Preview: Indians Kickoff Short Two-Game Homestand Tonight Against Milwaukee

Following a tough weekend in which they lost three of four to the AL Central rival Minnesota Twins, the Indians are back home tonight, albeit for a short homestand with the now National League Central's Milwaukee Brewers.

The Brewers, a team Indians fans don't tend to see often, come into town with an impressive mark of 37-23, two games up on the Cubs for first in the division.

Milwaukee over the last weekend struggled against the White Sox in a three-game weekend series in Chicago, but Milwaukee has still been on a roll winning 21 of their last 31 games.

Here's a preview of game one of the two-game set at Progressive Field tonight.

Time: 7:10 p.m.

Starting Pitchers: RHP Junior Guerra (3-3, 2.65) vs. Corey Kluber (8-2, 2.02)

TV: SportsTime Ohio

Online: MLB.TV

Radio: WTAM 1100am, Indians Radio Network

1. Kluber Dominant Recently at Home

How good as Corey Kluber been in his last three starts at Progressive Field? How about no earned runs in three starts, spanning 19.1 innings.

Against the Royals back on May 13th he went 8 innings, no earned runs (two unearned) and struck out four in a Tribe blowout win.

He followed that up with a 6.1 no run, 7 strikeout outing in an 11-2 win over the Houston Astros on May the 25th.

Five days late on May 30th against the White Sox, the streak continued as he went six innings, no runs on three hits with 10 K's.

The Brew Crew has played well in the last month as stated in our open winning 21 of 31 games, so we will see if Kluber is up to the challenge tonight.

2. Edwin's Hot Bat

For all the complaints about Edwin Encarnacion and how he started the season, fans have started to come around on how important he is the Tribe lineup as he's been on a hot streak as of late.

On Monday, Encarnacion was named as the AL Player of the Week, and Sunday against the Twins he hit two huge homers in the teams setback to the Twins.

Going back to May 28th, Encarnacion led the AL in homers, extra base hits, RBI, total bases and slugging percentage, hitting .407 (11-for-27) with nine runs, two doubles, five homers and 13 RBI.

Every time people start to say he's losing a step, he seems to come out of nowhere and have a week like last week. Let's hope for the Indians sake he can follow it up again here this week starting tonight.

3. Lowdown on Junior

The Tribe will take on Brewers righty Junior Guerra (3-3, 2.65) tonight at Progressive Field, a pitcher who has had an up and down 2018 thus far for the first-place Brew Crew.

In his last start, a no decision against the Cardinals back on May 30th, Guerra pitched six scoreless innings on four hits, with seven strikeouts and no walks.

He's been good in his last three outings, despite 3 no decisions he's got a 1.65 ERA and .217 opponents’ batting average against him.

This will be Guerra’s second career appearance against the the Tribe, the first coming on May 9th of this year, when he was the losing pitcher in a 6-2 Indians victory.

Guerra pitched five innings, giving up four runs on six hits, with nine strikeouts and two walks in that Tribe victory in Milwaukee.