If you are a long time reader of what I do, or at least around last year at this time, right around when the Indians started to nose dive, you may remember this. If you do, you are quite the Indians fan.

But remember the comparison of last year's losing streak to a festering wound? As gross as that might sound, when you think about it, what happened really was just that. 

As frustrating as this team has been this year in situations like this past week of games, never once have I thought they had the capability of becoming the festering wound that they were last year though. Despite it all, this team won't let it fester. Just look at what happened yesterday afternoon against Seattle and in the finale against Minnesota.

Last year's team might be starting at a six-game losing streak. This year's team found a way to make something out of this situation and are now going home off a game in which they look like they cannot be stopped offensively. Just when you may think that this team is not what you were hoping for, they do what you were hoping for but didn't think they could do.

INDIANS - 10 | MARINERS - 1

W: Scott Kazmir (6-4)

L: Joe Saunders (9-9)

[BOXSCORE]

Read more...

At the All-Star break last year, the Cleveland Indians sat at 44-41, three games back of the division lead. They had seemingly stayed afloat with many like to call smoke and mirrors, carrying a negative run differential and benefiting from a surprisingly sluggish Detroit Tigers squad.

That should have been no surprise though. They did it in 2011 too, five games up, a more credible run differential with a positive four, and an impressive 27-19 home record.

We now look at this team in 2013, in a rather familiar position. A Cleveland team that is a few games up record wise, very much in the playoff hunt, and looking like a team with some promise after all.

That promise has come crashing down the past few seasons, more spectacularly in 2012 with abhorrent losing streak that effectively cost Manny Acta his job and spurred a revised plan of attack in the offseason.

We've been over that plan. That plan seems to be working.

Of course the question is now simple. Can the plan continue to work? Can this team avoid the same fate they succumbed to the previous two years? Do they have the staying power in 2013 that they didn't have in 2011 and 2012?

Considering I have plenty of statistical and analytic data to  help us evaluate those questions, why waste any more time in answering the big question. Are these Indians for real? While I hope so and want to believe so, I'm leaning toward thinking that they really are.

Read more...

The Indians entered the All-Star Break 1.5 games behind a team very few people thought they could contend with, let alone beat, in the preseason. With a patchwork pitching staff and some shiny free agent acquisitions in the lineup, the Indians got a decent buzz from the fans leading up to the season. At 51-44 this season, however, the Indians rank 13th out 15 American League teams in attendance.

In 2007, when the Indians had an improbable run to the American League Championship Series, attendance at the All-Star Break was 993,580 over 40 home games. If you’ll recall, three games were played at Miller Park after the April Snowpocalypse and the opening four-game series against Seattle was snowed out and played through the season. That’s an average of 24,839.5. We’ll round up and say 24,840 in the first half of the 2007 season, a season that the Indians opened with about the same expectations as 2013.

The 2013 Indians played 49 home games leading up to the All-Star Break with a total attendance of 920,827. That’s an average of 18,792. If we take away the games at Miller Park, the total home attendance for the Indians in 2007 was 2,223,416, for an average of 28,505 per game. The total attendance, games in Milwaukee included, ranked 10th out of the 14 American League teams. This season, the Indians aren’t even on pace to crack two million fans, though an exciting second half could put them over that number.

Why?

Read more...

Team's get hot. You have to deal with it. Remember that schedule we touted so much? How incredibly easy it looked compared to the first half schedule?

That's all well and good, but you know you are going to run into some teams that you are supposed to beat that may be playing good enough ball. It happens, which is what is happening now in facing the Mariners. Are the Indians playing well? Not particularly, but they aren't playing horribly. They're a better team than Seattle. They're just not playing better right now. 

You just have to hope at some point the Indians can make up for these losses in another way. If not, then we know what will happen.

INDIANS - 3 | MARINERS - 4

W: Erasmo Ramirez (1-0)

L: Zach McAllister (4-6)

S: Tom Wilhelmsen (23)

[BOXSCORE]

Not a sharp Zach McAllister in his return to a major league mound. But that can be expected with his long layoff and few rehab outings. 

Still, it wasn't a bad Zach McAllister. One good enough to get through five innings with only three earned runs. If not for some shaky defense, maybe he could have thrown less pitches, and he definitely wouldn't have surrendered that fourth run.

Which was ultimately and unfortunately the difference in the game.

Read more...