White Sox Avoid Sweep, Top Indians 5-4 in 11 Innings at Progressive Field; Three Takeaways

CLEVELAND - On a night when the city of Cleveland was more into celebrating its football team, the team that is already set for a postseason looked to sweep the White Sox in the final game between the Indians and Chicago at Progressive Field in 2018.

The night was long for both teams, as the Sox did just enough to push the Indians and hand Adam Cimber a loss as the Sox topped the Tribe 5-4 in 11 innings.

While the Indians don't have a whole lot to play for in the next week, as manager Terry Francona said, it was good for the Sox to push them a bit, and on this night they did.

Cimber took the loss to drop to 0-3 with the Indians, Hector Santiago moves to 6-3 with the win in relief for Chicago.

Here's some takeaways from the one-run loss at Progressive Field.

1. The Start for Tomlin

Josh Tomlin allowed a lot of traffic, but by in large was still better than many of the starts and outings that he had earlier in the season during the 5-4 loss.

Tomlin went four innings, allowing four runs on eight hits with no walks and two strikeouts. He said after the game that catcher Roberto Perez gave him some encouragement in terms of telling him that if he pitched like he did this night, it was good enough to get batters out.

The bitter truth is that Tomlin will get one more start, and likely his Indians career will be over, as it's hard to think he'll make the playoff roster out of the pen at this point.

2. The Comeback

While the Browns were coming back against the Jets before their 21-17 win, the Indians were coming back against James Shields and the Sox, as they pushed across two runs in the 8th to tie the game up.

They had shots in the 9th and extra frames to get the win, but could not get the job done. It's a positive though that despite the team not having much at all to play for at this point, that they kept fighting.

Francisco Lindor and Michael Brantley had a good night combined at the plate, going 5-for-11 with four runs scored and five RBI.

3. The Final Weekend

The Boston Red Sox, who raised their AL East flag on Thursday night in New York, will be at Progressive Field for the weekend for the last regular season games for the Tribe this year.

The Sox and Indians played four in Boston about a month ago, and the Indians won the first two games, and the Sox rallied for wins in the last two.

There won't be much to play for this weekend, and the Sox will probably have their 'hangover' lineup in place on Friday, and it will be interesting to see Trevor Bauer back on the mound for the first time since August 11th.