Indians hammer Orioles 8-0 to win 7th straight series; three takeaways

CLEVELAND-- The Cleveland Indians completed their 13th shutout win of the season on Sunday, topping the Orioles 8-0. They are now tied for second most shutout victories in MLB with Pittsburgh.

The Indians are now 31-10 in series finales, good for a .756 win percentage that leads the American League. With the win today, the Indians have won each of their last five home finales as well as each of their last seven series finales overall.

With the win on Sunday, the Indians also won their seventh consecutive series and own a 9-4 record in rubber games.

Here are three takeaways from the victory.

1. The Melk Man comes through with a grand slam The fourth inning was when Cleveland really broke the game open, and it was thanks to Melky Cabrera. With the Indians leading 4-0 and the bases loaded, Cabrera blasted an 89 mph two-seam fastball into the bleachers. It was his fourth homer of the season and fourth career grand slam (his first since 2016). It was the ninth grand slam hit by an Indians batter this season. Cabrera has driven in 12 runs over his last seven games, the most by any MLB player since Aug. 12. "He's a good teammate, guys love him. He cares about the right things," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "Since he's come back he's been really good. I think he's just dangerous. He gets the barrel to the ball a lot and he's come up with some really big hits to boot. I just think that with the ability to switch hit and make contact it's kind of solidified us out there." The Indians are now batting an MLB-best .344 (33-96) with the bases loaded this season, and have collected 99 RBI in bases-loaded situations.

2. Clevinger fights early inning traffic Indians starter Mike Clevinger earned his ninth win of the year (9-7, 3.25) pitching on extended five-days rest. On Sunday afternoon, Clevinger went six innings and relinquished seven hits and one walk while striking out seven. Of the 104 pitches he threw, 67 were strikes. Sunshine became the fourth Indians pitcher to reach 150 strikeouts this year, joining Trevor Bauer, Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco. It's the third season in franchise history with four such pitchers (2015, 2016). Despite the win, however, Clevinger still struggled throughout the early innings, with the leadoff hitter getting on in the first four. "It was weird," Clevinger said. "It almost took me a batter to get going it seemed like. Even location wise like after the first batter got out there I was throwing everything where I wanted to, but it seemed like the first hitter of each inning I was kind of off just a tick. I don't know, it's baseball, just finding it." He did eventually find it and got plenty of use out of his breaking ball, something that Francona noted. "Down the stretch he pitched pretty good," he said. "He threw his breaking ball, and I thought (catcher Roberto Perez), he did a really good job of not getting into any rhythms or patterns and just mixing up his pitches really well." Clevinger now owns a career 4-0 record against the Orioles. His 1.80 ERA vs. Baltimore is the lowest against a single opponent in his career. In the first inning, Clevinger also picked off Jonathan Villar to record his fifth pickoff of the season, the second most in the American League. 3. Allen's hit streak continues Greg Allen continues to produce since his call-up on Aug. 9. On Sunday he went 2-for-4 with two singles, an RBI and a run scored to extend his career-long hit streak to 12 games, matching Cincinnati’s Jesse Winker (July 3-21) for the longest by an MLB rookie this season. Allen's hit streak is the third longest by an Indians batter in 2018, trailing a 19-game streak by Michael Brantley (May 9-30) and a 15-gamer by Francisco Lindor (April 29-May 14). In his most recent stint with Cleveland, Allen is batting .353 with three RBI and seven runs scored. "He's been doing a much better job of staying on balls where earlier he was chasing balls down out of the zone," Francona said. "He hasn't really chased up very much, but down and out of the zone. He's now either laying off or hitting the ball to left field and keeping it more on a line so he's giving himself a chance."

When asked about his consistency over this stretch, Allen said the key for him is trying to make contact.

“Trying to put it in play the best I can," he said. "Been fortunate the last few games to just find ways to impact the game. Find ways on base. Our guys do such a great job of making sure they capitalize when they have the chance. Any chance I have to help our team be in a position to win, I’m more than happy to do so.”