By my count, it’s 7. Both the Royals and the Orioles were above .500 when they started their series against Cleveland; it was losses to the Indians that put them at and then below .500. Out of interest, i went back and looked at Oakland’s 2002 streak. In their 20 games, only 3 were against a team over .500.
To be honest, while that’s interesting and probably played something of a role, i’m not sure it matters that much. In baseball, even the best teams generally don’t win more than about two-thirds of their games, and even the worst teams don’t usually lose more than about two-thirds of their games. If we look at those numbers, and even tweak them a bit in favor of Cleveland, a 21 game win-streak is still pretty damn impressive.
Even if you have a 75% chance to win each game, the odds of winning 21 straight games are about 0.00238, or about 1 in 420.
Pedro Martinez in 2006 was 9-8 with a 4.46 ERA. He was not a significant factor at all in New York’s success, and his absence didn’t really make the Mets a significantly worse team. St. Louis did beat two other teams in the playoffs, too.
In the 2006 NLCS, the Cardinals outscored New York 28-27. Of those 28 runs, they scored seven (!) in the ninth inning. Starting pitching wasn’t the reason New York lost.
Well, you can look this stuff up. It’s odd to say the STARTERS were gassed because they played a lot of close games, but let’s see if that’s true; did St. Louis have to stretch the starters in September of 2015? Only 3 pitchers started for St. Louis in that series; John Lackey twice, Jaime Garcia, and Michael Wacha. Lackey was the only one of the three who pitched well in any game.
JOHN LACKEY - Lackey started six games in September, going 7 innings in all of them except the last, when he went 4. Only two of the games (11 Sep vs Cin, 22 Sep vs Cin) were really close games. His usage was consistent with his usage in June, July and August. LAckey pitched brilliantly in Game 1 on regular rest, and got a no decision in a poor start in Game 4, starting on short rest for reasons I can’t find right now.
MICHAEL WACHA - Wacha only started five times in September and went six innings in one game, five innings in two games, and four innings in the other. He averaged only 94 pitches per start.
JAMIE GARCIA - Garcia started six games in September; he averaged 6 innings per start. Only once, September 5, did he throw over 100 pitches.
Regardless of how many not-so-good teams they’ve beaten, a streak like this is pretty damn impressive. Following tonight’s game, sort of, online while doing some work (ha!), and I thought they were dead in the water when they left the bases loaded with one out in the eighth. Guess I was wrong–
So the Astros are now within a couple games of clinching their division. Interestingly, if everything holds, and despite all the crazy ups and downs this season, the division winners will all be the consensus picks from the pre-season.
Of course, the things that are wrong are hilariously wrong (“Adrian Beltre will help the Giants make the playoffs”). But that’s true of all of the wrong preseason predictions, part of what makes them fun.
Please let Judge and Sanchez stay hot. Please let Judge & Sanchez stay hot.
Enjoying the help from the others hitting, but when those 2 kids hits, the Yankee’s offense is great.
If I were an Indians fan, I’d be a little hesitant that they’re maybe using up all of their wins before the postseason starts. Better to lose a game now.
Nah. They are so young, this is making them stronger. They are super locked-in as a team right now and every day are learning how to win. They are doing all these little things that make runs happen. I was at the game Tuesday and it it a playoff atmosphere, so it gives some insight to the new guys that will be facing the pressure in October.
If they were winning by flukes, I’d agree that it would seem that maybe their luck is peaking too early. But the way they’ve been griding out runs in these last few games this is not a Baseball Gods thing anymore, this is just Damn Good Baseball.
Re: Attendance in Cleveland. It’s not the stadium or the downtown area, that’s for sure. The stadium might be one of the best in the nation now with all the improvements they’ve done. Ticket prices and food prices aren’t that bad (beer is the cheapest in the MLB) and probably low, comparatively. They did go up a bit since last year. Two years ago you could get a bleacher seat for $10 but Tuesday I paid $23 after fees. Every seat in the joint is a good one tho.
Even with cheap deals, it still is pretty expensive to get a family out to a game. You could take a train to get there pretty cheap but most suburbanites won’t/don’t. Plus everyone’s back in school, which means not only school hours but school activities so families don’t have time.
When I went Tuesday, I left at 5:30. I live 20 minutes from downtown and it took me 75 minutes to get there because of a traffic jam. I spent $23 on a ticket, $15 to park and $20 on food. It took me an hour to get home. This is fine for me but imagine a family of 4 trying to do this on a Tuesday during the school year. The difference between this and enjoying it at home on your 60" television is monumental.
Anyway, they’re doing fine on weekends with a lot of sellouts. Their attendance is up. People might not be buying tickets but they’re buying merchandise and watching the broadcasts and talking about the team online (the Tribe’s social media manager is legendary).
As a hardcore fan I don’t care any which way because these people scrambling for tickets now didn’t give two shits about the team in June
Re: The mascot - I am super fucking embarrassed right now because once again the spotlight is on us and once again that glaring symbol of racism is smiling back. Ugh.
The Cubs and the curse overshadowed Chief Wahoo during last year’s World Series. If the Indians get to the World Series again this year, I think it’ll be a major focus. The Indians really should have retired the logo a few years ago, they don’t want their World Series appearances to be overshadowed by an issue like this.
