Jordan Bastian of MLB.com, who covers the Indians, posted an article today (http://bastian.mlblogs.com/) about the remaining schedule for the Tribe. His breakdown of what's ahead is purely analytical and therefore completely unbiased and has the Indians finishing with 84 wins this year. That ain't gonna cut it, plain and simple. After reading it, I took a look at our remaining schedule and decided to break down what I think will happen the rest of the way. My numbers are more based on my gut feeling while taking into account the skill level of the competition, where the games are played and the pessimistic view of getting matched up against the opposition’s better starting pitchers. For instance, we play Detroit in two more series after tomorrow and it's pretty safe to say we'll see Verlander once, if not both times. Why he isn't pitching tomorrow is a complete mystery to me. He'll be on five days rest (according to those I follow on Twitter) and would be ready to go. Jim Leyland doesn't want to pitch him Sunday and that's fine with me, I won't complain.
As things currently stand, the Indians are a mere 2.5 games back of the Detroit Tigers. They have eight games left against the leaders of the AL central. That's good news for the Tribe as it allows them to control their own destiny. Unfortunately, that's where the good news ends. Realistically, a 5-3 record would be the most optimistic that I can consider plausible. A 6-2 record would mean winning these next two games and two 2-1 series records. Unless the Indians manage to avoid Verlander for the rest of the season (Jim Leyland isn't dumb enough to let that happen even if he's not pitching tomorrow), a 6-2 record just isn't happening. The guys have shown they can hit Verlander but he's a freak of nature and has finally figured out how to pitch, not just throw, so expecting to win against him is rather unrealistic. He mixes his pitches and understands the situationals of baseball eerily similar to what CC Sabathia has done from the start of his career to where he is now. Still, a respectable 5-3 record would put us a half game out, so that won't be enough.
Delving further into the records of the two teams, the Tigers are 66-58, while the Indians are 62-59. Having only one more loss than Detroit is also huge as it also allows the Indians to control their own destiny. However, Detroit has completed 124 games, whereas the Indians have only completed 121, meaning the Indians have to play three more games than the Tigers the rest of the way which gives the Tigers the advantage of additional rest and also allows them more wiggle room in adjusting their rotation to get their top dog, aka Verlander aka the 2011 Cy Young winner, more starts if the Tigers so choose.
Apart from Detroit, the Indians face Texas, Oakland, Seattle, Kansas City, Chicago and Minnesota. No more AL East, no more Anaheim which is great news for Tribe fans, especially the AL East part. The Indians proved they can play with Texas, but Texas is too good for me to think that we'll do anything other than go 1-2 versus them. Oakland has too good of pitching for our rather consistently bad offense, we'll go 2-2 when they come to Cleveland. Seattle is bad and we have five games against them left. We got lucky with the rescheduling of a rainout where Seattle is traveling from Seattle to Cleveland for a game and then to Minnesota for a game the next day. I'd bet everything I own we win that game However, one of those games is against King Felix and two games are a part of a double header which we’ll split. So my crystal ball has us going 3-2 against Seattle. That'd be 6-6 against the west. The Tribe has six more against the Royals. Two out of three both times, 4-2. 5-2 against Minnesota, they're underachieving as much as the '08 Indians (maybe an exxageration). That brings me to the damned White Sox. This year’s Indians are probably the closest thing to the team in the movie Major League. Austin Kearns was my Jake Taylor, Manny Acta is no Lou Brown, and Supermannahan is definitely not Dorn. Other than that, it works. If you recall, the White Sox were what stood between the Indians and the postseason in the movie and the same might be said this year. We almost swept Chicago at their place which would have been huge but they've been beating up on us all year. Eight games left against them and we'll go 3-5 in those. Including beating Detroit in five of eight, that'd be 17-12 against the Central. 23-18 the rest of the way and 85-77 total. That would put us eight games over .500 and exactly where Detroit is now. However, Detroit won't play .500 baseball the rest of the way. Doing the same sort of anaylsis with Detroit, I've got them at 20-18 the rest of the way and 86-76 overall, one game better than the Tribe. That being said, the Indians play at Detroit the last three games of the season and could lead to a very fun finale. I'm hoping the Tribe goes into Detroit with a two game lead there so one win will clinch, especially considering Cleveland's struggles at Comerica in the past couple years. Either of way, it’ll be a heck of a lot of fun to watch.
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