Indians slug four homers to complete sweep of Tigers
Jose Ramirez had a home run among his three hits, Edwin Encarnacion hit a grand slam and Adam Plutko gave up two runs over six innings in his return to the rotation on Sunday as the Cleveland Indians extended their winning streak to seven games with a 12-2 victory over the visiting Detroit Tigers.
Ramirez extended his on-base streak to 31 games as the Indians moved to a season-best 10 games over .500 with the three-game sweep. Francisco Lindor and Jason Kipnis also hit home runs.
Tigers starter Matthew Boyd (4-6) lasted just three-plus innings as the Detroit saw its losing streak reach five games.
Ramirez's home run was his 23rd to move into a tie for the American League lead. Lindor hit his 19th, and had three hits on the day to give him 31 multi-hit games for the first-place Indians. Kipnis hit his seventh homer.
Encarnacion's drive was his 18th home run of the season and the 11th grand slam of his career, while putting the exclamation point on a big victory and a dominating series. The Indians outscored the Tigers 26-3 in the three games.
Plutko (4-1) allowed six hits with no walks in his first start since June 12. He made one two-inning relief appearance since then, June 16 against the Minnesota Twins.
Cleveland went 7-2 on its just-completed nine-game homestand and is 14-2 at Progressive Field since May 26.
The Indians jumped in front early on a double from Encarnacion, the first of his five RBIs. They added to the lead with a three-run second inning, capped by a two-run double from Michael Brantley, who had three hits.
Niko Goodrum and James McCann each had RBI singles in the fourth inning as the Tigers cut the Indians' advantage to 4-2.
It was all Indians from there as Lindor hit a two-run homer in the fourth for a 6-2 lead. Ramirez's home run came in the sixth and Kipnis started off a five-run eighth inning with a blast to right-center.
Encarnacion's bases-loaded blast to right field in the eighth was the Indians' second grand slam of the series after Yonder Alonso hit one Friday.
The Indians had collected 19 hits and improved to 10-3 against the Tigers this season.
Boyd allowed six runs and eight hits.
--Field Level Media
