Nine Runs Not Enough For the Indians, Fall to the Kansas City Royals, Three Takeaways from 10-9 Loss

3.) All Hail The Long Ball

With two first-inning homers from Jose Ramirez and Yonder Alonso the Indians have four players (including Francisco Lindor with 10 and Edwin Encarnacion with 9) with at least nine homers. This is the first time since 1995 that Cleveland has had four players with nine-plus homers through 37 games when Paul Sorrento (12), Manny Ramirez (12), Jim Thome (10), and Eddie Murray (9) achieved that.

In the six-run fourth inning, the Indians batted around and now have batted around in an inning in each of the teams’ last three home games. The team managed to do so in both games of their doubleheader against Toronto on May 3.

Adding to the offense was Michael Brantley when he hit his second career grand slam to finish off the Indians 6 run 4th inning. Brantley is now the 3rd batter to have multiple grand slams this season, in company with Boston’s Xander Bogaerts and Houston’s Josh Reddick.

Brantley is the first Indians batter to hit two grand slams in a season since Travis Hafner did so in 2010, he is also the first batter with two grand slams in a month since Hafner did so in July of 2006.

The Cleveland Indians will be looking to bounce back from Friday night’s defeat on Saturday and will be sending Mike Clevinger to the hill. Clevinger will be opposed by Jakob Junis of the Royals, first pitch is expected to be at 4:10 pm EST.

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