Offense Remains Stagnant as Indians Drop Road Opener to Rays 4-1; Three Takeaways From the Loss

The Indians offense has been awful the last few days, and that fact came rearing its ugly head again on Thursday night against a bad pitcher in Tampa as the

The Indians offense has been awful the last few days, and that fact came rearing its ugly head again on Thursday night against a bad pitcher in Tampa as the Tribe fell 4-1 to the Rays.

Corey Dickerson did what he and the Rays do best, that is hit homers, and his 8th inning three-run blast with two outs was the difference in what was a lousy loss in a game that clearly should have belonged to the Indians.

Danny Salazar was okay in his 4th outing back to the Majors, but the storyline for the scuffling Tribe is their offense, which has been putrid to watch the last few days, and basically it looked like they went backwards against a pitcher who hadn't won a game all season.

There's a lot to say about this one, and here's our three takeaways from this tough to swallow 4-1 setback.

3. A Guy That Was 0-6 Held the Tribe's Offense in Check

No one will ever mistaken Rays pitcher Blake Snell for Clayton Kershaw or Corey Kluber, but against an Indians offense that has been stuck in the mud lately, he was good enough to hold them in check in the first of the four-game set against the Tribe.

Snell entered Thursday's game 0-6 with a 4.98 ERA, and yet the Indians offense did little against him, scoring just one run.

On the night Snell went 6.1 innings, allowing the one run on four hits with two walks and four strikeouts. Just not acceptable for an Indians offense that thinks they will be playing baseball into October.

This game felt just like the Sunday loss a few weeks back against the White Sox when Carlos Rondon, who was 1-4 with a 6.49 held the Tribe to one run in 6.2 innings.

Bad pitchers holding this offense down as easily as Snell and Rondon did are big signs of trouble for this team.

2. The Offensive Funk

The numbers this offense is putting up right now is in a word - awful.

How about the following - .153 over the last five games, haven't scored in 43 of their last 48 innings, and again Thursday they went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position.

They've scored one run in three of their last five games, and in the loss on Wednesday scored just two runs. Thank goodness for the Yan Gomes three-run blast on Tuesday or this offense would look even worse right now.

Jason Kipnis' hammy acted up and he was pulled, yet another blow to an offense that wasn't doing much with him, but it would be nice to see him get the chance to get hot.

The Indians 3-4-5 hitters went a combined 1-for-11 on Thursday night with one hit (Jose Ramirez) with a walk and strikeout.

The team really didn't have many chances on Thursday with four hits, but when they did have a shot to come up with a big hit, they once again didn't do it.

They don't make it easy to watch.

1. Solid Stats for Salazar

Danny Salazar allowed more traffic than he should of, and walked four and allowed seven hits. The good news is despite those numbers he allowed just one run and kept the anemic Tribe offense in the game.

The 5.1 innings is the shortest in his four games back with the team, but overall in four starts he's gone a total of 25.1 innings, allowing 15 hits, four runs, nine walks and 36 strikeouts.

Considering this was his shortest outing and probably his toughest of the four, still allowing just one run was impressive.

The starters the last few days have done their part in keeping the Indians in games while the offense has done nothing to help out, and you can add Salazar to the list in Thursday's outing.

He's back on the mound for the Tribe on Tuesday in Minnesota.