A Texas Style Comeback; Indians Top Rangers 8-5 - Three Takeaways from the Win

In a season in which you can look over the span of 162 games and point to a few memorable ones, Opening Day against the Texas Rangers might be kind of tough to

In a season in which you can look over the span of 162 games and point to a few memorable ones, Opening Day against the Texas Rangers might be kind of tough to beat for the 2017 Cleveland Indians.

In a season defined by the word 'Finish,' the Indians didn't start all that hot, but put on their rally caps and overcame the team that entered the postseason in 2016 with the best mark in the American League for an 8-5 win.

There's many positives (and some negatives) to go over after the Tribe's big win over Texas, and here's three takeaways from the win as the Indians get their first win of what they hope this time will be a season ending hoisting the trophy they were oh so close to raising last season.

3. A Clunker for Kluber

Let's start with the big negative for the night, that being the start of Indians ace Corey Kluber, who was taking the mound for real for the first time since game seven of the World Series against the Chicago Cubs.

Kluber went six innings, allowing five runs on six hits, but his biggest issue not being able to keep the ball in the ballpark, as he allowed three homers, two to Rangers second basemen Rougned Odor. He walked three and struck out six in the six innings of work.

Obviously Kluber will beat himself up for this outing, but let's be thankful that the bats came alive and saved him, and for now instead of starting the season 0-1 he can regroup and get ready for his next start in Arizona.

2. Patience at the Plate

For an Indians team that put up eight runs and hit two homers with nine hits, they seemed very patient at the plate, drawing five walks and making the Rangers pitching staff work all night.

They came close to getting back in the game in the 5th down 5-3, as they made Rangers starter Yu Darvish work hard. The team drew a couple walks to load the bases with no outs, but a bad AB for Francisco Lindor saw him ground into a 1-2-3 double play to kill the inning.

It was a good night in terms of waiting for the right pitch, and one of the newest Indians, Edwin Encarnacion, showed that in a big way when he homered in the 8th to tie the game at five.

1. Don't Call It a Comeback

Yes, this win will bring a smile to the face of Indians fans everywhere, and as stated above it was memorable for a number of reasons.

They overcame a 5-1 deficit against the best team record wise in the AL last season, and did it with two of their big boppers having big hits - Jose Ramirez and Edwin Encarnacion. They also got a key hit from a player who could have a big season for this team - Abraham Almonte, who singled in the game winner in the 9th off Sam Dyson, who had 38 saves last season.

Yeah it's one game, and while a loss would have meant pretty much nothing, it sure was nice for this team to show some grit and fight coming out of the gate on opening night, maybe serving a little notice that no lead is safe for opposing teams.

Let's hope Carlos Carrasco can follow up the big opening night win with a big outing in game two.