Indians Sweep White Sox Behind Corey Kluber’s 8th Win of the Season

Corey Kluber threw six shutout innings and Jose Ramirez belted his 17th home run as the Cleveland Indians rolled to a 9-1 win over the hapless Chicago White Sox on May 30th, sweeping the three game series in Cleveland. Kluber improved to 8-2 on the season and leads the majors in victories.

Although a sweep of the White Sox, who fell to a major league worst 16-37 with the loss, doesn’t seem like that big a deal, the Indians had a very sluggish first two months of the season and are finally looking more like the team everyone expected. Cleveland improved to 29-25 on the season, and moved five games in front of both the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins in the American League Central, pending the results of those two team’s games. The A.L Central is not a strong division; the Twins have yet to prove they didn’t play over their heads last year when they made the playoffs as a Wild Card after finishing the regular season at 85-77. All the teams in the division except the Indians are below, in the case of the White Sox and Kansas City Royals (19-36) well below, .500.

It has helped that oft injured left fielder Michael Brantley has been relatively healthy this season, at least after missing the first six games. Brantley is hitting .343 with nine homers and 36 RBIs. He also has a 19 game hitting streak.

Ramirez is hitting .300 and has driven in 40 runs to go with those 17 homers, and Francisco Lindor is hitting .300 with 12 homers and 30 RBIs in the leadoff position. Throw in Edwin Encarnacion and Yonder Alonzo and the top half of the batting order at least, is pretty solid.

The Indians will be at Minnesota for a three game weekend series starting June 1st.