with closer Cody Allen reeling, will try to regroup Saturday nig

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The Cleveland Indians http://www.indiansfanproshop.com/authentic-b.j.-upton-jersey , ht in the second game of a three-game series with the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.The AL Central-leading Indians have lost three in a row, the last of which was a crushing 5-4 defeat on Friday night, when Allen had the worst night of the worst season of his career.Allen came in to start the ninth inning, and in the span of four pitches gave up two home runs to turn a 4-3 Indians lead into a 5-4 Indians defeat.Article continues below ...Allen has saved 30 or more games in each of the last three years, and he is the Indians’ all-time leader with 147 saves, but this season has been a struggle. His blown save Friday was his fourth of the season, and he has given up a career-high 11 home runs.Cleveland manager Terry Francona said the Indians have not lost confidence in Allen.“I’ll sit down and talk to him,” Francona said. “We need him really bad to win. We can’t run away from him.”Allen’s 4.50 ERA is a career high, and a far cry from his 2.86 career mark.“It’s disappointing. But we’ll go look at it more to see if there’s anything,” Francona said. “It begins with his breaking ball, when he commands that everything falls into place. Right now, he feels like some nights he doesn’t have it.”Saturday night the Indians will send two-time Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber to the mound. Kluber (16-6, 2.74) will be making his 27th start of the season, and he is coming off a winning performance against the Red Sox in his last start, on Monday, in Boston. Kluber pitched 6 1/3 innings, allowing three runs and nine hits with six strikeouts and one walk in a game the Indians won 5-4.In his last five starts Kluber is 4-0 with a 2.21 ERA. His last start against Kansas City came on July 2, a 9-3 victory in which he pitched six innings Jason Kipnis Jersey , allowing three runs and seven hits, with five strikeouts and no walks.In two starts against the Royals this year, Kluber is 2-0 with a 2.08 ERA. He has made 22 career starts against Kansas City and is 11-6 with a 2.90 ERA in those games.The Royals on Saturday will counter with right-hander Heath Fillmyer (1-1, 4.57). Fillmyer has split his season between Kansas City and Triple-A Omaha. In 13 starts with Omaha he was 4-5, with a 5.75 ERA.With Kansas City Fillmyer has been used as both a starter and a reliever. In seven starts he is 1-1 with a 5.29 ERA. In four relief appearances he has a 2.38 ERA and no record.He got his first major-league win on Aug. 8, when he pitched seven shutout innings against the Cubs in a 9-0 victory. Fillmyer struck out three and walked two in that game.“I didn’t have many strikeouts today,” Fillmyer said of the victory, according to MLB.com. “I didn’t want to walk them. I ended up having two unfortunate ones that didn’t end up costing us. That being said, I just let them work ahead and try to get them to get themselves out.”Saturday will be Fillmyer’s second career appearance against Cleveland. His other appearance came as a reliever, on July 4, when he pitched three scoreless and hitless innings, with two strikeouts and one walk.One of the Cleveland hitters Fillmyer will have to pay particular attention to is Indians rookie center fielder Greg Allen, who has been one of the Indians’ hottest hitters of late.From July 15 through Aug. 21, Allen had a 14-game hitting streak, the longest by a major league rookie this season. In his last 16 games Allen is hitting .383, raising his batting average from .204 to .259.“He’s using the whole field, keeping the ball out of the air to left field, staying on the ball, and hitting line drives,” said Francona. The New York Yankees were not able to wrap up home field advantage in the wild card game Wednesday night.But they won even before the game started when Didi Gregorius http://www.indiansfanproshop.com/authentic-b.j.-upton-jersey , feared lost for the season with torn wrist cartilage, was given the OK to resume baseball activities. He is looking to return sometime during the weekend series in Boston.“Everybody plays through everything,” Gregorius said. “That’s why you want to keep going and be out there for the team. As soon as they let me play, I’m going to be in there.”Article continues below ...While nothing is certain, the hope is the shortstop can play before the end of the regular season.“That would be ideal,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We’ll see how he responds and what the doctors are telling us, and then we’ll go from there. Hopefully that means getting him in there this weekend, but we’ll just have to wait and see how it all unfolds and how he’s able to bounce back from the workload.”As far as the game, Neil Walker hit a three-run homer in the first inning but that was it for the Yankee offense until a four-run ninth inning fell a run short in an 8-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yankees magic number for clinching home field for the wild card game remained at two after Oakland defeated Seattle 9-3 later Thursday.CC Sabathia (8-7, 3.77 ERA), who has not had tremendous career success against the Rays, nor in this September, will face Tampa “opener” Jamie Schultz (2-1, 4.55) in the series finale Thursday afternoon.Sabathia, who picked up his 245th career win in his last start and then announced he plans to play next season, is 16-16 with a 3.73 ERA in 47 lifetime starts against the Rays — 7-9, 3.70 in 23 games at Tropicana Field. He lost back-to-back starts to Tampa Bay in June despite allowing four earned runs in 13 innings.His win against the Red Sox ended a five-game winless streak and he is 1-2 with a 7.02 ERA in September.Sabathia needs to work seven innings Thursday to get to 155 and receive a $500,000 bonus.While the news was good on Gregorius, Gleyber Torres, who sat out Tuesday with groin soreness Larry Doby Jersey , didn’t start but played Wednesday, while Aaron Hicks (hamstring) remained out. Walker left the game after getting hit on the shin with a pitch. X-rays were negative and he’s expected to be fine for Thursday.The news wasn’t as good for the Rays, with Kevin Kiermaier, who has had a nightmarish season thanks to injuries, suffered a hairline fracture of his right foot when hit by a Masahiro Tanaka pitch. Matt Duffy also left the game, with a tight quad.Said Kiermaier: “It’s just an unfortunate way for me to end the season but that’s kind of my 2018 in a nutshell. I feel like everything that could’ve went wrong for me did.”Ji-Man Choi, injured in a home plate collision Tuesday, felt much better but was rested — and will be available Thursday.Tommy Pham’s home run to centerfield broke a 3-3 tie, continuing his torrid hitting pace — he has reached base in 28 straight games and has a 10-game hitting streak (.444), after a 17-gamer was snapped.“Offensively, I’m still trying to figure out some things, and I think when I do figure it out, whether it be this year or the offseason — because it will be figured out before next season — I think I could truly be the player I think I’m capable of being,” Pham said. “I just haven’t figured out how to fix myself just yet.”Duffy is 5-for-9 lifetime against Sabathia, while Carlos Gomez is 9-for-21 with a homer.Tampa Bay’s Austin Pruitt is in line to get the bulk of the relief work in Thursday’s game, which will decide a season series tied at 9-9.