Game 155: Indians 7, Royals 1

This was a game that probably would have been damaging to the bullpen had this not been September. Jeanmar Gomez, who struggled to stay in the strike zone, worked hard to get out of early jams, and was done by the fifth inning. During the normal part of the season, that would mean having to relying on a middle reliever to fill the gap, and even though they might . But the Indians have a full bullpen thanks to the expanded rosters, so they used four different pitchers, only one of whom was a key setup man, to close out the game. Against a fellow non-contender, this doesn't mean much, but I could understand some frustration from a contender if this happened, since it doesn't penalize a club whose starter only goes five innings. I think the compromise that clubs must set an active 25-man roster, even if they have more players in the dugout, has some merit, especially when a club still in the race is playing.

Aaron Laffey's outing this time was successful; he pitched just an inning, but retired the Royals in order. Laffey has only thrown 84.2 major-league innings this year thanks to injuries, but I don't get the impression that the Indians are trying to set up his innings so that he can start next season.

The Indians had a second straight good offensive night, this time against Zach Greinke. They strung together long innings in the third and fourth, sending 17 batters to the plate against the Kansas City ace. Shin-Soo Choo continued his torrid hitting, collecting hits in his last four at-bats. He a took a pitch down and away from Greinke in the third and crushed it off the wall in left-center. If you're a visual person, my description of this impressive piece of hitting has been supplemented by the picture above.

via www.fangraphs.com