Cleveland shut out by Royals in home opener
The Cleveland Baseball Club only managed 3 hits as they were shut out by the Kansa City Royals 3-0.
It’s hard to win with only 3 hits and the Cleveland Baseball Club found that out first hand Monday. The Kansas City Royals came to town and shut down Cleveland’s offense and handed them a 3-0 loss. Jose Ramirez, Amed Rosario, and Franmil Reyes were the only Cleveland batters to register a hit in the contest.
There were two chances for Cleveland to score in the contest, the first came in the 4th. Franmil Reyes doubled with two outs in the inning with Amed Rosario walking next. The inning would end with Josh Naylor flying out to left.
Cleveland’s second chance came in the 9th which provided some drama. Cesar Hernandez walked to start off the inning and that was followed by a Jose Ramirez single. Royals pitcher Jesse Hahn induced a double play off the bat of Eddie Rosario and ended the inning with a Franmil Reyes groundout.
Cleveland pitching
Logan Allen drew the start for the Cleveland Baseball Club and pitched admirably. Allen went 5 inning and allowed 2 runs on 5 hits with 3 strikeouts while walking 2. The only real blemish on his line was giving up a two-run homer to Whit Merrifield in the 2nd inning.
The problem for Allen was that he fell behind 3-0 to Merrifield and grooved a fastball right down the middle. This was not a good strategy when facing an accomplished hitter like Merrifield and that was evidenced by this home run.
Triston McKenzie made his 2021 debut and struck out 5 over 3.2 innings. McKenzie allowed 1 run and 2 hits and 4 walks. The run given up by McKenzie? Also driven in by Merrifield via a sacrifice fly. James Karinchak would take over for McKenzie and strike out the only batter he faced.
The Cleveland Baseball Club has a day off on Tuesday before the second and final game of the series with the Kansas City Royals. Perhaps the day off can give the team the time it needs to try and fix their just over 3 run per game average which is one of the lower marks in the league. If not, the bottom end of expected offensive production could be the result for more games than it should.
