A Brief History
UPDATE: INDIANS WIN 3-2 IN 10TH INNING!
On September 14, 2017, at 7:10 PM, EDT, the Cleveland Indians will host the Kansas City Royals in an American League baseball game, and when the Indians win, a new major league record will be set for most wins in a row (without any ties).
Digging Deeper
On Tuesday, September 12th, the Indians won their 20th game in a row, tying the “Moneyball” Oakland Athletics of 2002, and on Wednesday, September 13th, the Tribe won a major league record tying 21 games in a row, matched only by the 1935 Chicago Cubs. (The 1880 Chicago White Sox also won 21 straight, but that is considered prior to the “modern era” of major league baseball.)
Some interesting facts about the win streak include the fact that last year, 2016, the Indians had tied the franchise record with a win streak of 14 games in a row. Another is that the Indians have given up only 35 runs (best pitching staff in baseball), but have hit 41 home runs during the streak! The strikeout to walk ratio for Tribe hurlers during the streak is 193 to 36, leaving the Indians an excellent chance to not only break the major league team strike outs total, but also to average 10 or more strikeouts per 9 inning game. The 6 shutouts thrown by Wahoo pitchers gives them a league leading total of 19 on the year, with the next nearest team posting only 10 shutouts. After playing 189 innings of baseball during the streak, the Indians have trailed after only 5 innings. (Go ahead, say “Wow!”)
After the Indians made their first World Series appearance since 1997 in 2016, losing to the Cubs in 7 games, improvement was in order to go the extra step, and improve they did. Adding Edwin Encarnacion, power hitter from Toronto, as a free agent in the off season was a monster addition, and then trading for another power hitter, Jay Bruce from the Mets pretty much iced the team building that makes such a win streak possible. If Michael Brantley had stayed healthy this year, its hard to imagine how good the Tribe may have been.
Before the record win streak, pitcher Corey Kluber was trailing in the Cy Young Award race to Chris Sales of the Red Sox, but he has now passed up Sales in most important categories except strikeouts, and even those are quite close considering Sales has more innings pitched.
Sometimes people bring up the 1916 New York Giants and their 26 game unbeaten streak, but that was really 2 win streaks separated by a tie game in between. Please do not be fooled into believing the 1916 Giants are anywhere near as good as the 2017 Edition of the Cleveland Indians.
Whether you are an Indians fan or not, enjoy the opportunity to watch History in the Making, one way or another on television or at Progressive Field tonight. Enjoy!
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Do you root for the Cleveland Indians?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Major League Baseball. The Major League Baseball Ultimate Book of Records: An Official MLB Publication. FENN-M&S, 2013.
Martirano, Ron. Baseball: Great Records, Weird Happenings, Odd Facts, Amazing Moments & Other Cool Stuff. Imagine, 2015.
