CLEVELAND _ Even during one of the coldest games in Progressive Field history, the frigid weather still wasn't enough to match the Indians' icy hitting.
The Indians' lineup continued to sink further into a collective batting average that better represents a January dip in Lake Erie than the beginning of spring, and one big swing by Lucas Duda was enough to waste a terrific outing by Trevor Bauer in a 1-0 loss to the Kansas City Royals on Saturday at Progressive Field.
Bauer blanked the Royals over the first six innings, allowing only one hit and striking out six. It was one of the better starts he's had, but it was spoiled on his first pitch of the seventh inning.
That pitch was a 90 mph fastball at the top of the zone, and Duda belted it for a solo home run to right field. Bauer went out of the zone, but it didn't matter _ the Royals led 1-0, and the Indians never responded.
After the game, Bauer discussed Major League Baseball's revised rule changes aimed at speeding up the pace of play. Specifically, that commercial breaks were shortened for regular-season games from 2:25 to 2:05. That not only cut away 20 seconds for pitchers to throw warm-up pitches, but also the league no longer guarantees that a pitcher will get eight tosses to the plate. Bauer didn't blame those changes for the home run, but he did say he was rushed.
"First pitch of the inning, coming out, I tried to get loose, but with the new Rob Manfred time BS that we have only a certain amount of time between innings, it's hard to get loose sometimes, especially in conditions like that," Bauer said. "It's not safe, but, whatever."
Home-plate umpire Will Little at one point tried to tell Bauer that he needed to speed up during his warm-up tosses.
"I was like, 'Look, I'll take the fine if I need to, but I'm not going to put myself at risk and I'm not going to put the team at risk of me having exactly what happened happen,' " Bauer said. "Throw a pitch that you're not ready to compete on because you're still trying to get loose and it gets hit over the fence and we lose because of it _ not because of it, but it was a contributing factor."
Overall, Bauer turned in a tremendous outing, allowing only three hits and striking out seven in eight innings.
"I thought he was outstanding," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "I mean, he worked quick, he pounded the zone. You know the one run he gave up was a head-high fastball that Duda tomahawked. I thought he was tremendous."
The Indians did have their chances. Francisco Lindor led off the sixth inning with a double and with one out stole third while starting pitcher Ian Kennedy was taking the rubber and looking down at his feet. But Jose Ramirez struck out and Michael Brantley lined out to center field to end the inning.
In the seventh, Rajai Davis singled, stole second and then advanced to third on a throwing error on Royals catcher Drew Butera. After Roberto Perez walked, Bradley Zimmer lined a ball to the right side but it was right at first baseman Cheslor Cuthbert for the third out.
"It's not an ideal situation to be playing in 30-degree weather, but they're playing in it, too," said Jason Kipnis, who went 0-for-4 and watched his batting average drop to .133 this season. "And neither offense did great, but they did enough.
"It just sucks to waste such a good pitching effort by Trevor. You can see when guys are scuffling. It's not a huge scuffle right now. Guys are hitting some balls hard. They're not swinging at pitches in the dirt. They're having good at-bats. It's just stuff's not falling or they're just getting under some stuff, so I think it won't be too long before you see a bunch of guys putting it together."
Lonnie Chisenhall left the game with a right calf injury and was replaced by Davis in the second inning. According to Francona, the team hadn't yet seen the MRI results but a move to the disabled list was possible. Chisenhall's right calf forced a trip to the disabled list season, and he had it flare up again this spring.
