Carlos Carrasco's dominance gets Indians 5-0 win; Three Takeaways

The Indians finally got their bats to catch up to their pitching on Friday night, as the Tribe topped the Tampa Bay Rays 5-0. In a role reversal from Thursday

The Indians finally got their bats to catch up to their pitching on Friday night, as the Tribe topped the Tampa Bay Rays 5-0.

In a role reversal from Thursday night, the Tribe recorded seven hits, compared to just three for Tampa Bay.

Carlos Carrassco (3.83 ERA) got his 11th win of the year (and his eighth win on the road) in another Tribe shutout performance.

With two games left in the series, here are our three takeaways from the Friday win.

1. Cookie's monster performance

Carlos Carrasco was absolutely dominant in an eight-inning outing on Friday. In fact, he was on the verge of a no-hitter until he gave up a hit with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Carrasco didn't let the Rays put up any runs in his 11th win of the year. He also allowed just two hits and two walks, and struck out ten in the process. Of his 106 pitches, 73 were strikes.

Carrasco did a great job of expanding the strike zone and getting the Rays to chase plenty of low fastballs in the process:

Friday also marked Cookie's fourth double-digit strikeout game of the 2017 season, and the 14th of his career.

Thanks to Carrasco's shutout performance, the Indians now have ten shutout wins as a team this season, leading the American League.

2. The fifth inning onslaught

Halfway into the game, and it looked like we might be in for what has become all too familiar this season: a great pitching performance, coupled with a lack of offense.

The luggage with the Tribe's bats eventually arrived in the nick of time during the fifth inning.

Edwin Encarnacion got the party started with a lead-off solo homer. The next three batters, Jay Bruce, Carlos Santana and Yan Gomes, all got on base to load them up with no outs.

Bradley Zimmer would hit a nice sacrifice fly to center field that scored Bruce. In the next at-bat, an RBI single from Giovanny Urshela drove in the third run of the inning.

A force-out from Austin Jackson plated Gomes, and was followed in quick succession by an RBI double from Jose Ramirez to drive in the final run.

The fifth inning was some of the best offense in the last week from the Indians, and ultimately, was more than enough to secure the win, despite the bats once again going stagnant for the second half of the game.

And oh yeah, the five runs they scored in that inning were as many runs as they scored in their last four losses combined.

3. Jay Bruce's debut

Yes, Jay Bruce pinch hit in Thursday night's game, but Friday night marked his actual debut as a starter for the Cleveland Indians.

Bruce went two-for-four from the plate, and scored one run. He was the only Indians player to record a multi-hit game.

With two big outfield pieces missing in the form of Michael Brantley and Lonnie Chisenhall, Bruce provided a nice jolt to the offense on Friday. It's probably safe to say that the Tribe will be expecting a lot out of Bruce in the home stretch of the season and beyond.