Indians hang on to beat the Angels 4-3 as Bieber gets sixth win; three takeaways

CLEVELAND-- The Cleveland Indians evened their season series with the Los Angeles Angels at three games apiece thanks to their 4-3 win on Sunday afternoon.

CLEVELAND-- The Cleveland Indians evened their season series with the Los Angeles Angels at three games apiece thanks to their 4-3 win on Sunday afternoon.

Shane Bieber picked up the sixth win of his Major League career. L.A.'s Deck McGuire, who was recalled from Triple-A Salt Lake to make the start in place of injured Tyler Skaggs, now sits at 0-2 on the season.

The Indians continued their series finale dominance and are now 27-10 on the year in finale games. The Minnesota Twins head to town tomorrow for a four-game set, but until then, here are three takeaways from Sunday's rubber match win.

Let's stop beating around the bush, and call it what it is ...

ART! 👨‍🎨#RallyTogether https://t.co/8CA2Hhkmoo

— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) August 5, 2018

1. Early success and early runs

The Indians chased L.A.'s starter Deck McGuire after just one out and 25 pitches on Sunday afternoon.

Francisco Lindor started things off with a single, and Michael Brantley drew a walk in the next at-bat. Jose Ramirez would make McGuire pay for a four-seamer left over home plate, smashing it to right field and nearly onto the Progressive Field concourse. With the homer, Ramirez tied Boston's J.D. Martinez for the Major League home run lead.

Just like that, the Indians had a 3-0 lead in the first inning. McGuire pitched to four more batters, and recorded just one out before the Angels opted to pull their starter.

The Tribe now ranks third in Major League Baseball with 81 first-inning runs scored this season.

2. Bieber's afternoon

Shane Bieber put in 5 2/3 innings of work, giving up seven hits and two earned runs while striking out seven and issuing just one walk.

The most traffic Bieber ran into was in the fifth inning, when the Angels scored both of their runs. After giving up a single to Jose Briceno, Kole Calhoun recorded an RBI triple to center field. He was plated on a two-out RBI single from Shohei Ohtani, pulling the Angels to within one run.

Other than that traffic however, Bieber allowed no more than two hits in any frame on the afternoon.

Bieber has amassed 58 strikeouts through his first 10 career starts. That's good for third-most in Indians franchise history, behind Herb Score (92) and Danny Salazar (65). With his sixth win, Bieber became the sixth Indians pitcher with six or more wins in his first 10 career appearances in the Baseball Reference Play Index era, joining Luis Tiant (7), Score (6), CC Sabathia (6), Vean Gregg (6) and Gene Bearden (6).

3. Insurance in the sixth

The Tribe got what would eventually be the winning run in the sixth inning, as they held on to a 3-2 lead. After Melky Cabrera singled and was replaced by pinch runner Brandon Guyer, Jason Kipnis drove in the Tribe's final run of the game with an RBI double.

Guyer beat the throw to the plate and tacked on a key run in the process. The Angels would tack on one more run in the ninth inning to make the final score 4-3, but were unable to rally beyond that. For the game, L.A. was just 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position.

Over his last 21 home games, Kipnis is batting .308 (20-65) with three doubles, a triple, five home runs, 12 RBI and 11 runs scored.