MONTAS, A’S COMPLETE CLEVELAND SWEEP

CLEVELAND — The Indians spent most of Wednesday afternoon flailing after Frankie Montas’ splitter and didn’t put up much of a fight in a 7-2 loss at Progressive Field that completed a series sweep for the Oakland A’s.

The Indians (25-23) generated plenty of scoring chances against Montas, but failed to convert any of them. They had multiple runners on base in three of the first five innings but came away empty-handed each time.

Montas (6-2) finished with six scoreless innings while allowing five hits and two walks and striking out nine. He threw 24 splitters and registered 11 swings-and-misses, according to Baseball Savant, as the struggling Indians lineup had no answer for it.

“Once he would speed us up with his fastball, then he would go to that change or split, whatever you want to call it,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “And it really gave us trouble, especially when we’d get runners in scoring position because that’s when he would go to it more. He starts pitching backward. That gave us a really tough time.”

Jake Bauers struck out and Jose Ramirez was retired on a flyout with two runners in scoring position in the first. An inning later, Francisco Lindor struck out swinging with, again, two runners in scoring position. And in the fifth, Carlos Santana and Bauers, again, each went down on strikes with multiple runners on base.

Indians starting pitcher Jefry Rodriguez (1-4), meanwhile, was roughed up for five runs (four earned) on seven hits and four walks with three strikeouts in four innings in his worst start of the season.

The A’s (25-25) took a 2-0 lead in the first after Rodriguez walked the bases loaded. Jose Ramirez committed an error that brought a run home and a sacrifice fly by Robbie Grossman made it 2-0.

The A’s went on to tack on runs in each of the next three innings, taking a 5-0 lead and forcing Rodriguez’s exit from the game.

“Command,” Francona said when asked about Rodriguez’s biggest issue. “He was fighting it right from the beginning. To his credit he didn’t cave. He kept fighting. It was right from the get-go, he was having trouble commanding the baseball.”

Mark Canha later homered off Dan Otero, and Nick Hundley, who earlier had homered off Rodriguez, doubled in a run off Tyler Clippard to build a 7-0 lead.

Bauers, who also struck out three times on Wednesday, hit a two-run home run in the eighth for his fifth blast of the season and first at Progressive Field as a member of the Indians.