CLEVELAND _ The top of the Indians lineup gave the Minnesota Twins' pitching staff proverbial headaches all night and Carlos Carrasco delivered a scoreless outing in an 8-1 win Tuesday night at Progressive Field.
In the process, the Indians furthered their borderline insurmountable lead in the American League Central to 14 games with just over a month left in the regular season.
The top four in the lineup did much of the damage. Francisco Lindor, Michael Brantley, Jose Ramirez and Edwin Encarnacion combined to go 11-for-17 with five RBIs and five runs scored. Lindor notched a four-hit game, which ties a career high, the fifth time he's reached that plateau in his career.
In the fifth inning, Ramirez snapped an 0-for-10 skid with a single off Twins starting pitcher Kyle Gibson. In the sixth, he added a two-run double to left-center field off reliever Gabriel Moya to give the Indians a 6-0 lead and bring his RBI total to 94 this season. In the third inning, he put the Indians ahead 1-0 with a sacrifice fly to center field that scored Lindor from third.
Encarnacion followed in the sixth with an RBI single, his second of the game, to push the Indians' advantage to 7-0.
Greg Allen went 0-for-4 but had a productive night, driving in two runs on fielder's choices and scoring a run. Yandy Diaz added another run on a fielder's choice in the eighth.
The proverbial touchdown and 2-point conversion was more than enough for Carrasco, who continued his post-All-Star-break stretch with a dominant performance, allowing only four hits and two walks in 71/3 scoreless innings to go with 10 strikeouts and lowering his ERA to 3.38. It was his fifth double-digit strikeout game of the season and the 20th of his career.
The only worrisome play of the night for the Indians involved yet another come-backer with Carrasco on the mound. Carrasco was placed on the 10-day disabled in June after being hit with a line drive off the bat of Twins first baseman Joe Mauer. On Tuesday night, shortstop Ehire Adrianza sent another line drive right back at Carrasco, who was able to get his glove on the ball.
Carrasco was visited by the trainers on the mound but remained in the game, avoiding another frustrating injury for a pitcher who has a history of being unlucky. Most notably, Carrasco had his 2016 season ended after being hit with a line drive off the bat of Ian Kinsler. This time, Carrasco was fortunate.
In the ninth, Dan Otero allowed a solo home run to Jake Cave to break up the shutout.
