Cleveland Indians have 20-game streak in their sights
The Cleveland Indians are winners of 15 games in a row and play host to the Baltimore Orioles this weekend followed by another three-game set against Detroit. To reach, or even pass the Oakland Athletics’ 20-game streak from 2002 is well within the realm of possibilities.
At 84-59, the Cleveland Indians are cementing themselves in the playoff race with their recent run–not that that was ever seriously in question. When the streak started, the Tribe had a 5.5 game lead over the Minnesota Twins in the Central. After two weeks and a day, their lead has grown to eleven games and they have a magic number of 12.
If everything worked out perfectly and the Twins lost their next six and the Tribe won their next six, they would wrap up the AL Central and take down A’s 20-game streak on the same day. Of course this isn’t a perfect world because the Twins have an off day on Monday while the Indians will play through the following Sunday.
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The big question on everyone’s mind right now though is “Can the Indians get to 20?” With the Orioles and Tigers coming to town, it’s definitely possible.
While the O’s are still in the Wild Card mix, they sit at just two games above .500 and their biggest weakness–pitching–will be going against the hottest offense in baseball over the past two weeks.
Over the past 14 days Cleveland’s offense has blasted 31 homers (2.2 per game), scored 96 runs (6.85 per game), is batting .313 with a .392 OBP as a unit and has a wRC+ of 154. That’s not just Jose Ramirez or Francisco Lindor, folks. That’s one through nine production.
Couple that with their league-leading pitching staff over the entire season (1.54 ERA, 2.68 FIP over the past 14) and anyone that gets in their way is due for a walloping.
But this is baseball, and while series may be easier to predict one way or another in a general sense, a game-to-game prediction is a little harder. The Indians will lose another game this season, no question. It just takes one bad starting pitching performance or one opposing pitcher on a good day to shut everything down.
Wade Miley gets the start tonight in Cleveland, and as a whole, the Tribe have rocked him in their careers, with Edwin Encarnacion doing a large portion of the damage with a .462 average, .650 OBP, two homers, seven walks and three RBI in 12 at-bats.
Saturday’s starter, 24-year-old Gabriel Ynoa, faced the Tribe a couple of times back in June out of the bullpen and allowed one unearned run in 5 1/3 innings. Jose Ramirez collected two triples off Ynoa, but with less of a big-league career to go by, this could be a game that the Orioles come away with. Josh Tomlin will be on the mound for Cleveland in this one.
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On Sunday, if the streak gets that far, the opposition will be Jeremy Hellickson, another veteran arm, going against Trevor Bauer.
If the Indians make it past these three games, we’ll definitely take a closer look at their match-ups against the Tigers to begin next week, but for now let’s just see if they can keep the win train a rollin’.