NFL Tickets
If you’re like me, you may have spent the past four days completely forgetting Cleveland had other teams outside of basketball. Thanks to the Cleveland Cavaliers winning the city’s first championship since 1964, they’ve obviously taken on the majority of the locals’ attention. Luckily, as everyone comes back down from yesterday’s parade, they won’t have to look far to find another winning team downtown.
The Cleveland Indians are on quite a roll, and it’s all thanks to their starting rotation finally living up to its preseason hype.
Yesterday, the Tribe won their sixth straight game, 11th straight at home. Cleveland came into the homestand tied with the Kansas City Royals for first in the AL Central, but is now once again sitting on a three-game lead. There are more than a few factors which helped the Indians go on their recent hot streak, none bigger than their starting pitching.
A prime example of this can be found in Cleveland’s latest series against the Tampa Bay Rays. Outside of outscoring their opponent 19-5 across three games, the Indians only had to go to their bullpen in one of the three days. Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer finished off the set with back-to-back complete games, collectively allowing one run on six hits and notching a combined 19 strikeouts.
It was a microcosm of this six-game winning streak as a whole, during which Tribe pitching has only given up 11 runs. This, combined with the still-surprising amount of offense Cleveland is getting, has resulted in the team holding the second-best run differential in the AL.
It goes without saying having the Tribe’s rotation pitching this well is a huge boost for the team. Cleveland came into the season preparing to heavily rely on its starters when it came to getting back to the postseason. Unfortunately, things got off to a rocky start.
One of the staff’s best pitchers, Carlos Carrasco, dealt with a hamstring injury just a few weeks into the year. Likewise, Cody Anderson was consistently getting shelled by opposing teams. Call-up Mike Clevinger, seen by many as one of the team’s top minor league prospects, proved a bit too raw for the majors. Top it off with Kluber’s early struggles and it seemed like the Indians pinning their hopes on pitching was going to backfire.
However, despite all of this, the Tribe’s offense somehow kept the team afloat during the rough patches. Now, with the pitching starting to lock in, Cleveland is looking like quite a dangerous team.
Carrasco is back and healthy. Though Kluber got roughed up by Kansas City last week, he’s won three of his last four starts. Josh Tomlin continues to be the surprise of the rotation, boasting an 8-1 record. Danny Salazar is having his best season as an Indian. Even the mercurial Bauer appears to be on a roll lately.
Who knows if the Tribe can keep this up. A weekend visiting the Detroit Tigers should be a true litmus test, as the team is only .500 away from home. Additionally, it’s still a bit difficult to ignore how badly Cleveland played in the ugly Royals series which preceded the successful homestand.
That said, if the Indians continue to pitch this way, somehow looking better than anyone anticipated, the sky is the limit for this team.
The expectations for Cleveland were for the team to enjoy solid pitching to help alleviate its “God bless them they try” offense. Right now, the Indians are exceeding expectations for both.
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