Cleveland Indians: Bats wake up against White Sox, save home opener

The Cleveland Indians re-kindled some old Jacobs Field magic to come from behind on the Chicago White Sox in the 2019 home opener.

The top of the eighth saw the Cleveland Indians’ bullpen throw away a stellar outing from Mike Clevinger.

Terry Francona lifted the long-haired one to start the frame and an Adam Cimber throwing error, Oliver Perez RBI double and a two-run homer courtesey of Jon Edwards put the Tribe down 3-1.

Let’s face it. I thought it was over. The entire stadium thought it was over. The Tribe was down two, but after watching Indian hitters bat in Minnesota over the weekend, Cleveland might as well have been down 1,000 runs.

But then, bam! Leonys Martin leads off the bottom of the inning with a walk. Jake Bauers hits two-strike double to left and Carlos Santana walks.  Hanley Ramirez then lines one of the glove off White Sox second baseman Yolmer Sanchez to bring around Martin.

All of a sudden there’s one out, the Tribe’s down one and bases are juiced.

Up comes Max Moroff.

I thought he was going to hit into an inning ending double play. The entire stadium thought he was going to hit into an inning-ending double play.

Nope. Line-drive single to left, scoring Santana.

Roberto Perez then takes a four pitch walk to bring in a run. Greg Allen watched five pitches before taking his free pass.  Tribe up, 5-3. Ballgame.

It wasn’t pretty, and if you really want to nitpick, you can talk about the Indians squandering the opportunity to really lay the wood to Chicago.

But for a lineup where really two-thirds of the hitters could be playing in Triple-A, you’ve got to celebrate a little bit, especially on Opening Day in Cleveland.

Perhaps it was the Jacobs Field magic, after all, Wayne Kirby, the hero of the first game ever played at Progressive Field, threw out the first pitch.

And now on to the latest four bagger…

1. We learned that the starting rotation needs to be Cy Young Award caliber every freaking start if the Indians are going to win ballgames.

Mike Clevinger turned in the best outing of his career, going seven inning and striking out 12 all the while surrendering just three walks.

Imagine the gloom-and-doom outlook had the Indians lost this game.

The right-hander averaged 94.8 miles per hour on his fastball during his first start of 2019, and topped out at 97.2, according to Ohio.com.

2. Max Moroff takes plenty of punches here, but you couldn’t help root for the guy. As previously stated, I thought he was going to hand deliver a 4-6-3 double-play ball to end the Tribe’s rally.

3. The lineup only struck out six times, which is way down from the 13 strikeouts per game they averaged in Minnesota.

Francisco LIndor and Jason Kipnis can’t get healthy soon enough.

4. The Tribe had to know they were going to suffer a drop off offensively going from Yan Gomes to Roberto Perez full time. Perez drew the walk, but that’s about all he’s done as he’s now started his year 0-10.