These are truly the dog days of summer for the Indians, and not just because Progressive Field was mostly quiet with the exception of scattered barks and yelps on Wednesday night.
Those were not members of the Dawg Pound celebrating the return of another season for the Browns, but dogs accompanying their owners for the Indians’ annual Puppypalooza promotion. All on hand saw Cleveland suffer a 8-4 loss at the hands of the A’s, spoiling a quality effort from rookie starter Corey Kluber.
August can’t end soon enough for the Tribe.
“It’s incredibly hard,” Indians setup man Vinnie Pestano said. “I don’t think there’s going to be a happier team in Major League Baseball to see August go.”
The defeat dropped the Indians’ record to 5-22 for the month, marking the worst showing in baseball this August. This is only the fourth time in the team’s 112-year history that the Tribe has lost at least 22 games in a single calendar month. The Indians lost 23 in August of 1910 and ’38, and 24 in July of 1914.
Dating back to July 27, when Cleveland sat 3 1/2 games out of first place in the American League Central, the ballclub has gone 5-26 due to shaky starting pitching and suspect offense. Lately, it has been the lineup that has been the primary culprit for the Tribe, which has lost 13 of 14 games.
The Indians now sit only two games ahead of the Twins for the worst record in the AL.
“A month ago, we were in the thick of it,” Pestano said. “And now 30 games later, we can’t even sniff the second Wild Card. That’s just brutal. There’s no real words that I know to convey just how upset [we are]. You can say, ‘We’re a better baseball team than this,’ but we’re not. We’re not showing it.
“When you go on a stretch like this, this is where we’re at. This is the team we have right now. We need to find a way to win with it or we’ll continue on stretches like this.”
Kluber turned in an admirable effort for the Indians, limiting Oakland to four runs (three earned) on eight hits in six innings. He struck out seven and walked none in the 98-pitch performance, but was dealt a loss due to a lack of support. The Indians have scored just 15 runs in the last 10 games.
The good news was that Cleveland did score.
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