On Wednesday, Cleveland closed the home portion of its planned regular-season schedule with a 7-2 victory over the White Sox. Rookie Danny Salazar turned in a solid outing, Michael Brantley and Nick Swisher powered the offense and the Indians rolled to their team-record 14th consecutive victory over Chicago.
The win allowed the Tribe to hold its ground as one of the two teams primed to punch a ticket to the playoffs via the American League Wild Card. With four games left to play against the Twins in Minnesota, the Indians are one game behind the Rays, one game ahead of the Rangers and in possession of the second AL Wild Card spot.
Cleveland (88-70) is right where it wants to be heading into its final series.
“You’ve got to be excited,” Indians veteran slugger Jason Giambi said. “Any time that you have control of your own destiny, that’s what it’s all about. We’ve just got to go out there and play baseball. We don’t have to scoreboard watch. We don’t have to do anything but go play baseball.”
Right now, the Indians’ confidence is soaring after improving to 17-6 in September in the wake of a 6-0 homestand that gave the team 11 wins in its past 13 games. Cleveland’s 14-game winning streak against Chicago marks the first time that the Indians have won that many consecutive games over one team since doing so against the Kansas City A’s in 1960.
With a 17-2 record over the White Sox this season, the Indians are one of just five teams since 1969 to pile up 17 wins in one campaign against a single opponent.
“They just outplayed us,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “Any time even when we had leads late, they just seemed to fight and kind of have the ability this year to come back late. A few walk-offs and things like that. They are kind of hitting their stride here.”
The Tribe’s 51 wins at home this season are its most in one season in front of the local audience since also rattling off 51 in 2007. In that season, Cleveland came within one win of reaching the World Series, but was taken down by Francona and the Red Sox. Here, six seasons later, Francona is trying to lead the Indians to their first postseason berth since that year.
In his first year at the helm in Cleveland, Francona has helped orchestrate one of the greatest year-to-year turnarounds in the franchise’s long, storied history. With a 20-win improvement over last season, the Indians are tied with the 1915-16 teams for the second-largest win jump in team annals. Excluding strike-shortened years, the Tribe’s record is a 24-win upgrade from 1985 to ’86.
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