Baseball’s long season seemed like it was going to feel a lot longer for the Indians only a few weeks ago. Cleveland was staring at a considerable deficit in the American League Central standings and struggling in multiple facets of its brand of play.
On Sunday afternoon in Arlington, the Indians issued a reminder of baseball’s ebbs and flows with a 3-2 victory over the Rangers at Globe Life Park. Behind a solid effort from starter Justin Masterson, who successfully fought his way through some command issues, Cleveland moved a game above the break-even mark for the first time since April 9.
That stepping stone seemed a lot further away.
“The way we’ve been playing has been a lot better,” Masterson said. “We haven’t been making too many errors. We’re pitching better. Guys are competing at the plate. They’re scoring a lot of runs. Especially on this road trip right now, we’ve actually won two games on the road. Two out of three. That in itself is showing us we’re doing great things.
“You’re seeing some of the fruits of the labor we’re putting out there.”
Masterson was referring to the fact that Cleveland had just a 9-19 record away from home prior to winning two of the first three tilts in the current four-game set with Texas. The win on Sunday marked the eighth in the past nine games and the 13th in the past 19 for the Indians (32-31), who now reside in second place in the AL Central.
On May 18, Cleveland was six games below .500, in last place and staring at a 10 1/2-game deficit behind the first-place Tigers. With a sweep of Detroit at home, the Tribe embarked on its 19-game run that has helped the club steadily climb the standings, pulling to withing 3 1/2 games of its rivals from the Motor City.
“Fortunately, it was early,” Indians infielder Lonnie Chisenhall said. “We knew we weren’t playing our best baseball. Now, we’re playing better baseball — not even our best. It’s just encouraging to know that we were able to come back from that deficit and now we’re going to continue to push forward.”
The recent success has looked more like the style of baseball Cleveland offered in 2013.
The rotation has been performing better, the defense has shown improvement and the offense has been doing enough to help the Tribe find the win column more often than not. That formula helped the Indians claim the AL’s top Wild Card spot last summer. Everyone remembers the champagne, making it easier to forget the early-season streakiness that club endured, too.
In fact, last season’s Indians had a worse record (30-33) through the same point of the season.
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