Fall is rapidly approaching, and with it, hopefully something that beautiful Cleveland, Ohio hasn’t seen since 2007– October baseball. That year, your Cleveland Indians advanced to the American League Championship Series for the first time since 1997, but unfortunately this series ended in the same fashion as in ‘97. The Tribe squandered a 3-1 series lead over the Boston Red Sox and was sent home packing, as the Sox put together 3 straight wins to advance to the World Series. The loss was absolutely devastating (I cried, literally), and we haven’t been able to return to postseason ball since. However, I am here to remind you that all of this could change this year.
Your Tribe currently stands at just 2 games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the Wild Card race and a mere 6.5 games back of the despised Detroit Tigers, and 22 games still remain in the regular season. Now, it might be pretty easy to give up on the Tribe, as many already have, and focus your attention exclusively on football season. I wouldn’t blame you, as high school, college, and NFL football are all underway, with the Brownies playing their first game on Sunday. Besides, we’ve seen this story before- the Indians look like they’re in it for the long run, then a gradual (sometimes rapid) collapse dooms the season and we seem to have made no progress whatsoever.But, I beg you all to reconsider.
First of all, this team has actually stayed in the playoff race to this point; in comparison to the previous two seasons, the Tribe was completely demoralized and all but mathematically eliminated from contention at this point.
Second of all, this team has far superior talent and experience than it has since the thrilling ’07 campaign. Our ball club is headed by none other than Terry “Tito” Francona, who led Boston to two World Series titles, including, of course, the one in 2007. The lineup is led by All-Star second baseman Jason Kipnis, along with other key contributors including Carlos Santana, Michael Brantley and Michael Bourn among others. This lineup, while sometimes inconsistent, is experienced and playing well at the right time. The starting rotation is led by All-Star ace Justin Masterson (currently injured but expected back soon), and is rounded out by rising young gun Corey Kluber (returning from injury this week), the mercurial but recently stellar Ubaldo Jimenez, rookie flamethrower Danny Salazar, and solid mid-rotation starter Zach McAllister. The rotation has done a solid job recently, and has gotten a boost from the bullpen, which has also performed very well as of late. In particular, set-up men Cody Allen and Joe Smith have been phenomenal the past couple weeks, and closer Chris Perez has shown much more composure and consistency, a few hiccups aside.
However, I certainly can’t blame you for doubting our chances; the team this year has given us more than a few reasons to do so. But, I must ask all of you this– isn’t our fanhood, as Cleveland fans, built on faith? We have been deprived of a championship for so long, and, aside from 2007, deprived of playoff baseball (or football for that matter) since the 90’s. For us, any time we get reasonably close to the playoffs is reason for faith that we can make it. Right now, we need to get behind our team and support them all the way through. After beating fellow wild card-hopeful Baltimore twice in a three game series, we sit just 2 games out of the playoffs. So, it’s time to rally behind our boys and cheer them on. They’re going to need it.
