Indians win again, run streak to 16 straight

So the Cleveland Indians won again tonight. If you’ve been awake for the past few weeks, this should come as no surprise. There is no team hotter than the Tribe at the moment who notched their 16th straight win this evening. They set the franchise record with last night’s 15th victory, and they broke that record tonight. I honestly don’t know if Cleveland will ever lose again.

Today’s game started off as many have. Rock solid starting pitching was given a healthy lead early and never looked back. Mike Clevinger continued his incredible season with another six inning, zero run effort. He limited the sometimes deadly Orioles offense to just three hits, none of which were of the extra base variety. His only blemish on the evening were his three walks, but he paired them with seven strikeouts and handed the game over to the bullpen in the seventh inning with the lead well intact. At this point, if the playoffs were to start tomorrow, it would be hard to argue against slotting Clevinger in behind Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco as the #3 starter.

The offense was a bit quieter this evening than it was last night, but it did enough to give the Tribe the win. The party got started in the very first inning when Edwin Encarnacion launched his 34th home run to dead center. Edwing is a powerful, powerful man and he will definitely be making some noise come October for the Tribe. I am excite.

The rest of the scoring came in the sixth when Santana hit an opposite field ground rule double into the right field corner, driving in Yandy Diaz. The fifth and final run came in the next inning when Francisco “Mr. Smile” Lindor broke for home on a wild pitch that scooted about 10 feet up the first base line. Any hesitation (or a clean play by Caleb Joseph) by Lindor and he is possibly thrown out to end the inning. But instead, Lindor flashed his wheels and put the game out of reach for the bullpen to do their work. The trio of Tyler Olso, Bryan Shaw, and Nick Goody combined for 3 scoreless innings while giving up 1 hit and striking out 4 and walking no one.

This team is on fire. The only real negative continues to be the injuries that the team is persevering through. Although that in itself is kind of a positive; the team is on its best stretch of baseball in history without many key contributors. I say bring on the playoffs, this team can beat anyone. Tomorrow, they’ll try to beat the Orioles for their 17th straight win.