The Indians should save us all some trouble and just forfeit every game against the Tigers

I think anyone who has been reading Let's Go Tribe for the last three years would agree I'm fairly level-headed about things. I'm not prone to overreacting to small samples, bemoaning that players should be benched, demoted, or traded after a bad week. (Anyone want to confess to having wanted to dump Kipnis earlier this season... We all know you're out there.) I enjoy the good times, and don't let the bad times get me too down.

...but I am so bleeping sick of watching the Indians get the complete crap kicked out of them by the Tigers.

Have you seen Inside Out yet? You should cancel whatever plans you have for this evening and go see Inside Out, it's great. Like most folks, I've got a number of different emotions pulling levers in my brain. I can't say Joy is always the one in charge, but when it comes to baseball, she usually is, because baseball is awesome. I know the Indians aren't going to make the postseason most years, and I don't need a 95-win team in order to take great pleasure from following their ups and downs. Lately though, when it's the Tribe and Tigers, Joy is basically out of the picture entirely. Sadness isn't there either. Fear and Disgust are hanging around the control panel, and eventually this guy takes charge:

There are a lot of red marbles on the shelf after the Indians and Tigers play.

So far this season, the Tribe is 2-9 against Detroit. They are 30-29 against everyone else, which isn't anything special, but it is above the .500 mark we've spent so much time hoping the Indians would get back to. If the Indians beat the Tigers with the same regularity as they've beaten everyone else this season, they'd be only 1.5 games behind the two teams currently tied for the two Wild Card spots, and a reasonable 5 games out of 1st place.

Since the starts of 2013, the Indians are just 14-35 against Detroit, a .286 win rate. Against all other teams, the Indians are 195-150, a .565 win rate, which works out to a 92-70 record over the course of one full season. Not a single American League team has a record that good over the last two and a half seasons. Yes, against every team but the Tigers, the Indians have been the best team in the AL since the start of 2013.

Against the Tigers though, they have been baseball's worst team.

What explains this? I'm not smart enough to know. Some would argue that Detroit is in their head, and while I don't love jumping into mental explanations for things, because there's so, so much that is unknowable in terms of what is going on inside someone else's head (much less 25+ someone else's), but I'm open to the possibility. Have you ever been on a team that had a mental block against another particular team? I can't say that I have, but I'd be glad to hear your horror stories, if you've got any.

If it's not a mental block, what is it? Random chance? It seems like the odds of playing one team so much worse than you play everyone else collectively are pretty slim, but baseball is full of happenings that had pretty slim mathematical odds. Detroit has had a lot of talent over that time, so it's not as if losing games to them should be a major surprise (it's just the frequency of those losses that's hard to fathom.)

Does Detroit know the Tribe's signs? Miguel Cabrera and his 1.236 OPS --the highest (by a whopping 148 points) of any player with 150+ PA against any opponent over that time-- certainly seems comfortable when facing the Indians?

Is there black magic involved?

Like I said, I don't know what explains it. It's awful though, and it makes the baseball a lot less fun. The good news is, after this afternoon we get ten weeks without having to watch the Indians face Detroit. We can all get on with our lives and enjoy our summer.