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Indians Sweep Tigers to Take Best Record in Baseball

The Cleveland Indians, the sleepy little team from the lowly American League Central Division, currently hold the best record in all of major league baseball. The Tribe’s 5-4 comeback victory over the Detroit Tigers on Sunday marked their 13th straight home win, their 6th straight win, their 5th series sweep of the young season, and gave them a 19-8 record, better than any team in the majors. The Indians have done all of this largely because their starting pitching keeps giving them quality starts, and even though they have gone down early in nearly every game during this home stand, their offense has battled back to come from behind in dramatic fashion for the victories.

On Friday night, Carlos Santana sent the Cleveland fans home happy with a walk-off grand slam to give the Tribe a 9-5 victory over the Tigers. On Saturday night, it was Orlando Cabrera who came through with a walk-off game-winning single to center field in the bottom of the 13th inning to give the Tribe a 3-2 victory. On Sunday, it was Cabrera again who shot a single to left field that tied the game at 3 in the 8th inning, and then Michael Brantley and Matt LaPorta each added an RBI on a single and sac fly. Justin Masterson pitched another great game, allowing 3 runs on 7 hits while striking out 7 and walking just 2 in 7.0 innings of work. The Tribe then turned things over to their un-hittable bullpen, and Rafael Perez, Chad Durbin and Chris Perez made fairly short work of the Tigers line-up to ensure another Tribe victory.

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On Saturday, the Indians gave rookie Alex White his first major-league start, subbing for the injured Carlos Carrasco who went on the DL Friday with tightness in his right elbow. White showed some great poise, pitching 6 solid innings and allowing just 2 runs, both of which came off the long ball. White kept his composure though and managed to surrender just 6 hits while walking 4 and fanning just as many. It was an impressive debut for a guy that the Tribe hopes will be a part of their rotation for many years to come. Whether or not he’s here to stay remains to be seen as both Carrasco and Mitch Talbot will be back in the rotation at some point this month. Should White continue to pitch well, the Indians could look at a possible trade involving Fausto Carmona, but if they continue to dominate the Central Division throughout the month of May, the front office might be content to keep the team in tact to see if they can make a run for the playoffs this year.

The Indians are off Monday as they make their way to the west coast for another road trip. They will start things off in Oakland on Tuesday night and hope to keep their momentum going. The Tribe keeps widening the gap between themselves and the rest of the pack in the Central as they are now 4.5 games ahead of the 2nd place Kansas City Royals. The Tigers sit 7.5 games back while the White Sox and Twins are now both 10 games off the pace. The Tribe’s winning ways are starting to draw the attention of the Cleveland faithful as the turnstiles at Progressive Field were awfully busy this weekend. Saturday saw 8,000 plus walk-up sales, a Progressive Field record, and some 11,000 tickets were sold the day of the game.

By Robert Gonzalez
Cleveland Indians Correspondent

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