Home and Interleague Woes Continue for Indians Following 6-2 Loss to Padres; Three Takeaways From the Loss

CLEVELAND - The San Diego Padres rolled into Cleveland tied with the Reds and Phillies for the worst road record in baseball, but in two nights have erased that with two wins over the defending AL Champions in their park.

The Indians, still without manager Terry Francona, again did little on offense, scoring just a pair of runs on Frankie Lindor RBI's as they fell to San Diego, again - this time by a final of 6-2.

As has been the case at home way too often this year, the Tribe had their chances on offense, with again leaving all kinds of traffic on the base paths, but were unable to again come up with big hits when needed the most.

Now at 44-39, the team will try to not get swept as they will send Josh Tomlin to the mound on Thursday.

Here's three takeaways from the Wednesday night affair as the two teams will wrap up the series with a 7:10pm matchup on Thursday.

3. A Sad State at the Plate

Just like Tuesday, it was another night of making Padres pitching look lights out, as they managed a lot more hits on Wednesday, but just two runs to show for it.

The Tribe put up 14 hits, but again couldn't come through with the key hit, and ended up leaving nine men on base, and Jose Ramirez for the second straight night was thrown out at home plate.

The Indians failed to draw a walk, and struck out nine times, not helping matters when it came to coming up in clutch situations trying to get runs home.

Edwin Encarnacion K'd twice, as did Roberto Perez, who was pulled for a pinch-hitter - Jason Kipnis - who promptly struck out.

The team continues to have poor at bats all over the place at home, and Wednesday was just the latest example of that in the loss.

2. Bauer's Battles

Indians starter Trevor Bauer didn't overpower the Padres by any means, but did a decent enough job that he gave the Indians a chance at a win if the offense could have pulled off some clutch hits.

On the night the Tribe starter pitched into the 5th, allowing four runs, three of which were earned, on eight hits, with two walks and seven strikeouts.

He threw 107 pitches, 62 of which were strikes. He was able to pull the team out of some self created jams, but it wasn't enough as he again takes the loss and drops to 7-7 on the year, and will end the first half at .500.

Again taking the quality of competition into account, this was a game where Bauer could have had a very good night allowing the Indians to even up the series, but it didn't happen.

1. Interleague Nightmare

The loss to the Padres, a team that even with two straight over the Indians is still 12 games under .500, puts the Tribe at 2-11 this season against National League teams.

Forget the fact the team has a real disadvantage when playing on the road due to no DH, the Indians have no excuse to how poorly they have played at home against the NL, going 1-5 in six games thus far.

They dropped a game to the Reds, two of three to the Dodgers, and now two bad losses to the Padres.

Their 2-11 mark is the worst for Cleveland since the start of Interleague play way back in 1997, and add even more salt to the wound the Indians have been held to three runs or fewer in 9 of their 13 games against the National League.

While the team still has one home game left against the Padres, the team will go out west to start the second half, and after they play the A's for three they go to San Francisco to take a Giants team that is in last in the NL West, but at this point, none of that seems to matter.

Thankfully Interleague on the road is done after the series against the Giants, but the team still has three more games against the NL left - two against the Rockies at home and a makeup game at home against the Reds on July 24th.

This season has been a disaster for the Tribe in terms of games against the NL West, going 1-9 against the Diamondbacks, Padres, Dodgers and Rockies.

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