Series sweep just what Indians needed
HOUSTON — In the scope of a baseball season, three days in Texas might not mean much. To the Cleveland Indians, a team stuck in neutral for much of the first six weeks of the season, they could mean a lot more than that.
The Indians completed a sweep of the Houston Astros on Sunday with an 8-6 victory as Yan Gomes drove in five runs and Danny Salazar finally found a way to pitch out of trouble without it costing his team a game.
Cleveland arrived in Houston after a 2-4 homestand, and with its rotation in tatters. It did not leave that way.
Trevor Bauer, Mike Clevinger and Salazar went a combined 3-0 with a 2.95 ERA against the team with the best record in baseball. They held the Astros to six runs in 18 innings, while registering 24 strikeouts.
Salazar (3-4) did allow two more homers to bring his season total to 11, but he reached the sixth inning for the first time in four starts.
“I was a little bit better today,” he said.
The Indians went to work early against Joe Musgrove (3-4).
They took a 2-0 lead in the second as Gomes and Jason Kipnis delivered runs. Carlos Beltran cut Cleveland’s lead in half in the second with the 426th homer of his career.
The Indians came right back in the third with some power of their own. After Encarnacion and Lonnie Chisenhall coaxed two-out walks from Musgrove, Gomes lined a homer to left for a 5-1 lead.
The offense continued to roll with three more runs in the fourth despite having two runners thrown out at the plate.
Salazar started the fourth with a comfortable 8-1 lead, but Josh Reddick hit a leadoff single and Jose Altuve followed with a tworun homer. Salazar, though, slowly gained control and got out of the inning.
“That was good because it brought my confidence back to me,” said Salazar, who allowed three runs on four hits in 5 innings, with seven strikeouts and three walks. “That’s something I’ve been losing during games sometimes.”
Reliever Zach McAllister made things interesting in the ninth as he allowed consecutive two-out homers to Marwin Gonzalez and Alex Bregman to make it 8-6.