In a week when the most attention surrounding the Cleveland Indians pitchers is their trading of Justin Masterson, Corey Kluber has demonstrated that he can do just fine as the team’s ace.
Kluber dominated the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday night. He tossed a complete game shutout, throwing only 85 pitches to pick up the 2-0 win. This outing marks the fifth time all season that a pitcher needed fewer than 100 pitches to record a complete game shutout.
Of Kluber’s 85 pitches, just 16 of them were balls. This averages out to 1.78 balls per inning. Furthermore, he had some very efficient innings. On five occasions, he retired the side on eight or fewer, reports cleveland.com .
"That's always my game plan, is to try to get that early contact and just try to stay the course," Kluber said. "They came out of the gates aggressive."
Prior to this outing, he took a perfect game bid into the late innings but settled to a no decision after throwing nine innings, giving up just on unearned run.
This season, he is 11-6 with a 2.61 ERA and 170 strikeouts in 158 2/3 innings. He has the second best WAR among pitchers (behind Mariners’ ace Felix Hernandez), according to CBS Sports.