Make That 20! Indians Top Tigers 2-0 to Extend Win Streak; Three Takeaways From the Victory

CLEVELAND - August 23rd. That's the last time the Cleveland Indians lost a baseball game. When they take the field on Wednesday at noon in their final game of the season against the Tigers, they will be in the midst of chasing history.

The history will be trying to break the AL record for consecutive wins, as Tuesday's 2-0 win over the Tigers ties them with the Oakland A's with an astounding 20 game win-streak, one that no one could have seen coming a mile away.

Tuesday it was the same old story - great starting pitching from the pitcher that likely is going to be your Cy Young Award Winner in Corey Kluber, a homer from Francisco Lindor to give them the early lead, and great relief pitching from the pen.

This truly is a team of destiny right now, and this is a win streak that you will someday be able to tell your grandkids about.

They will look for win 21 in a row on Wednesday, but for now let's go through three takeaways from Tuesday's latest conquest.

3. Cy Kluber

Another ho-hum outing for Corey Kluber, who might has well make space on his bookshelf right now for another Cy Young award.

All the Indians ace did was go the distance, allowing four runs, no walks and eight strikeouts. He did get some solid defense and it was a rush in the 9th when he came back out, and despite allowing a two-out double was able to get Miggy Cabrera on a ground out to end the game.

How good has Kluber been? It's flat out sick from a baseball standpoint.

74 K's since August 1st, and during the teams' 20-game win streak is 4-0 with a 1.41 ERA, including two completes games.

There's no doubt that Kluber is now very much in the lead for the AL Cy Young Award, and at home he's been nasty, going 9-2 at Progressive Field this season with a 1.93 ERA.

Let's hope he gets plenty of chances to pitch in the park in October.

2. Lindor's Power

After the Tigers had a threat against Kluber in the first, it was Francisco Lindor that got the Indians on the board, hitting a solo homer to leadoff the game for the Tribe.

Consider that Lindor now has 11 home runs and 22 RBIs in his past 23 games, and for the season he leads all shortstops in homers (30) as well as total bases (295).

The Tribe superstars 30 home runs is the most by any player as a shortstop since J.J. Hardy and Troy Tulowitzki each hit 30 in the 2011 season, which also matches the MLB record for homers by a switch-hitting shortstop (Jose Valentin in 2004, Jimmy Rollins in 2007.

Lindor is just the third player in MLB history to hit 30 homers as a shortstop at age-23 or younger (Alex Rodriguez [2x] and Nomar Garciaparra).

His offense along with Jose Ramirez's has been a huge key to this 20-game win streak, and those guys hitting as the playoffs approach is a huge key to success.

1. The Beat Goes On

How long can this streak actually last? That's anyone's guess, as Wednesday the team will wrap up their season series with the Tigers with a noon start at Progressive Field.

Mike Clevinger, who has been solid all season will go for the Indians, against struggling Buck Farmer for Detroit. Sure on paper this appears to be a mismatch in each and every way, but that's why they play the game, and anything can happen.

After the finale with the Tigers, it's on to four against the Royals at home as the team will look to clinch its second straight AL Central title hopefully before their off day on Monday.

It would be a shame to see this team not clinch at Progressive Field in the midst of this incredible historical win streak, but again, just getting to the postseason has been their goal all year, and they are very much going to do that.

Considering that through this winning streak, the Indians have trailed for just four innings out of 180 total, this is something that may go on for some time.

Then again, it could end as early as 3pm on Wednesday

Add us as a preferred source on Google