Indians season comes to an end with ALDS loss to Yankees; three takeaways

2. Out of offensive magic

The Indians’ bats never arrived in New York for Games 3 and 4, and they also never made it out on the field in the decisive Game 5.

The biggest change to the Tribe lineup came in the form of Edwin Encarnacion, who up until this point had still been recovering from his ankle sprain in Game 2. Encarnacion went 0-for-4 from the plate, striking out three times.

As a team, Cleveland recorded just five hits, and had four runners left on base, as well as three that were stranded in scoring position. Their only two runs came in the bottom of the fifth inning on back-to-back RBI singles from Perez and Giovanny Urshela to pull the Indians to within one run of the Yankees at 3-2.

While the Indians no doubt made things much harder for themselves in the top of the ninth inning when they allowed a Brett Gardner single and an error to deliver two huge insurance runs for the Yankees, ultimately the two homers that Didi Gregorius hit in the first and third innings (for one and two runs, respectively) would be more than enough for the Bronx Bombers.

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