Clevinger, Indians snap three-game skid with 9-3 win over Royals: Three Takeaways

CLEVELAND – The Indians have had the American League Central locked up for quite some time. So, in retrospect a three-game skid wasn't the end of the world. Then again, success in the postseason is often equated to getting hot at the right time, which means slumping in September is not ideal.

On Tuesday night, the Indians wasted no time putting the woes of those three straight losses behind them, jumping out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first in support of Mike Clevinger and never looking back. A 9-3 win over the Royals dropped the Indians magic number to just 11. By the end of the night, it was down to 10 with a Twins loss. All in all, it was a solid night for the Tribe.

Here are three takeaways...

1) Fast start

During their three-game losing streak, the Indians held the lead only once and scored six of their eight total runs in the seventh inning or later. That was not the case in Tuesday's game.

Francisco Lindor led off the Indians half of the first with a home run – something he's now done six times this season. And that was just the beginning. Yandy Diaz singled one batter later before Royals starter Danny Duffy walked José Ramirez. Two batters after that that Brandon Guyer stepped up and ripped a single to left field to load the bases with just one out. Two more runs would eventually come in to score, the first on a fielders choice from Melky Cabrera and the second on a Jason Kipnis single. Just like that the Tribe led 3-0 and chased Duffy off the mound, with an apparent injury.

Cleveland scratched three more runs across in the second to push the lead to 6-0. The leadoff hitter reached base safely in each of the first four innings. It was the top five guys in the order who carried the brunt of the offensive surge too as Lindor, Diaz, Ramirez, Edwin Encarnacion and Guyer finished with seven hits and six RBI. Just think of the damage that could be done with Josh Donaldson added into the mix.

2) Yandy goes yard

It's been a long time coming for Yandy Diaz, but finally the 27-year-old hit his first career home run on Tuesday night. It came in the fifth inning on a 1-0 count, as Royals reliever Jake Newbury tried to run a slider by Diaz around the knees. Diaz got just enough of it to just get it over the center field fence and in the process lifted a huge monkey off of his back. It was the first of what Terry Francona said will be many. Lindor added that Diaz will be a 25-30 homer guy consistently in the years to come. It would also be a disservice not to mention that Diaz came up just a double shy of the cycle for the night as well.

3) KKKKKKKKKKlevinger

That aforementioned early scoring barrage allowed starter Mike Clevinger pitch free and easy basically from the outset. Outside of serving up a fourth-inning solo shot to Alex Gordon, the 27-year-old righty was lights out, pitching six innings of three-hit, one-run baseball, walking just a single batter and striking out 10 – one shy of his career high. It was his fifth double-digit strikeout game of the season.

In particular, Clevinger's fastball was working extremely well. Half of his Ks came via the fastball and his average fastball velocity was hovering around 94.6 mph, with a max speed of 96.8 on the night. Francona said afterward that it looks like Clevinger is catching a second wind, but the righty himself credited his more lively fastball to some changes he made in his delivery a few weeks back.

"It was about a month ago we kind of made some drastic changes [to my delivery] – that Reds start – and I had like six walks cause I had a whole new release point," Clevinger explained. "It slowly started getting better and better and more in-sync and now it's almost like second nature and what we were trying to do, now we're accomplishing it."