hernandez advanced to third on the RBI single by Ramirez then scored on a Brady Singer wild pitch to tie the game at 2.
After a rocky first inning, Clevinger cooled his composer and followed it with a strong start. He went seven innings with six strikeouts, two earned runs and four hits.
Brady Singer went five innings in his season debut for the Royals (1-1). Singer, who earned a no-decision, gave up only two earned runs, three hits and stuck out seven.
Cleveland’s offense went dormant from the fourth inning to the ninth. Hernandez was the only Indian base runner to reach base on a walk in the fifth.
Carlos Carrasco will make his first start of the season for Cleveland on Sunday afternoon. Carrasco hasn’t started a game for the Indians since May of 2019 before being diagnosed with leukemia.
