The Indians!!
keets
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The Cleveland Indians have quietly snuck up on the AL Central Division as well as the rest of the Baseball World, currently in the midst of an 11-game winning streak. No matter who the Team is and what the competition might be it is an extraordinary feat in MLB to win 10+ games in a row. On top of that, the Tribe has managed to go undefeated at home during the month of June for the first time in franchise history.
I will admit to being caught off guard by the Team's recent success. Early in the season they weren't playing well and struggled to play .500 ball, toying with that mark until they were around 22-20, when they started to pull ahead. Now they've opened up a lead over KC at seven games.
With all that said, it wouldn't surprise me to see them lose tonight.
The current streak has been a real Team effort. The starting pitching has been solid, the hitters have come through in the clutch and with power, fielding has been near flawless and there haven't been any major injuries. The only injury the Indians really have is to Michael Brantley who is arguably the best all-around player on the Team.
They also have Terry Francona at the helm and he seems to be making all the right moves.
Go Tribe!!
Al H.
I will admit to being caught off guard by the Team's recent success. Early in the season they weren't playing well and struggled to play .500 ball, toying with that mark until they were around 22-20, when they started to pull ahead. Now they've opened up a lead over KC at seven games.
With all that said, it wouldn't surprise me to see them lose tonight.
The current streak has been a real Team effort. The starting pitching has been solid, the hitters have come through in the clutch and with power, fielding has been near flawless and there haven't been any major injuries. The only injury the Indians really have is to Michael Brantley who is arguably the best all-around player on the Team.
They also have Terry Francona at the helm and he seems to be making all the right moves.
Go Tribe!!
Al H.
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on to Toronto.
Mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
man, the story tonight was Carlos Carrasco and his change-up. he had a really good hitting Toronto Team back on their heels almost all night. how the heck can a guy throw a 95-96 fastball that moves and then come with a change-up that's around 91, with the bottom falling out as it crosses the plate?? on top of that he had a nice slider and a curve that was working, the end result was 14 K's in 7.1 innings with runs of 3-4-6 in a row!! the relievers pitched good, the defense was solid and the Tribe continued with hitting and power, cranking out two solo shots. they remind me of the 2007 Cleveland Indians(I think that was the year) when they had Boston on the brink of elimination in the ALCS and came apart to lose the last three: great young starting pitching, good relief, hitting and sound defense, nothing over the top but solid.
they are now on the brink of Franchise history, if they can only win one more game and stretch the "streak" to 14.
the "streak" rolls on for a Franchise record fourteenth win, a whopping 19 inning marathon. this game was so ridiculous that the Indians finally went to their Saturday starter and the Blue Jays were forced to use not one, but two position players as relief pitchers. just plain crazy. the scheduled start was 1:07 but it was such a long game that I got home from work at 6:35 and still had a chance to see the last two-and-a-half innings!!! I think the totals at games end included 34 base runners stranded by both Teams. and they both had their chances, it was like no one wanted to win.
now that the Tribe has passed into uncharted Franchise territory I wonder how long they can keep rolling.
the Tribe overcame deficits of 3-1 and 5-3 then tied it at 6 but just ran out of gas. in the end it's probably that the Blue Jays pitching staff weathered yesterday's marathon better than the Indians. I wonder what the benches were thinking in the 8th inning when it was tied at 6??!!??
after a very sound 17-1 shellacking by the Blue jays on Sunday, Cleveland has rebounded against the Tigers to continue a run on another streak --- 13 consecutive home victories.
It's amazing that even with this streak that Cleveland ranks 29th out of 30 teams in home attendance @ 17,000 per game. I would have thought with being so bad for so long that would be bringing the people out.
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
BTW, two streaks ended yesterday, the home win streak and the Tiger streak. I didn't think Detroit would ever beat the Indians and it appeared that the Umpires had finally gotten in the act on Tuesday by making a couple of bad calls that went against the Tigers.
they haven't been so bad for so long as you suggest. they lost two World Series' since 1995, came close to another in '07 and have been competitive on/off since then. I think part of the attendance(which isn't really that low) has to do with games early in the season since the numbers are up as play entered June. it has been un-seasonably cool this year which makes sitting in the Jake a challenge.
BTW, two streaks ended yesterday, the home win streak and the Tiger streak. I didn't think Detroit would ever beat the Indians and it appeared that the Umpires had finally gotten in the act on Tuesday by making a couple of bad calls that went against the Tigers.
Actually their home attendance really is that low against all measures. Considerably lower. FYI all northern and midwest teams play home games in April, May and June. Cleveland had the LEAST amount of home games April through June.
For example:
Average home attendance within the Central division
KC 33,097
Detroit 30,610
Minnesota 24,300 ( worst team in baseball)
Chicago White Sox 21,581
Cleveland 17,386
Even Milwaukee which is playing horrible baseball draws 28,000+ per home game
The numbers are what they are. I was just surprised that with as good as they are playing why no one is coming to watch them. Economic reasons? Empathy? Non believers? Not a good baseball town?
Detroit for example has drawn 1.2 million fans in their first 39 home games. The Indians have drawn 660,000 in their first 38 home games. Thats a huge disparity. Last I looked Detroit was north of Cleveland and has an outdoor stadium.
Link for attendence. Look at the huge disparity
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
remember a few years ago when they got snowed out and played a home game in Minnesota or Milwaukee?? Lake Effect Snow is a true phenomenon that we endure, not as bad as Buffalo but still pretty intense when Lake Erie gets ramped up. back around 1997 we had 4-feet fall in a 24 hour period, but that was in November. it happens in the spring sometimes, though, I think we had a late snowfall where I live in early may this year. only about three inches but it fell in about 40 minutes.
attendance has been going up and if the Team continues to play at their current pace of close to .600 things will average out nicely. they had a sellout on Monday, three games that averaged about 22k and another sellout tonight. playing the Yanks and winning big right now should boost sales heading into the All-Star Game.
speaking of tonight's game, Mike Napoli hit a monster HR that almost hit the scoreboard in left/left center field. I don't know how many players have done that, but Napoli missed by actually hitting the base where the steps stop and the wall starts. there's a guy that sits out there, John Adams, who's the drummer --- they let him store his base drum at the Stadium and he beats it all game, every game, been doing it for years. he had to move to avoid being hit!!! they replaced the scoreboard awhile ago which was sad. there a spot about half way up that had a dent from a Jose Canseco HR, an absolute bomb. I know that every time I went to a game I'd look up there at it, just remarkable.
Napoli came close, the guy never gets cheated on a swing, even when he strikes out. it's nice to have him since he really hurt us when he was with Boston.
Lafayette Grading Set
we shall see what happens today in the 95 degree heat s Carrasco should prove up to the task. the question is will Napoli crush another one?? he has been hot lately and he never gets cheated.
Mark, I have lived in the Greater Cleveland area my entire life, so I can't comment on what it's like in other cities around the League. unless you are familiar with Cleveland and have been here in the spring I can't really explain what it can be like. at The Jake it's much better than old Municipal Stadium which was brutal, the wind would come whipping off the Lake and drive fans out of their seats in the early part of the season. at The Jake it's better but can still be a challenge in April and early May, and as I said this year has been cooler than normal. I'm sure it has kept fans away as it usually does.
remember a few years ago when they got snowed out and played a home game in Minnesota or Milwaukee?? Lake Effect Snow is a true phenomenon that we endure, not as bad as Buffalo but still pretty intense when Lake Erie gets ramped up. back around 1997 we had 4-feet fall in a 24 hour period, but that was in November. it happens in the spring sometimes, though, I think we had a late snowfall where I live in early may this year. only about three inches but it fell in about 40 minutes.
attendance has been going up and if the Team continues to play at their current pace of close to .600 things will average out nicely. they had a sellout on Monday, three games that averaged about 22k and another sellout tonight. playing the Yanks and winning big right now should boost sales heading into the All-Star Game.
You would have thought it would go up but it really hasn't. Still 28th in attendance.
Last night Chicago @ Detroit 33,000 in attendance
Last night Minnesota @ Cleveland 17,000 in attendance.
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
again, as a life-long Clevelander I will say that many don't understand the dynamics of the fan base. attendance back in the 1990's when the Team set a record with sellouts was driven by the new Stadium and season ticket holders. currently the attendance is driven by how the Team is playing and the "Walk-up" crowd. considering how they were getting trashed by the Twins I wouldn't expect the walk-up to be very large.
I tend to like him, but Mark won't mention that because it doesn't fit his narrative.
again, as a life-long Clevelander I will say that many don't understand the dynamics of the fan base. attendance back in the 1990's when the Team set a record with sellouts was driven by the new Stadium and season ticket holders. currently the attendance is driven by how the Team is playing and the "Walk-up" crowd. considering how they were getting trashed by the Twins I wouldn't expect the walk-up to be very large.
When you are in first place you would not expect to be 28th out of 30 teams in attendance. All I wanted to know is why this is, so I asked. I was curious to why. I will go with the logical conclusion as no one has offered any other reason why.
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
to be honest, I go to maybe 1-2 games a year but I haven't been in almost two years now. for me it's because of my work schedule but my youngest son is working on some tickets, we just haven't decided when we want to go. what distresses me about every kind of entertainment is that I have to pay through the nose for good tickets. concerts, sporting events, it's gotten ridiculous, so I tend to just stay away. heck, I have yet to watch a game at the new Browns Stadium and I was a season ticket holder at one time. those days are gone for me.
a peculiar thing about Cleveland is that the sports facilities are actually in the heart of the City but the population that fills the seats is in the surrounding Metropolitan area. I think the pop of Cleveland is now under 400k which is pretty low for a major market sports franchise. I know there are a lot of people who are fairly po'd about the way the Browns Stadium was financed and the pop has gone down since then. people are leaving the city and not going to it. I'm not sure how all that stuff figures into the game attendance, but if you look at Chicago which is laid out similarly to Cleveland they have something like 2.3 million residents and support two MLB Teams.
are there other MLB Teams that have a similar number of residents as Cleveland and draw well every night??
The place will be packed in September, unless they manage to fall out of the race somehow. I was at the wild card game in 2013 and I haven't seen a crowd like that since 1995. They were significantly more people downtown then just the stadium crowd.
PS: Garrnettstyle is a Reds fan, I believe. So this won't work to aggravate him.
Link
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
and I'll ask again, what is your logical conclusion??
I'll try this one more time. You Cleveland guys are wearing me out : ) Are they always last of near the last in attendence heading into Sept? They are 29th out of 30 in average attendence. There are a lot of northern teams that have played near the same amount of games. They all played a lot of games in the same crappy weather in the Spring.
Link
mark
To be honest, I can't say. I've never really followed the attendance figures. I know for the past several seasons, they would get off to poor starts and then close strong. Even in 2013 when they got the Wild Card, they needed a 10 game winning streak to close the season to get in. I think last summer they were 10 games under .500 for much of it.
I looked for tickets for Saturday's game against the Angels and its pretty slim pickins for 4 together.
Looking at their schedule, since June 6, they have played 22 homes games, while today will be road game #34 in that same span. I'd be surprised if other teams have that big a disparity, especially a 6 game home stand surrounded by two 10 game road trips right in the heart of summer.
Maybe some teams have. Who knows. I'm not going to research it, but knock yourself out if you want to.
sometimes things are just too simple.
Is Naquin hitting the wall (0 for his last 16)?
while the Indians have the look of coming out of their slump the Tigers appear to have entered one of their own. this is the time of the season that really shows the measure of a Team. I know the Indians have 1-2 off days through the rest of the regular season so playing good again has happened at the right time. the new guy, Guyer, had a nice game yesterday and Jose Ramirez is really, really playing good, I think his energy and overall play has carried to other players.
I'm looking forward to the weekend series against Toronto.
I had somewhere I had to be tonight, walked into the house and flipped to the game as they were coming out of commercial to the bottom of the ninth. Jose Ramirez with an 0-2 dinger to tie and Naquin with an almost bomb that was about as perfectly placed for his run around the bases as you could get!!! that kid is something, the Silver Lining behind the cloud of Brantley going down for almost the entire season. the Indians have two-and-a-half Rookies that are really having an affect on things, have been all season.
this will be a good weekend to gauge things for both Teams. how will Toronto react tomorrow?? will Cleveland carry over the momentum to the next game?? will Saturday be a sellout???
right now it must be frustrating for the Tigers and the Royals, each has put together nice streaks and been unable to close on the Tribe. time is running out, although September will be fun as the Division Teams play among themselves down the stretch --- two Divisions are a toss-up, the Cubs seem like a shoe-in and the other three have Teams with leads that appear safe now, but who knows??? Cleveland heads to the West Coast and then works back through Texas and Minnesota which might be scary given how the Twins have dominated them.
time to suck it up boys and figure out how to pay it back!!!
I just looked up some stats because it seems to me that the Tribe is playing better in the field this season --- apparently my memory was remembering the 2014 season when they were horrendous and dead last, averaging .72 which is better than two errors every three games!!! last year they improved to about .48 and thus far they are close to the same at .53 or one error every two games. I know that kind of stuff is a focus for Terry Francona and always has been. I guess the same cant be said for the A's who as of late always seem to be near the bottom in the AL.
hey Mark, they averaged a bit over 30k vs. the Blue Jays --- If you _____________ they will come!!!
Tito better shake 'em up or things could get ugly.........................
I'm pretty excited about it all and I think I might get some tickets for the Detroit series, out in the section right next to the Home Run Porch: easy in and easy out, great view of the field and only a few steps out of the stands to walk around.
I'm kind of targeting that mid-week KC series. Not sure I'll make it before then.
Have fun, keets.
the "magic number" is now down to nine!!