The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Kluber struggles vs. Yankees in marquee matchup
The problem with building up a baseball game in mid-July is it is almost impossible for it to live up to expectations, even when two of the best pitchers in the American League are squaring off.
The Indians on July 12, in the first of a four-game series at Progressive Field, hosted the Yankees in a rematch of last year’s ALDS with the aces from each team on the mound — Luis Severino for the Yankees and Corey Kluber for the Indians.
“This is one of those games where if I wasn’t a manager, I’d come watch the game,” Indians manager Terry Francona said in his pregame news conference. “I was telling the other guys, I wish it was Kluber vs. Severino’s brother. I’ve never seen him. He probably is (good). But it’s a good matchup. You never know how it’s going to play out, but it’s two of the very best.”
The Yankees entered the game with a record of 6031, Severino with a record of 14-2 and a 2.12 ERA. The Indians were 50-41. Kluber was 12-4 with a 2.49 ERA.
But a game that could have been like a playoff in July lacked intensity, in part because neither pitcher was at his best and in part because the Indians’ bullpen failed to keep the score close after the Yankees took a 5-4 lead. The Yankees won, 7-4, handing the Indians their fifth loss in six games.
Severino was lifted after giving up four runs on nine hits, two of them home runs, through five innings. He left with the score 4-4.
The Yankees had Kluber on the ropes in the top of the fourth. He got out of a bases-loaded noout jam after the Yankees scored twice to take a 4-3 lead. He stranded Aaron Judge on third in the bottom of the fifth by striking out Giancario Stanton.
Kluber could not du-
plicate his Houdini act in the eighth. He gave up a walk to Didi Gregorius and, after getting Stanton on a fly out gave up a double to Aaron Hicks off the wall in center field. Gregorius scored to break the 4-4 tie, and Kluber’s night was done. Hicks scored on a sacrifice fly hit off Oliver Perez to give the Yankees a 6-4 lead.
Kluber has now given up 19 earned runs over 34 innings in his last six starts. He has allowed seven home runs and 31 hits over that span.
Unless there is a seismic shift during the second half of the season, the Indians, Yankees, Red
Sox and Astros will be four of the five American League teams in the playoffs. When, and if, the Indians and Yankees will meet again in 2018 after this four-game series concludes on July 15 will be determined as the final weeks of the season unfold.
The Yankees have beaten the Indians seven straight times. They won the last three games of the ALDS after the Indians won the first two games of the series and they swept the Tribe in New York in early May. That was about the time cracks first started to appear in the Indians’ bullpen.
“We still have two
months to go (in the regular season),” Indians catcher Yan Gomes said before the game. “You don’t look at this series as dictating how things are going to be going forward.”
The trading deadline is July 31. Indians president Chris Antonetti should spend the next two weeks looking for players that can help the Tribe beat the Yankees. Otherwise another disappointing October could be at hand.