Indians Fall to Royals 4-0; Three Takeaways from the Loss

After taking care of business at home going 4-4, the Cleveland Indians started their short five-game road trip today in Kansas City for a weekend series.

With strong pitching by both Josh Tomlin and Jason Vargas, the Tribe would lose this one, 4-0. In the late innings, however, the Royals would find a way to attack Josh Tomlin. Double plays were an issue for the Indians tonight as well.

Here are the three takeaways from tonight's loss.

1. Double Play Woes
The Indians had multiple chances to make some noise, but that wasn't the case today against Jason Vargas. Throughout the first four innings, Cleveland would get a man on base but sadly, those innings ended by double plays.

That's tough.

In those innings, the Indians had some chances to move the runners over and get some runs early. Two of the four double plays were hit on off-speed pitches that were out of the strike zone.

2. Josh Tomlin's Performance
Josh Tomlin pitched like he deserved a win tonight. However, he had no run support from the offense.

Everything was going great for Tomlin, attacking the strike zone and being efficient. He did give up three runs striking out five. Late innings were the problem for him, especially the bottom of the sixth through the eighth inning.

In the sixth, Alcides Escobar scored on a soft grounder from Lorenzo Cain. Then in the seventh, Whit Merrifield doubled to left to score Jorge Bonifacio. And finally, Mike Moustakas hit a lead-off home run to right, and that was all for Tomlin.

Before coming into today's game, Tomlin held a 1-0 record versus the Royals with an ERA in the ones. But, today he dropped to 3-7 of the year.

3. No Answer for Jason Vargas
Tonight was three years in the making for Vargas. He hadn't pitched a complete game until tonight, as the Tribe had no answer against the left-handed pitcher.

How did he do it?

Trusting his defense to work is one reason.

The highlights of the night were he pitched a total of 104 pitches. Though he scattered seven hits in the first six innings, somehow he retired the last 10 Indians batters in a row to improve his record to 7-3. That's the third time the Tribe has seen Jason Vargas, and they have yet to come up with an answer against him this year.