Beltre's Ninth Inning, Two-Out Blast Off Allen Lifts Rangers Over Indians 2-1; Three Takeaways From the Loss

CLEVELAND - After the Indians and Rangers combined for a whopping 24 runs in a Tribe 15-9 win on Monday night, Tuesday night was a grind it out pitcher's duel,

CLEVELAND - After the Indians and Rangers combined for a whopping 24 runs in a Tribe 15-9 win on Monday night, Tuesday night was a grind it out pitcher's duel, as the night came down to a single run, and thanks to an Adrain Beltre homer it was the Rangers who got the deciding run in a 2-1 Texas win.

The loss puts the Tribe at 40-36 on the season, and they are still struggling at home as they sit now at 16-21 at Progressive Field.

They lost without the services of manager Terry Francona, who was kept away from the team today after leaving Monday's game with a similar illness that he had back on June 13th against the Dodgers that forced him to leave the dugout early.

Mike Clevinger was outstanding for the Indians, and it will be hard to keep him out of this rotation the way he's throwing right now even though it came in a losing effort.

Here's our three takeaways from the win for the Indians, as they will look to get back on track on Wednesday as Trevor Bauer looks to get his 7th win for the Indians against Yu Darvish at 7:10pm.

1. Clevinger on Cruise Control

The Indians have gotten a very solid 2017 from Mike Clevinger thus far, and Tuesday he was much like the game he threw back on May 20th in Houston when he held the Astros scoreless for seven innings.

Against the Rangers he made one mistake, a solo homer in the 5th to Rangers catcher Robinson Chirinos which tied the game at one.

Other than that, he was tremendous, going six innings, allowing the single run on two hits, with two walks and a career-high nine K's.

With Danny Salazar closing in on coming back, it's tough to think about Terry Francona taking Clevinger out of the rotation right now.

He's starting to show that he belongs more and more at this level with the Tribe.

2. Cody's Two-Out Collapse

It looked like the Indians would have a shot to win the game in the bottom of the 9th as Cody Allen got two quick outs, but then even quicker than the two outs, the Rangers won the game as Adrian Beltre slammed a 401-foot homer to put them up for good 2-1.

Allen said he felt it was a good pitch, but that he Beltre did what he's done a lot over his career and crushed it to the bleachers in left center for the game winner.

It was a tough pill to swallow for Allen and the Indians, who had a 1-0 lead but couldn't early take advantage of getting the leadoff man aboard each of the first three innings.

For Allen, it's his fourth loss of the season, and while he was able to get the final out to give the Tribe a shot, the damage had been done with the single swing of the bat by Beltre to give Texas the win.

1. Back to Weekend Form for the Offense

It was a banner night for the offense on Monday with 15 runs, but Tuesday it was back to how it was over the weekend against the Twins, as the Tribe put up a single run on just three hits.

Tyson Ross had good movement on his stuff, but really it was the Indians early who had shots, as they had the leadoff man aboard in each of the first three innings, and scored just one run.

How this team could go quickly back to their lackluster offense as quickly as they put up 15 runs on Monday is frustrating, but now all they can do is go back to the drawing board and get ready for Yu Darvish on Wednesday.

While you can't take away what they did on Monday, consider that in the four home losses in this current homestand, the team has scored just 3 runs in four games with 24 hits, an average of one run on six hits per loss.

Ouch.