A Look Back at the Greatest Winning Streak in Indians History

It had to end some time and that time was yesterday as the Blue Jays handed the Indians their first loss in more than two weeks. The marathon of a game on Friday that lasted over six hours and featured just about every player on both rosters was both the record breaking win and the reason they didn’t win the next day. In the end, it was an aggressive move for Terry Francona to use his next day’s starter in the extra inning affair, but it was also the right move.

In any event, the streak is now over and we can look back and truly appreciate what just happened. The 14 game winnings streak began in the shadow of a three game losing streak at the hands of Kansas City, a losing streak that nearly cost the Indians their division lead. After getting down to just one game ahead of the Royals, however, they ended the streak seven games above their divisional rivals.

Because the streak started after a sweep, it started fresh against Chicago and included sweeps of the White Sox, Rays, Tigers and Braves before winning the first two against Toronto. Incredibly, they scored 82 (5.8 per game) runs in those 14 games and allowed just 27 (1.9 per game), outscoring their opponents by 51 runs. The chart below shows the breakdown of how many games were won by each amount of runs.

Starting with the offensive reasons for that run differential, quite a few players put up particularly impressive numbers over the past two weeks. Below are the Indians most used players during the 14 game streak and the totals for the entire team.

While the home run numbers were prodigious, the stolen base numbers may be more impressive, because they are more controllable. Almost every single player stole at least one base and only two runners were caught during the streak. This shows how much more aggressive the Indians have been this year compared to last season and it isn’t just the new fast guys like Tyler Naquin and Rajai Davis. Jose Ramirez has been stealing more often than in the past while even Mike Napoli and Lonnie Chisenhall have gotten into gear. This shows an attentiveness while on the bases by all runners, taking advantage whenever they see an opening.

The home runs were probably the bigger story though as they went to show how much improved the power of this team has been since last year and this time, the new guys are to blame. Of the 25 home runs during the streak, 10 came from new players (Naquin, Uribe, Davis and Napoli) and this makes sense. The 2015 team was particularly light hitting, smashing just 141 home runs, 22nd in all of baseball. By the end of the streak, this year with more than a half season to go, the Indians had already hit 100. An interesting home run note: the Indians won the first game of the streak with a Carlos Santana walk off home run against Chicago on June 17th and the last game of the streak with a 19th inning Santana home run on July 1st.

Of course, offense is just half the story and in this streak, it was the less impressive half. As before, here are the numbers for the Indians starting pitchers during the 14 game winning streak with both the total numbers for the starters and entire staff at the bottom. Trevor Bauer‘s extra inning excursion is included in his starting numbers.

Danny Salazar might not have been the Indians most impressive pitcher during the stretch, but this hot stretch for the team is only a small part of Salazar’s larger streak where he has earned a win in each of his last six starts with a 2.08 ERA and a .191 average against. He was recognized for this by Major League Baseball, winning the pitcher of the month for June.

Kluber only made two starts during the stretch, but they were probably the best as he could have pitched a complete game in both if the Indians hadn’t needed more runs when he came to bat in Atlanta. Impressive in it’s own right were Carrasco’s 27 strike outs in 23.2 while allowing just three earned runs.

Because of this incredible play by the starting pitchers, there was little use for the bullpen and, if anything, they were hurt by the under use. Of the eight man bullpen, only Dan Otero, Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen pitched more than three times in the 14 games and the fact that the Indians top three relievers were generally the only ones used helped their numbers as they allowed just three earned runs in 29 innings. Of course, this is still including Bauer’s five scoreless against Toronto as starter innings.

The Indians were dominant as a team without question, but the best news is that they didn’t go too far out of their norms to be so. Certainly, the starters will start giving up more hits and runs, but generally, they pitched just as they have for the last few years. Offensively, Naquin and Chisenhall are bound to come down, but if anything Napoli played below expectations with Santana, Kipnis and Lindor playing around where they usually do. The overall point is, luck can help you win a game or even sweep a series. For a team to win 14 in a row, they need a little luck, but more importantly, they need a ton of talent and this team has it.