Today in Tribe History: October 19, 2016

The Indians placed the ball in the hands of rookie left-handed hurler Ryan Merritt, who channeled his inner Gene Bearden while making just his fifth Major League appearance, in blanking the Toronto Blue Jays for four and one-third innings as Cleveland clinched the American League pennant with a 3-0 shutout at Rogers Centre. Read More

Today in Tribe History: October 19, 2016

The Indians placed the ball in the hands of rookie left-handed hurler Ryan Merritt, who channeled his inner Gene Bearden while making just his fifth Major League appearance, in blanking the Toronto Blue Jays for four and one-third innings as Cleveland clinched the American League pennant with a 3-0 shutout at Rogers Centre. Read More

Today in Tribe History: October 19, 2016

The Indians placed the ball in the hands of rookie left-handed hurler Ryan Merritt, who channeled his inner Gene Bearden while making just his fifth Major League appearance, in blanking the Toronto Blue Jays for four and one-third innings as Cleveland clinched the American League pennant with a 3-0 shutout at Rogers Centre. Read More

Tribe Activates Merritt, Designates Him for Assignment

We will always have Game 5, and Ryan Merritt will always have the large return on his wedding registry due to the generosity of thankful Cleveland Indians fans.

The Indians activated the left-handed pitcher Merritt from the 60-day disabled list on Friday afternoon and in a somewhat surprising turn of events, designated him for assignment. Read More

Zimmer Finally Shelved, Reliever Ramirez Purchased from Columbus

The Indians waited and waited and waited some more, but finally on Tuesday afternoon, they could wait no longer for Bradley Zimmer‘s injuries to heal up.

The Tribe officially placed their starting center fielder on the 10-day disabled list Tuesday, retroactive to May 12, with a left rib contusion. The injury was the end result of a collision with the wall at Yankee Stadium two Saturdays ago. He had missed six games and had two off days since the ill-fated wall encounter, but has still experienced discomfort while swinging. After missing the finale of the series with the Yankees, he played in the second of two games in Milwaukee against the Brewers, going 0-for-4 with a strikeout on May 9. After Thursday’s off day, he missed the entire series against the Kansas City Royals and the opener of the current series with the Detroit Tigers on Monday. Read More

Today in Tribe History: October 19, 2016

The Indians placed the ball in the hands of rookie left-handed hurler Ryan Merritt, who channeled his inner Gene Bearden while making just his fifth Major League appearance, in blanking the Toronto Blue Jays for four and one-third innings as Cleveland clinched the American League pennant with a 3-0 shutout at Rogers Centre. Read More

Make it Seven Straight as Cleveland Completes Sweep; Indians 9, Yankees 4

Ryan Merritt made his second consecutive strong spot start and the Cleveland bats came alive as the Indians completed the rare three-game sweep at Yankee Stadium with a 9-4 win over the New York Yankees in game two of Wednesday’s doubleheader.

The Indians (76-56) will take a well deserved Thursday off, holding a voluntary practice session in Detroit prior to their four-game series against the Tigers this weekend that includes another doubleheader on Friday night. They moved to 19-9 in the month of August and have a seven-game lead in the American League Central at day’s end as Minnesota defeated the Chicago White Sox for the second consecutive night with an 11-1 victory to improve to 19-10 in the month. Read More

Indians and Yankees Postponed, Will Play Two Wednesday

Rains in New York on Tuesday forced the cancellation of the 7:05 PM ET game between the Yankees and the visiting Cleveland Indians.

The middle game of the three-game set between two of the top teams in the American League will be rescheduled for Wednesday afternoon as part of a traditional twin bill from Yankee Stadium.

Tuesday’s originally scheduled probables, right-hander Trevor Bauer (13-8, 4.59 ERA) and left-hander Jaime Garcia (5-8, 4.52), will get the call in the first game of Wednesday’s double dip at 1:05 PM ET. Read More

Breslow Added to Indians’ Roster to Provide Bullpen Depth

Earlier in the month, the Indians brought 12-year veteran reliever Craig Breslow back to the organization on a minor league contract. On Saturday, the club officially added him to the 25- and 40-man rosters to help the relief staff with the loss of Andrew Miller.

In order to get Breslow on the active roster, the Indians needed to make a pair of roster moves. Left-hander Ryan Merritt, one day after a stellar start against the Kansas City Royals, was optioned to Triple-A Columbus. To clear a spot on the 40-man roster, recently acquired right-hander Diego Moreno was designated for assignment. Moreno had been pitching with the Columbus team after being acquired from Tampa Bay at the end of July. Read More

Merritt and Three Relievers Combine to Shut Out Kansas City; Indians 4, Royals 0

With Danny Salazar on the shelf, the Cleveland Indians called upon left-hander Ryan Merritt to make a big spot start in their rotation in an important matchup against the Kansas City Royals.

The circumstances were not too much for Merritt, who was certainly not shaking in his boots on Friday, as he gave the Indians a career-high six and two-thirds scoreless innings on the mound as Cleveland defeated Kansas City behind a 4-0 shutout.

Merritt had big shoes to fill but did the job admirably in front of a packed house at Progressive Field, holding a veteran Royals lineup to seven scattered hits. Three other relievers followed him to the mound and completed the eight-hit shutout as the Indians (71-56) kept a five and a half game lead in the AL Central over the Minnesota Twins while pushing the Royals (64-63) another game back in the standings, where they now trail the Tribe by seven games. Read More

Indians and Royals Back at it for the Second Straight Weekend

There has not been a lot of variety to the schedules of the Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals over the course of the last week. After the Indians took two of three in Kansas City last weekend, the two teams got a brief reprieve, but now the Royals come to town this weekend for a three-game series at Progressive Field.

The Indians (70-56) have endured a tough stretch of the schedule and a steady growth of players on the disabled list. Despite that, they have played well and split the first four games of their homestand during the week with the Boston Red Sox. Cleveland sits at 33-29 at home with a run differential of +70 at Progressive Field this season. With two more wins over the last six games of the month, the Indians can match their month-high of 15 wins, done in each of the last two months of the schedule. They will need to keep on winning to hold off the second place Minnesota Twins, who sit just five and a half in back of the Tribe. Read More

Kepler’s Homer Late Ends Twins’ Home Drought Versus Tribe; Twins 4, Indians 2

A battle of minor league starters went in favor of the Twins on Thursday night, as Minnesota and rookie Aaron Slegers avoided a sweep with a 4-2 win in game two of the day’s doubleheader.

The 6’10” right-hander Slegers got the call for the Twins as the club’s 26th man for the second game of the day’s double dip and stood tall, both in effort and in stature, in his Major League debut at Target Field. He carried a one-hitter into the seventh inning and after Max Kepler‘s lost footing cost the Twins the lead, the outfielder put Minnesota back on top for good with an eighth inning blast off of Mike Clevinger. Read More