The Cleveland Indians scored five runs in the first four innings on Friday night against Bruce Chen and the Royals at Kauffman Stadium as Cleveland held on for a 5-4 victory. While the Royals fell to 57-82, the Indians are now 69-66 and still have hopes of obtaining a playoff berth as they now sit 5.5 games back of the Detroit Tigers.
Asdrubal Cabrera hit a two run home run in the third inning to give Cleveland a 4-0 lead, and then Jason Donald hit his first home run of the season in the fourth as the Indians stretched it to 5-0 at the time. For the game Chen allowed five runs on eight hits in six innings pitched. With the loss he falls to 10-6 on the season, thus breaking his five game winning streak that dated back to August 7th's victory against the Tigers.
Justin Masterson continued to give the Royals fits as he won his third game of the season against Kansas City to improve to 11-8 overall. Masterson went seven inning on Friday evening, allowing four runs on seven hits.
Kansas City finally got on the board in the fifth inning when Alcides Escobar singled to drive in Salvador Perez, and then would add a run in the sixth on an Eric Hosmer sacrifice fly. The Royals would score twice in the seventh thanks to a two-run home run by Alex Gordon. For Gordon it was his 20th home run of the year, to go along with 74 RBI's. Gordon continues to produce career high numbers during 2011 as he is now batting .304/.377/.506 and has settled in quite nice batting leadoff for the club.
Escobar would lead the Royals with two hits, as the team combined for just seven on the evening. A full boxscore can be viewed here.