Clevinger takes step in right direction

CLEVELAND — When Mike Clevinger walked off the mound after his last start in Minneapolis, he declared that it felt like he was pitching with someone else’s arsenal. His mechanics were out of sorts after spending so much time trying to protect his surgically repaired left knee over the last

CLEVELAND — When Mike Clevinger walked off the mound after his last start in Minneapolis, he declared that it felt like he was pitching with someone else’s arsenal. His mechanics were out of sorts after spending so much time trying to protect his surgically repaired left knee over the last few weeks. Although it wasn’t the smoothest of all starts, Clevinger showed signs of righting the ship in Wednesday’s 2-0 win over the Reds at Progressive Field.

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He survived a stressful second inning without permitting a run and had tossed five scoreless frames before he walked three batters in the sixth to end his night one out shy of a quality start. Despite some command issues, Clevinger’s scoreless 5 2/3-inning performance was enough to help lift the Tribe to a second straight win.

Over the last few seasons, the Indians have leaned heavily on their starting pitchers, but they’ve needed to rely on them even more to start the 2020 season, as the offense struggles to get its footing. Entering the night, Tribe starters had turned in 11 quality starts in the first 12 games, which was the most in the first dozen games of a season since the 2002 Giants did the same. The team has now had two outings that did not qualify as quality starts, each of which was at the hand of Clevinger.