Game #44 Observations: Indians Embarrassed By Royals and Rookie Pitcher Singer in 11-1 Loss

CLEVELAND - When the Indians won the first game of their four-game set at Progressive Field Monday night, the hope was at worst the Tribe would get a split against their rivals.

Instead, they were dominated on Thursday night, embarrassed by the Royals and rookie starter Brady Singer, who nearly no-hit the Tribe as the Royals won their third straight over the Indians, beating them 11-1.

The Indians offense is as stale as two week old donuts at this point, as they’ve put up just two runs on 13 hits over the last 24 innings.

Your starting pitching can be excellent for that time frame, which it wasn’t anyway on Thursday, but even that is not going to matter.

Aaron Civale breezed through the first two frames, but then allowed three runs in the third, all with two outs, and a run in the 6th before the Indians flood gates from their bullpen opened.

Kansas City with the game already decided scored eight runs over the 6th, 7th and 8th innings against Civale, Dom Leone and new reliever Kyle Nelson.

The team now heads to Minnesota for three games over the weekend as they will look to somehow get back on track and put these last three games against the Royals behind them as they fall to 26-18 on the year.

Here’s the observations from game 44 as the Indians look to have a short memory and get ready for the Twin cities.

The “O” Nearly Gets a “No” as Singer Dominates

If you never heard of Royals starting pitcher Brady Singer, don’t be shocked, most baseball fans had never heard of the Kansas City rookie before 2020 either.

Singer was drafted not once, but twice. The first time by the Blue Jays in the second round of the 2015 MLB Draft, and again by the Royals in the first-round in the 2018 MLB Draft.

The 24-year-old made his MLB debut at Progressive Field in the second game of the 2020 season, and did a nice job against the Tribe, holding them to two runs on three hits in five innings with seven K’s.

“He was riding the ball down, some of the guys said they were not seeing the ball very good, especially the slider,” Sandy Alomar said after the game.

“Good breaking balls, he did a very good job.”

He’s had plenty of struggles in 2020, as when he entered the affair against the Indians Thursday he was 1-3 in his last four starts with a 6.64 ERA.

Overall he entered the game with a mark of 1-4 with a 5.58 ERA, but his nasty slider yet again kept the Indians off guard in the no-hitter Thursday night.

“He has a good arm and he was painting those corners,” Alomar said of Singer.

To think it took till two outs in the 8th for the Indians to finally get a hit thanks to Austin Hedges is almost as stunning as Singer nearly throwing a no-hitter in his 9th career start.

Civale’s Struggles

It looked early like Aaron Civale and Brady Singer were headed for an old fashioned pitchers duel, as the pair went back and forth the first two frames.

Civale allowed a double to start the game but pitched around it, and in the second inning he struck out the side.

Then the third inning took place, and the entire game changed. All the Kansas City damage came with two outs, as Whit Merrifield singled, Adalberto Mondesi walked, and Hunter Dozier singled in a run to make it 1-0.

A key double steal by Mondesi and Dozier put runners on second and third, and Makiel Franco singled them both home to make it 3-0.

The way the Indians offense has done nothing the last two plus games, a 3-0 lead for the Royals might as well have been 30-0.

“He did okay,” Alomar said. “He did a pretty good job.”

Civale didn’t allow a run in the fourth and fifth, but then with two outs in the sixth he gave up a solo homer to Royals outfielder Edward Olivares to make it 4-0, and that was it for him.

In six innings he allowed four earned runs on seven hits, with a walk and seven strikeouts. He threw 101 pitches, 70 for strikes.

Civale has now not won a game since August 19th at Pittsburgh, and overall falls to 3-5 on the season with an ERA of 3.88.

After that win in Pittsburgh on the 19th he was 3-2 with a 2.91 ERA. You had to figure that Civale would have some year two struggles, but the problem is they are also coming at a time when the Indians offense is doing nothing to help out.

Is This Rock Bottom for the Indians Offense?

The Tribe has scored now just one run over the last 24 innings, and since Francisco Lindor put them up 5-3 in the third inning on Tuesday, the team has two runs on 13 hits in 24 innings.

It really doesn’t get much worse than that.

Alomar spoke about changing around the lineup a bit in pregame, but at this point these are the players that are going to take you into the postseason, and you can change around guys all you want, it really isn’t likely to matter much.

“Two days ago we scored six runs, then we got shut down, we just have to stay positive and keep pushing the envelope, with all that are still eight games over,” Alomar said.

Both Cesar Hernandez and Francisco Lindor struck out twice Thursday, and Franmil Reyes who beat up the Royals in KC last week and at the start of this week was quiet over the last two and a half games.

Jose Ramirez and his sore thumb saw him sit the bench in favor of Mike Freeman the last two games, and there has to be concern how much Ramirez’s thumb will be an issue the rest of the season.

Then there’s the outfield which continues to give the team very little in terms of offense. Josh Naylor has been okay since coming to the Tribe, but Tyler Naquin, Oscar Mercado and Delino DeShields have not done much to give confidence that it’s going to change anytime soon.

The offense has been inconsistent all season, and now they get to go to Minnesota to take on a Twins team that beat them in Target Field that beat them three out of four times earlier in August.

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