A Look Back At The Week Ahead; May 13 to May 19

May 13

With a doubleheader against the Yankees on the docket, it should be noted that we have played five doubleheaders on this date, one winning sweep and four splits. We have played two doubleheaders against the Yankees on this date, both at home, a split in 1945 and a win in 1962. A sweep on this date will put us over .500 against them on May 13. Anything to take away the bad taste of the 12-1 defeat in Fenway last year. Also, although we have a .527 winning percentage on this date, our pythag is a lowly .451. One of the wins against the Yankees was a home game in 1952, 10-6. Steve Gromek faced off against Bill Miller. The Tribe struck first in the third, when Larry Doby and Dale Mitchell hit back to back shots, putting them up 3-0. Three singles later, the last by Birdie Tebbetts, and the Tribe headed to the fourth with a 4-0 lead. The hit parade continued in the fourth. Doby had an RBI single, right fielder Jim Fridley's single would have loaded the bases, but Johnny Mize's error scored Doby. And ten Ray Boone scored another. This allowed Gromek to cruise with a 7-0 lead. The Yankees broke through with three in the sixth on a Gene Woodling single and a Gil MCDougald homer. In the seventh, Gromek loaded the bases and gave way to Lou Brissie. Yogi Berra got one in on forceout, and Bobby Avila allowed another when he dropped a throw from Tebbetts. Early Wynn relieved in the eighth, and allowed Mickey Mantle to score on a Hank Bauer sngle, making it a one run game. But Ray Boone kyboshed the comeback with a 3 run shot in the bottom half off of Joe Ostrowski.

May 14

Another date where the Tribe has a bit of success. The most popular opponent is a tie between the Twins franchise and the Yankees franchise. The best record is the 8-4 mark against the Twins version of the Senators. The longest losing streak is a seven gamer from 1980 to 1987 and the longest winning streak was nine games from 1965 to 1974, with that being part of a 13-2 run from 1954 to 1976. One of the wins in that streak was a 10-9 at home versus the White Sox in 1960. The Tribe had Barry Latman on the rubber versus former Tribe favorite, Herb Score. Neither saw the third inning. Latman gave up 2 in the first on a Al Smith single while Score allowed three on a Jimmy Piersall stolen base/Dick Brown error, a Vic Power double and a Woodie Held foul sacrifice fly. In the second, Latman allowed two walks, an RBI single to Nellie Fox and a hit batter; Carl Thomas put out the fire. Piersall tagged Score for a two run shot also ending his day. Don Ferrarese allowed a John Romano two-run homer in the third. After another Romano RBI (sac fly) the Tribe led 8-3. Another former Tribe hurler, Mike Garcia gave up two more in the fifth, pushing the score to 10-3. After entering in the second, Thomas continually played with fire nd he got burned in the sixth, allowing five runs, the big blast being a two run shot by Dick Brown. He ended the day with 11 baserunners in 4.1 innings. Johnny Klippstein pitched the final 3.1 innings, allowing a solo shot to Minnie Minoso, saving the win for Thomas.

May 15

If recent history is of any value, we have a good shot of winning this matchup. We have a winning percentage on Wednesdays, 8-4 and are in the midst of a 14-4 stretch since 1992, including an eight gamer from 1992 to 2002. The only drawback is the current losing record on the road. This date has an easy game to highlight, a 3-0 win at home versus Toronto in 1981. This was Len Barker's perfect game, which also is the last no-hitter the Tribe has thrown. The Tribe had started off the year on a 15-8 stretch while the Blue Jays were fairly awful, 10-21. A mere 7,290 souls showed up to Municipal Stadium on a Friday night to see Barker take on Luis Leal. After Barker set down the Jays on three ground balls, the offense staked him to a two run lead. Rick Manning singled, and after Jorge Orta popped to short, Mike Hargrove was safe on a grounder to John Mayberry. Andre Thornton hit a sacrifice fly and Ron Hassey plated Hargrove. But Leal was very good after that, scattering five more hits, no walks and five K's, with the only blemish being a solo shot by Orta in the eighth. Meanwhile, Barker was cruising: two flyballs and a grounder in the second, two grounders and a flyball in the third, a flyball and two strikeouts in the fourth and fifth, a grounder and two strikeouts in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings. In the ninth, Rick Bosetti fouled out to Harrah, Al Woods pinch hit for Danny Ainge and struckout, leaving pinch hitter Ernie Whitt as the last barrier. The pinch hitter for Buck Martinez flew out to Rick Manning and barker and his Indians teammates celebrated. Barker finished with 11 strikeouts and a GameScore of 98.

May 16

Luckily, the Tribe has this day off as the .383 winning percentage is way down on the list. The longest win streak on this date was four games, which happened three times, from 1938 to 1942, from 2000 to 2004, and from 1904 to 1908. The 1904-1908 stretch was four straight games against the Red Sox. But hoo-boy, there are some doozy losing streaks: 10 straight from 1921 to 1935; six straight from 1967 to 1975; and fourteen, yes fourteen straight from 1979 to 1993. The highlighted game occurred at Kaufmann Stadium just two seasons ago, a 19-1 shellacking of the Royals. Josh Tomlin took the hill versus Kyle Davies. Davies walked the bases loaded in the first and Nathan Adcock relieved him. Orlando Cabrera made them pay with a two run single. Michael Brantley scored Travis Buck in the second. Vin Mazzaro dodged trouble in the third, but Tomlin was cruising, allowing his first baserunner in the third. But it was the fourth that did the Royals in. The Tribe batted around, scoring ten in the inning, with the key hits being a bases clearing double by Travis Hafner, a two run double by Matt LaPorta and a three run home run by Michael Brantley. Tomlin pitched six strong, only allowing only one run on five hits, no walks and a one strikeout. The piling on continued with four in the fourth and two in the sixth and Justin Germano, Chad Durbin and Vinnie Pestano closing out the victory with three hitless innings.

May 17

May 17 might be one of the highest scoring days we have on the calendar. I count eleven games of double digit runs, a 9-2 record in those games. The longest win streak was seven, from 1938 to 1946. We also played the Senators (Twins version) a whopping 15 times from 1910 to 1952. Normally I'd like to highlight a 14-0 whitewashing of the Tigers, but since that happened in 1902, no real good boxscore is available. So we'll use the 18-1 pasting of those Senators in 1940 at League Park II as the highlight game. This one was over after the first as the Tribe plated 10 runs off Sid Hudson and Rene Monteagudo. Lou Boudreau was 3-5 with three runs and RBI whil Jeff Heath was 3-4 with three runs and RBI, along with two homers. Al Milner pitched a complet game, allowing seven hits, one run three walks and five strikeouts.

May 18

This day has had very little streakiness to it. Last year's loss to the Marlins puts the Tribe on a four game losing streak, the longest streak, winning or losing, ever on this date. The wildest game was the follow-up to the 1902 victory just discussed when the Tribe lost the next day 19-11 in Detroit. The Tribe has thrown six shutouts on this date, including a 13-0 win in Chicago in 1999 and a 19-0 win in Fenway in 1955. Herb Score was fantastic, pitching a shutout, three hits, three walks, and nine strikeouts. The eighth was his only "bad inning" allowing back to back singles. After scoring one in the second and two more in the fourth, it was the fifth that slew the Red Sox. Fifteen batters pounded Willard Nixon and Russ Kemmerer. The big blows were a bases clearing triple by Dave Philley, a grand slam by Vic Wertz and another by Ralph Kiner. Dick Brodowski put out the fire that inning, but allowed five more runs on the seventh.

May 19

With a .582 percentage on this day, one would think there were numerous winning streaks, and lengthy ones at that. But this date has two five game win streaks (1994-1999 and 1903-1909) and one six game streak from 1985 to 1990. Let's revisit the 1-0 win in eleven innings in Yankee Stadium in 1935. Lefty Stewart started for the Tribe while Red Ruffing was the Yankee hurler. Neither gave up much. After ten innings Stewart had scattered eight hits and waked only two. Ruffing was even better, but in the eleventh, Willie Kamm singled and pinch hitter Bruce Campbell got him in. The Tribe had no extra base hits. Lloyd Brown came in and retired the Yankees in order, notching his first save of the season.