Kluber Notches 18th Win as Indians Top Royals 3-1 to Wrap Up Homestand; Three Takeaways

CLEVELAND - With the temps still unseasonably high, the Indians Wednesday turned to Corey Kluber for another outstanding outing, doing more than enough to top

CLEVELAND - With the temps still unseasonably high, the Indians Wednesday turned to Corey Kluber for another outstanding outing, doing more than enough to top the Kansas City Royals 3-1.

Indians pitchers went through the Royals for 16 strikeouts, Kluber setting the pace with 10 strikeouts in 6.2 innings, the 5th time this year he's gotten to double digit K's.

The offense put up 10 hits, but only three runs, but on a day when the pitchers were dominant, that was more than enough to secure their 79th win against 60 losses, dropping the magic number to single digits.

Here's three takeaways from the Wednesday win as the team heads now to Toronto to start a series with the Jays.

1. Marvelous Kluber

The Indians got a stellar outing from Wednesday starter Corey Kluber, who with the win improves to 18-7 on the season. The workhorse went 6.2 innings, throwing 105 pitches on a day when the first pitch temp was 91 degrees.

He allowed just two hits, both in the 4th when the Royals scored their only run, he gave up the one run on a Ryan O'Hearn triple, he walked one batter, and struck out 10.

He breezed through the first three innings without allowing a hit, and while he allowed a double and triple in the 4th, he was as dominant as just about any start in 2018.

Kluber also lowers his ERA down to 2.75

#Indians ace Corey Kluber on the ultra aggressive #Royals and his outing in the Tribe 3-1 win pic.twitter.com/yAGuw7w93Q

— Matt Loede (@MattLoede) September 5, 2018

2. Hand it to the Indians Pitchers

Tribe pitchers stayed aggressive attacking all day, and by the time it was said and done the Indians hurlers struck out 16 Royals batters.

Kluber recorded 10 K's, with Oliver Perez striking out one, Cody Allen in one impressive 1-2-3 inning striking out two, and then Brad Hand came in and got his 8th save as a member of the Indians, striking out the side in the 9th.

Maybe it was the heat or the fact it was a getaway day, but no matter the case, the Indians were just a few steps ahead all day of Royals batters, and Kansas City just wasn't able to catch up to them resulting in the huge number of K's for Indians pitchers.

3. Little Things Mean a Lot

The Indians offense put up 10 hits, but with the game still very much in doubt they were able to scratch across a huge run in the 8th inning up 2-1.

The key was the perfect bunt by defensive sub Brandon Guyer, who raced down the line and got to first, and Hunter Dozier double clutched as no Royal covered first, and once he threw the ball deflected off of Guyer and Yonder Alonso was able to get to third with no outs.

Jason Kipnis then hit a line fly to right to get Alonso home, getting the lead to 3-1, which was more than enough for the way the Indians pitching staff performed Wednesday afternoon.

Sometimes you can't see it in a box score, but the Guyer bunt was a huge play that got the Indians in position to get their third run.