CLEVELAND: If the Indians are to clinch the American League Central division, they’ll have to do it away from the friendly confines of Progressive Field.
The Indians needed to beat the Chicago White Sox and have the Kansas City Royals beat the Detroit Tigers on Sunday to officially clinch the division. The Royals did their part, winning 12-9 and dropping the Indians’ magic number to one. But the White Sox’s Carlos Rodon denied a home celebration by limiting the Indians to just two hits in a 3-0 loss.
The Indians (90-65) came up empty in their one scoring threat — in the fifth inning — and were otherwise quiet offensively. They struck out 14 times, which included the last six Indians hitters of the game and eight of the last nine.
Rodon (8-10, 4.08 ERA) pitched eight innings and accounted for 11 of those 14 strikeouts. He’s been thought of as one of the brighter young pitchers in the division dating back a few years, and on Sunday showed why.
“He’s a young pitcher and he’s getting better with starts,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “We’ve seen a lot of them because he’s in our division. His off-speed is better, even his delivery is smoothing out and, like a lot of young pitchers that have talent, you’re starting to see him gain experience and he’s pretty good.”
The lone bright spot for the Indians from Sunday’s game was another positive start by Josh Tomlin (12-9, 4.48 ERA). He allowed two runs — one earned — on five hits in 6⅔ innings and put his tough month of August further behind him. The Indians will be leaning on Tomlin in the postseason and, after a rough stretch, he recently has looked more like his first-half self.
“I think it’s execution,” Tomlin said. “Executing pitches when I need to execute them and when I miss I’m not missing over the heart of the plate for the most part. There are still times you’re going to miss over the heart of the plate but sometimes it’s up, sometimes it’s down.
“But for me it’s just staying out of the middle the plate with four pitches to try to keep them off balance, try to make them pick a direction to go to.”
The Indians will now go on the road to Detroit for four games and then to Kansas City for three to close out the season. They need to win just one of those games to clinch the division.
“It’s a little fitting,” Tomlin said, speaking of the Indians having to clinch on the road after the obstacles they’ve faced in 2016. “But we have a resilient group in that clubhouse. We’re ready for the next challenge if it has to be in Detroit or Kansas City, [wherever] it may be, we need to get it done. So we know what the task is and we’re prepared for it. Hopefully we get it done sooner rather than later.”
The Indians finished the 2016 regular season with a total attendance of 1,591,667. That’s an increase of more than 200,000 fans from 2015 and an average of 19,650 per game.
Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Indians blog at www.ohio.com/indians. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RyanLewisABJ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RyanLewisABJ