The roller-coaster ride that has been the 2013 Indians season continued this week, as the Indians swept a 3-game series on the road from the The Angels Angels of Anahiem after dropping two of three in Oakland. After splitting the 1st two games of a 3-game set with Minnesota, the Indians currently stand at 70-59 on the season, 6 games back in the division and 2.5 games out of the 2nd Wild Card spot and a playoff berth. A roller coaster seems like a pretty good analogy for this years’ installment of the Cleveland Indians. They’ve had no fewer than seven separate streaks of 5+ wins or losses in a row throughout the season thus far, resulting in the fanbase feeling alternately very positive or very negative about the clubs playoff chances. Individual players like Jason Kipnis, Ubaldo Jimenez, Carlos Carrasco and others have run alternately hot and cold, sometimes from game to game. And while a roller coaster can sometimes make you nauseous from all the ups and downs, we will often pay good money to ride them, because despite the occasional stomach flip they can be an awful lot of fun. As we head down the last hill and towards the final turn of our little ride this season, the Indians are getting ready to play meaningful baseball in October for the first time since 2007. With so many other teams fighting for one of two Wild Card berths, scoreboard watching can be a confusing and time-consuming proposition. So I’m just going to sit back, cheer for the Indians and enjoy the ride. They’ve already surpassed their win total from 2012, and they have a great shot at finishing the season with 90+ wins.
To call the Major League Baseball draft a crapshoot is an understatement. Teams do tons of scouting, sending their scouts all over the country to look for talent that can be projected to the big leagues. Baseball is the only major sport with four levels of minor leagues, and that doesn’t even include instructional leagues at teams’ Spring Training complexes. The odds of making it to the Major Leagues AND having an impact are much, much smaller in baseball than in any other sport.
Like most Indians fans, I have spent the majority of this season being frustrated with Asdrubal Cabrera. The subject of plenty of trade talks this past offseason, Cabrera is having one of the worst seasons of his career at the most inopportune time. Not only has his performance negatively affected an Indians team that is in contention for a playoff spot, but it would seem to have lowered his trade value.
Sorry for the run of inactivity lately, I know you missed the rundown in your mornings. But my mornings have been starting pretty early, which never really jive well when you are dealing with a team playing on the west coast. Hard to write when you sleep, eh?