The Indians led after their first batter of the day, eventually fell behind and then re-took the lead and held it in a 5-4 Mother’s Day victory against the Kansas City Royals.
Carlos Santana, hitting leadoff on Sunday, belted a solo home run to right field off Royals starter Edison Volquez, giving the Indians a near-immediate 1-0 lead. The Royals, as they are so prone to doing, came back against Indians starting pitcher Josh Tomlin.
Tomlin (5-0, 3.72 ERA) cruised until the fourth inning, when Lorenzo Cain doubled and Eric Hosmer crushed a two-run home run to center field, giving the Royals a sudden 2-1 lead that was extended to 3-1 when Salvador Perez later doubled home Alex Gordon.
The Indians’ offense came back in the fifth, and a couple of nice defensive plays later on aided the Indians’ bullpen to hold the retaken lead.
After Mike Napoli slugged his team-leading sixth home run in the fourth to bring the Indians to within 3-2, Francisco Lindor opened the fifth with a single, stole second base and scored on a single to left field off the bat of Michael Brantley to tie it 3-3.
A bloop single off the bat of Lonnie Chisenhall scored Brantley, gave the Indians back the lead 4-3 and ended Volquez’s (3-3, 3.89) day. Marlon Byrd then followed with a ground-rule double to center field to score Yan Gomes, who had walked.
The Royals got one run back in the seventh, but it easily could have been more. Perez doubled to open the inning and send Tomlin to the clubhouse in favor of relief pitcher Zach McAllister. Chelsor Cuthbert reached on an infield single and Christian Colon ripped a double down the left-field line to score Perez and put two runners in scoring position down 5-4.
Jarrod Dyson grounded a ball to Lindor. As Cuthbert broke for home, Lindor turned and fired to Yan Gomes to throw out the potential tying run at the plate. Bryan Shaw entered and induced a 4-6-3 double play to escape the seventh with the lead.
Lindor’s play was key, maintaining the Indians’ lead while recording the first out of the inning.
“We were hoping for a lot,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “You’ve got second and third, nobody out. Frankie made a real nice play not rushing, not leading it speed up. We went from a real bad situation to at least manageable.”
Some more defense got the Indians out of the eighth inning. With out one and Eric Hosmer on first after a walk, Shaw struck out Kendrys Morales as Hosmer broke for second and Gomes threw him out to end the inning.
The Indians didn’t know if Shaw would be available Sunday after he had a stiff neck on Saturday. He was, and he recorded five of the more important outs of the ballgame.
“That's huge,” Gomes said. “I said it before, when that kind of situation comes in, whether he had his miscues early in the year, we're going to need him in the end. Especially against a team like this, shutting down any kind of momentum they can get is huge.”
Cody Allen closed out Sunday’s game and the three-game series with a 1-2-3 in the ninth inning to record his eighth save of the season.
Tomlin finished with four earned runs on seven hits to go with no walks and three strikeouts in six innings pitched. He also improved to 12-0 since the start of the 2015 season following a loss.
Sunday’s win ended the Indians’ home stand at 5-1, all within the division. It was a positive week after the Indians dropped a couple of games in walk-off fashion in Minnesota and then were swept in Philadelphia.
“That was good. We needed to,” Francona said. “Sometimes it’s easier said than done. We played pretty good baseball, we just didn’t get a key hit or things you get on the road or in an extra-inning game, and those things happen. It was really important or us to jump right back and we did a really good job.”
