Getting back on track will be the central theme for the Cleveland Indians on Sunday afternoon, as Manny Acta's first place club will hope to bounce back from Saturday's 8-1 defeat at the hands of the Houston Astros.
Receiving the ball for the series finale will be Indians pitcher Derek Lowe, who owns a respectable 4.30 ERA for the season but enters with a string of poor performances in his rearview mirror. Remarkably, in three of his last five starts the 39-year-old veteran has been bombed for at least seven earned runs, and has been forced to watch his earned run average more than double over the last month alone.
Lowe's quest on Sunday will be to get the better of a Houston lineup that exploded in the fifth inning against Indians starter Jeanmar Gomez, who allowed four of his five runs in the fifth inning. Astros third baseman Chris Johnson remains one of keys offensively to this three-game tilt, and enters the finale batting .500 for the series. After hitting a wall at the plate in the middle of June, Johnson has picked things up considerably with multi-hit games in three of his last four contests.
Here are the starting lineups for Sunday's pivotal finale:
Indians
1. Shin-Soo Choo - RF
2. Asdrubal Cabrera - SS
3. Jason Kipnis - 2B
4. Jose Lopez - 3B
5. Michael Brantley - CF
6. Shelley Duncan - LF
7. Casey Kotchman - 1B
8. Lou Marson - C
9. Derek Lowe - SP
Astros
1. Jose Altuve - 2B
2. Jed Lowrie - SS
3. Carlos Lee - 1B
4. Brian Bogusevic - RF
5. Chris Johnson - 3B
6. Jason Castro - C
7. J.D. Martinez - LF
8. Jordan Schafer - CF
9. J.A. Happ - SP
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