CLEVELAND — Asdrubal Cabrera  is usually one of the Indians’ best fielders, and in fact manager Manny Acta pretty much said so after Sunday afternoon’s 9-5 loss to Pittsburgh.

Most of us have seen some of his more spectacular plays on film, on TV or in person. But everyone has their bad days, and for the Tribe’s star shortstop, this was certainly one of them.

For the first time in his career, Cabrera committed three errors. All came in the fourth and fifth innings on a pair of plays hat began with Casey McGehee hitting ground balls to him. Both plays could have ended the inning, but in fact, both were made worse by the fact that Pedro Alvarez followed both times with three-run homers, both times on 1-0 counts.

By coincidence, tonight’s game against Cincinnati  will be “Asdrubal Cabrera Bobblehead Day” at Progressive Field. However, if anyone tells you  that Cabrera was confused on Sunday and thought it was “Asdrubal Cabrera Bobble-hands Day,” don’t believe it.

Cabrera, who did have two hits,  was also thrown out in the ninth inning by right fielder Jose Tabata trying for a double when he hit the ball off the wall.

“Cabbie had a rough day on the field today,” Acta said. “We really couldn’t overcome all that. Right after the errors, we couldn’t make pitches, and it ended up costing us.

“You want him to make every single play, but you need to also step back and know that this guy has won a lot of games for us with his glove, and you just have to understand that those are physical errors, and those are easier to swallow than a mental error.”

The Indians (33-32) remain 11⁄2 games behind first-place Chicago in the AL Central Division race. The White Sox (35-31) were defeated in 10 innings, 2-1, by the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday.

As far as the opposition goes, Alvarez was the main culprit in the two Pittsburgh wins. His fifth-inning shot capped a club season-high tying six-run rally, and gave him four long balls in two days. The six RBI marked a career high for the 25 year-old.

Alvarez lined both of his four-baggers to right field. The first one came on a sinker by starter Jeanmar Gomez (4-6, 4.95 ERA) and gave Pittsburgh a 3-2 lead in the fourth inning. The second one was pulled inside the right-field foul pole, and greeted reliever Esmil Rogers.

Alvarez later lined a double off the left-field wall in the seventh, giving him a career-high three extra-base hits.

“I think Gomez did a pretty good job out there,” Cabrera, who had just three errors during the entire season prior to Sunday, said. “I feel bad.”

Indians fans will find it unsettling that in each of their last three home series, they have won Game 1 only to lose the other two. That’s a trend that will obviosuly have to be reversed if the team is to remain a contender.

Jason Kipnis (3 hits) put the Tribe on top 1-0 with his club-high 11th homer to right-center in the first inning.

In the next frame, Johnny Damon slapped a hit to left with two outs and stole second.

Casey Kotchman followed with a ground ball to the right of second baseman Neil Walker, who was playing on the outfield grass. Walker couldn’t come up with the ball cleanly, and the ball went off his glove and behind him. Damon never stopped running, and scored easily on what was ruled an RBI single.

Shin-Soo Choo’s two-run double lined over the head of Alex Presley in left knocked starter Brad Lincoln out of the game and gave Cleveland (33-32) a 4-3 lead in the fourth.

Then came the ugly fifth. First, Presley tied it with a one-out homer to right-center. Gomez then walked Walker, and Andrew McCutchen followed with a line double that landed on the left-field foul line. A fan touched the ball, leaving Walker on third, but in all likelihood he wouldn’t have scored, anyway — at least not on that play.

Garrett Jones was walked intentionally to load the bases. The strategy appeared to work when McGahee followed with a  tailor-made double-play grounder to the left of Cabrera. But Cabrera muffed the ball, and then compounded the situation by swatting it with his bare hand in the general direction of Kipnis at second base. But the ball bounced wide of Kipnis as a second run scored on the play. Cabrera was charged with two errors on the play — one on the bobble and one on the “throw.”

“Gomez was OK,” Acta said. “He fell behind in the count a lot, but he made good pitches. We just didn’t make those plays for him.

“He was very agrressive early in the game with good life on his sinker, but just fell behind a lot of guys.”

“I felt good,” Gomez said. “My location was good. My sinker was on both sides of the plate, down in the zone, and that’s good for me. My changeup and slider were good.”

After Rogers replaced Gomez and served up Alvarez’s second homer to make it 9-4, Tony Watson (winner, 4-0), who had come on to finish the fourth, worked through the fifth. The Indians got a run off of Jared Hughes in the seventh on Michael Brantley’s double.

“We swung the bat well today, and we scored enough runs to win the ballgame,” Acta said.

Especially when the opponent is averaging less than 3.5 runs per contest. Only once, in fact, have the Pirates exceeded the nine-run output they registered on Saturday and Sunday.

Jason Grilli and Joel Hanrahan finished for Pittsburgh.

Jeremy Accardo also pitched for Cleveland.

Goldman is a freelance writer from South Euclid.

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