Mike Clevinger Looks to Lead the Indians to Victory and Split Four-Game Series with Twins

On Sunday the Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins will conclude a four-game weekend series. The Indians will be looking to split the series and bounce back from two consecutive losses.

On Thursday night, Shane Bieber started for the Indians but ended up getting a no-decision but the team did come away with a 9-8 victory. On Friday night the Indians snapped their six-game win streak following a 7-4 loss and a rough start by Carlos Carrasco. On Saturday, Cleveland lost their second game in a row following a 7-1 defeat.

Coming into Sunday's game the Indians hold a 30-27 record in the AL Central and lead the division by 2.5 games over the Detroit Tigers. The Twins are not far behind the Indians trailing by only 4.5 games and stand at 24-30 on the season.

Here’s a look at the breakdown for today’s series finale with the Twins.

Date: Sunday, June 3

Time: 2:10 p.m. ET

Location: Target Field — Minneapolis, Minnesota

Starting Pitchers: CLE – Mike Clevinger (4-2, 3.14) vs Minnesota – Kyle Gibson (1-3, 3.57)

TV Channel: SportsTime Ohio

Online Stream: MLB.TV

Radio: AM WTAM 1100 and WMMS 100.7

Click the next pages for a preview of today’s battle at Progressive Field.

1.) Indians Need Strong Start from Mike Clevinger

In the first three games of this four-game series, the Indians bullpen has seen a decent amount of action and they still need work as a collective whole. On Thursday nights game the bullpen blew an 8-4 lead that Bieber had when he came out after 5.2 innings. In a game that should've been secured with a victory and far less than the 6 pitchers they used, the team needs to give the pen a break.

The Indians will come out on the winning end and split the series with the Twins if they get about 7 innings from Clevinger this afternoon.

Clevinger has a 4-2 record and an ERA of 3.14. In the 2018 season, the trend for the Indians right-handed pitcher seems to be the longer in the game Clev goes the better result. In four games that Clevinger has won, he has pitched in 5.1 innings (first start of the year), 9.0, 7.2, and 6.2 innings pitched.

2.) Bats Have Been Cold Last Two Games

After a strong May that had Cleveland average about six runs a game, the last two games the Indians have only scored 4 runs on Friday and 1 run in Saturday's defeat.

During the Indians victory on Thursday night, the team scored 9 runs. With the way the team's bullpen has been as of late you have to score more than usual in order to ensure victory.

Good news for the Indians is that their run differential is +23 and coming into Sunday they are the only team in the AL Central with a positive run differential. Closest behind them are the Tigers with a -11 differential.

After seeing the Indians month of May, the bats warming back up will not be an issue and I have a feeling today's game will see an outburst of runs.

3.) Crispier Fielding Following Saturday

In Saturday's loss, the Indians encountered problems fielding. Indians Live co-host Jensen Lewis summed up the 4th inning in the following tweet.

Looking back at the 4th:

- Bauer BB of leadoff hitter is 1st mistake
- Alonso throwing error is 2nd
- unfortunate carom off RF wall changes pitch strategy to Rosario

Overarching theme: Bauer still having trouble picking up position guys after errors behind him
— Jensen Lewis (@JLEWFifty) June 2, 2018

Bauer pitched in 5.2 innings pitched and allowed 7 runs (only 3 earned runs). Along with the error committed by Yonder Alonso, Cleveland also had an error committed by Jason Kipnis in the game. Roberto Perez allowed a passed ball go by him in the game Saturday as well.

If the Indians crisp up their fielding in today's finale with the Twins there is definitely a good chance of Cleveland coming away with the victory.