By Yours Truly
http://throneberryfields.com/2017/09/10/the-merry-go-round-goes-round-and-round-and-round-for-the-indians/Don’t look now, but the Dodgers have turned from everybody’s runaway train to a trainwreck losing nine
straight and fourteen of fifteen. And the Indians—as in, the guys who got
thatclose to winning the World
Series last year—have picked up where the Dodgers left off and won seventeen straight.
Right now the Indians look like the team to beat who may be next to impossible to beat. May. And that’s
without Miller Time.
After Cody Allen punched out Baltimore’s Trey Mancini for the final out in a 4-2 Saturday home win, the man
who’d just secured his 25th save of the year shook it off. “It’s one of those crazy things where you’re just
playing good baseball. We’re not really thinking about it as much as you guys are.”
Just another day at the office. Just another seventeenth straight win. As compared to the Dodgers whose
incumbent woe was probably summed up best by second baseman Logan Forsythe, lamenting after Saturday’s
loss to the Rockies, “We’re kind of like, ‘Uh, what’s going on?’”
You’d think Allen was trying to say,
It’s not like we haven’t done this before. But they haven’t. The Indians
are only baseball’s second team since 1961 to win seventeen straight; the 2000 Oakland Athletics reeled
off a 20-game streak.
Trevor Bauer, who gets the start today against Jeremy Hellickson, who hasn’t exactly been lights out since
the Orioles picked him up from the Phillies, hasn’t had a nine-game winning streak to defend in his entire
career. Until now. He’s a way different pitcher than the guy whose inconsistency maddened even his staunchest
admirers in the recent past.
Why, Bauer hasn’t even gotten anywhere
near another thumb or other digit slice from one of his beloved
drones. Which he has not, so far as anyone can determine, even thought about deploying for sign stealing,
by the way.
The Indians have never had a +88 run differential in a seventeen-game span in their entire franchise history.
Never mind that it’s the best seventeen-game differential in baseball since the 2002 Angels did it twice in that
season’s span. And, oh yes—those Angels went on to win their first and so far only World Series, while they
were at it.
“It’s kind of weird,” said Josh Tomlin, Saturday’s starter who won his own fifth straight decision, “but it’s also
a lot of fun.”
It ought to be. When you have baseball’s best relief pitcher on the shelf with knee tendinitis for much of the
streak and you’re still finding ways to make the other guys think they’re just 25 more notches on Indian belts,
you ought to be partying like it’s 1954, when your franchise won 111 games on the season.
Don’t even think about how that bunch went forth to be flattened in four straight by the Giants in the World
Series. Think instead that you’re smashing franchise precedents now and just
might smash another one before
this year is over—namely, your longest-ever drought of World Series wins.
Remember to take it one game at a time. You’re not in the World Series just yet, no matter how great your
chance of returning is. And when you’ve gone from ten games behind the Astros in the win column to a dead
heat for the American League’s best record, that chance is impeccable.
The Indians are on pace to boast the first pitching staff to average 10.00 strikeouts per nine or better, ever.
(They’re at 10.05 right now.) They’re also the toughest in baseball right now to wring walks against: 2.67
a game.
Indians hitters collectively have the second-best walk rate in baseball with 9.9 percent. And the second-
lowest percentage of strikeouts with 18.8 percent.
When Corey Kluber came off the disabled list after six early starts that weren’t exactly the vintage the Indian
Isles became accustomed to, he shook himself back into ace shape by throwing his breaking pitches a lot
more, particularly his trademark sinkerball, his straight curve, and his cutter.
Before the DL Kluber managed to go 3-2 but with a gruesome (for him) 5.06 ERA. As of today he leads the
American League in ERA and in WHIP and has a 6.1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He’s 12-2 since returning from
the DL, and he’s had four no-decisions in three of which he pitched well enough to win.
No wonder the Indian Isles look forward to a possible postseason showdown between Kluber and the Red
Sox’s venerable Chris Sale. Why, they might even let themselves think, once in awhile, “Dodgers,
Schmodgers.”
Last year the Indians had to live without Michael Brantley, Carlos Carrasco, and Danny Salazar and almost
won the World Series. This year they’ve had to live at various times without Kluber, Miller, Jason Kipnis,
and second baseman Jose Ramirez, who hit seven bombs during the Indians’ unbeaten road trip before
coming down with a day-to-day sore wrist and now missing three straight games.
Miller and Kipnis could be back within the next week. Miller hopes to have a round of throwing live batting
practise Monday; Kipnis hopes his barking hamstring will quit barking by the time the current homestand
ends.
Brantley—whose ankle sprain 9 August prodded the Tribe to deal for veteran slugging outfielder Jay
Bruce from the incredible sinking Mets—could remain on the shelf until the last five games of the regular
season. He’s able to walk pain free but he can’t run on normal ground just yet.
It’s not that the Indians haven’t proven they can win and win brilliantly without those men. But even if
Bauer goes out and plucks the Orioles’ feathers Sunday afternoon, he and the Indians wouldn’t be ashamed
to admit that winning is a lot less arduous when those men are there to join in the fun.
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