Surging Indians turn to Kluber to continue mastery of Tigers (Sep 02, 2017)
DETROIT -- The Cleveland Indians are turning to depth to return to dominating the Detroit Tigers.
Cleveland will look to make it seven wins in the last eight meetings between the two American League Central rivals on Saturday, and will try to do it against a Detroit team weakened by trading away some of its best players over the last six weeks of the season.
The rampaging Indians, who have matched their best winning streak of the season by taking their last nine in a row, will send ace right-hander Corey Kluber (12-4, 2.65 ERA) to the mound.
Kluber is coming off a win over the New York Yankees in his last start and will be pitching against the Tigers for the 21st time (20 starts) in his career.
Kluber is 6-7 with a 4.47 ERA against Detroit. He did not get a decision in his last start against the Tigers.
Manager Terry Francona made it a point during the two doubleheaders to start as many of his players as he could in the four games. He won't do that as much going forward but will try to focus both on the AL Central standings and what lies beyond in keeping his starters sharp and his bench ready.
Detroit has dealt two of its big bats over the last six weeks, first J.D. Martinez (to Arizona) and Justin Upton (to the Los Angeles Angels), which has left the Tigers with no player with more than the 19 home runs hit by Nicholas Castellanos.
Cleveland held Detroit to just two runs in two games Friday.
Cleveland took the opener, 3-2, on Francisco Lindor's pushed RBI liner to center that scored Jay Bruce, who pinch-hit a triple with one out. The Indians mauled the Tigers, 10-0, in the second game.
"We've played a lot of baseball (two doubleheaders in three days)," Francona said. "But we were going to play a lot either way, so you might as well show up and play the game the right way and feel good about yourself.
"But also think it shows we have some depth. We're playing a lot of people and they're coming through and they're doing a good job."
Jordan Zimmermann (8-11, 6.08 ERA) will pitch for Detroit on Saturday. He wasn't sterling in his last start but he was good enough to pick up a win in Colorado. Zimmermann allowed three runs on nine hits in five innings.
The right-hander is 0-3 in four career starts against Cleveland with an 11.42 ERA to show for 17 1/3 innings. He is 0-2 in two starts against the Indians this season.
Detroit will have two more new faces Saturday as manager Brad Ausmus said the club was bringing up third baseman Jeimer Candelario, obtained from Chicago as part of the trade that sent the Cubs lefty Justin Wilson and catcher Alex Avila.
Also coming up is more pitching help, right-hander Myles Jaye. Both players are coming from Triple-A Toledo.
The Tigers learned earlier Friday that they were losing the services of Sunday's scheduled starter, right-hander Michael Fulmer, now scheduled to see Dr. James Andrews to determine a course of action for in inflamed ulnar nerve.
Lefty Chad Bell will come out of the bullpen to take Fulmer's spot against Cleveland.
"I haven't been 100 percent for a while now but I still wanted to go out and try to help my team," Fulmer said. "I kind of set a deadline of Sept. 1 for myself. If things hadn't gotten better, I wanted to get it looked at.
"My biggest priority is spring training, 2018. Surgery? We've thought about it. We got an ultra-sound (Friday) and it showed the nerve is slipping out of place. It stretches and that causes the numbness."
Ausmus also revealed the starter-needy Tigers would be purchasing the contract of right-hander Artie Lewicki, eighth-round choice out of Virginia in the 2014 draft, to make the start in Justin Verlander's spot Monday against Kansas City.
