Tribe again provides little support for Kluber

Associated Press

BALTIMORE

On a night in which Corey Kluber had 10 strikeouts and allowed only three runs in seven innings, he didn’t take the loss.

The way things are going this season for the 2014 Cy Young Award winner, that’s about as good as it gets.

Cleveland wasted another decent outing by Kluber, falling to the Baltimore Orioles 4-3 Friday night.

Kluber gave up seven hits, yet he received poor offensive support — as has been the case for much of the season. It took an eighth-inning solo homer by Carlos Santana for the right-hander to avoid losing a fifth straight start and absorbing his 10th defeat.

“I don’t really care about the numbers other than our team’s win-loss record,” Kluber said.

Brandon Moss and Ryan Raburn also homered for the Indians, and American League batting leader Jason Kipnis extended his career-best hitting streak to 20 games with an infield single — his AL-leading 100th hit of the season.

None of this was enough to get Kluber his first win since late May.

“He’s a tough kid,” manager Terry Francona said. “He’ll show up tomorrow and work his rear end off just like he always does. And again, every time he pitches, we feel good.”

Chris Davis singled in the tiebreaking run, J.J. Hardy homered and Jimmy Paredes had three hits and scored twice for the Orioles, who have won five of six to move a season-high five games over .500 (39-34).

The hitting was important. Just as significant was the performance of starter Wei-Yin Chen, who helped Baltimore to keep it close despite of all those strikeouts by Kluber.

“You’ve got to have a well-pitched game to compete against Kluber. He’s that good,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said.

Chen allowed two runs and seven hits in six innings after being recalled before the game from a brief stint in the minor leagues. The left-hander departed with a 3-2 lead, but the bullpen couldn’t make it stand up.

After Santana connected off Darren O’Day (5-0) to tie it at 3, the Orioles needed only two pitches to regain the lead in the bottom half. Paredes greeted Marc Rzepczynski (1-3) with a double and Davis followed with a single to right. Hardy singled on the next pitch, ending Rzepczynski’s stint.

“Today, just every pitch I threw, literally, they got a hit on,” Rzepczynski said.

Baltimore trailed 1-0 and 2-1 before giving up the 3-2 advantage.

Baltimore rallied against Kluber in the sixth. Paredes singled, took third on a double by Chris Parmelee and scored without a throw on a sacrifice fly by Hardy. Flaherty followed with a bloop single to score Parmelee for a 3-2 lead.