Royals Takes Series Against the Indians, Twins Keep Losing

The Cleveland Indians (45-40) finished up their three-game series against division rival, the Kansas City Royals (40-42), on Thursday with a 10-7 loss. The Royals won two of three games in the match up and now they sit five games behind the division-leading Detroit Tigers (46-38).

For Cleveland, after seeing first place earlier in the week, they now sit 1.5 games behind the Tigers. They fought hard for the win on Thursday but fell short.

Drew Stubbs

By the sixth inning, the Indians had a 5-0 lead. This came from a Drew Stubbs home run; he brought in four runs for the day while Michael Brantley had four hits and a run in the game.

But things began to turn when the Royals finally showed up in the sixth inning as the Indians’ starting pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez’s wheels came off.

It all started when the Royals Lorenzo Cain walked up to the plate and hit his first career grand slam. Then, teammate George Kottaras hit another home run and the inning ended in a 5-5 tie.

But not so fast.

The Indians regained a two-run lead in the seventh but the Royals came back and again tied it up. In the next inning with their bats still hot, Kansas City took a three-run advantage (thanks to a two-run homer) and ultimately grabbed the win.

For this team, getting 10 runs isn’t the norm: it has only happened four times in 2013.

Righty Royals reliever Luke Hochevar (2-1) got the win while the Indians Brian Shaw (0-2) was the losing pitcher.

Meanwhile, Cleveland had won five consecutive games and sat in first place earlier this week but now the AL Central has become more interesting by week’s end. The Indians will need to shake off their two-game losing streak as they’ll face the Tigers in a four-game series beginning on Friday at home.

Justin Verlander

The Tigers will go to the series on a three-game win streak after three of four victories against the Toronto Blue Jays (41-44). They had a big win on Thursday to cap the series with an 11-1 victory. Justin Verlander (9-5) had a good game as he pitched for seven scoreless innings as well as a two-run home run by Austin Jackson (4 for 5, one walk, four scores).

Factor in Torii Hunter’s three RBIs and Prince Fielder driving in two runs and you have a dominant Tigers game.

Detroit will approach this series feeling confident as they’ve won five consecutive games against the Indians, outscoring them 33-18. Cleveland has only hit .229 against the Tigers but it doesn’t mean they can’t play better against them, especially now.

On Friday, the Indians will get the win (-130, 8.5 o/u). Looking ahead, they are +2500 to win this year’s World Series while the Tigers are +650.

In other AL Central news, the Minnesota Twins (36-46) have now lost five in a row. They sit nine games behind the Tigers and will travel to Toronto this weekend for a three-game series.

Both teams will look to get back on track as the Blue Jays were the darlings of the MLB in June. They have been challenged lately from eight of 11 losses in games going back to June 24.

But there have been bright spots as the Blue Jays outscored their opponents, 70-27 during that time but since then, it’s been a different story as they’ve been outscored, 46-40.

On Friday, veteran lefty pitcher Mark Buehrle (4-5) has pitching duty vs the Twins’ righty Kevin Correia (6-5).

It’s been a disappointing season for the Twins as they sit nine games back in the division. The likelihood of winning this year’s World Series is very ugly at +20000 while the Blue Jays’ chances look better at +1600.

As for Friday, look for a Toronto win (-173, 9 o/u).