CLEVELAND: Midway through Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Royals, Indians fans sitting in right field had plenty raining down on them.
First, baseballs. Then, actual rain. It all came in a 7-0 win to complete a four-game sweep of the Royals and extend the Indians’ lead in the American League Central to 1½ games, their widest margin of the season.
Sunday’s game was delayed three hours and 10 minutes in the bottom of the sixth inning. Just prior to it, the Indians peppered the stands in right field with four solo home runs in a two-inning stretch against Royals starter Chris Young.
Already leading 1-0 in the fourth, Mike Napoli started the power surge by going to the opposite field for his team-leading 14th home run of the season and sixth of the 10-game homestand.
Napoli’s home run barely got out of the ballpark, a hooking shot that off the bat looked more like a fly out. The next three were crushed.
Rookie Tyler Naquin, who hit home runs both Friday and Saturday nights, made it back-to-back-to-back games with a 419-foot home run that reached the facing of the second deck in right field. He’s the first hitter to reach the second deck this season.
Two batters later, Carlos Santana belted one of his own that cleared the seats in right field and landed on the concourse, his 10th of the year. Francisco Lindor followed with his sixth home run of the season to make it 5-0 Indians and end Young’s day.
Corey Kluber (5-6, 3.84 ERA) put together one of his best starts of the season, allowing only two hits and no runs in six innings and striking out six. At one point, he struck out five out of six hitters between the third and fourth innings.
“I thought [Kluber] pitched in to both lefties and righties,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “And he commanded extremely well. I think he had that one walk, it was that four-pitch walk. Other than that, he used both sides probably as good as he has and just really pitched. His command was so good.”
After the lengthy rain delay, the Indians added two more runs on RBI singles by Santana and Lindor to increase their edge to 7-0 in the seventh inning. Lindor also put the Indians on top 1-0 in the first inning with a sacrifice fly that scored Jason Kipnis, who tripled to center field.
The Indians are 6-1 against the Royals this season and 18-7 within the division, a key reason they are alone in first place.
“We don’t want to be anywhere else,” Napoli said. “But it doesn’t mean anything right now. It’s the place you want to be, but we need to continue playing good ball as a team and things should take care of itself. We’re going to try to continue that and go from there.”
Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Indians blog at www.ohio.com/indians. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RyanLewisABJ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RyanLewisABJ
