The Cleveland Indians Celebrated A Walk-Off Win For The 8th Time Last Night
Does it look like the Cleveland Indians are worried about the surging Kansas City Royals?
It’s been a great year for the Indians, and Cleveland in general, but it didn’t start off that way. On May 11, the Indians had already suffered their fourth walk-off loss of the year, just 31 games into the season, dropping their record to 16-15, falling 5 games back of first place. Seemed like another year of floundering around in world of mediocrity was on deck for the Tribe. The Indians didn’t celebrate their first walk-off win until June 1, and then they did it again the next night, and again two weeks later, and again two days after that. In total, the Indians have walked off with the victory eight times, including last night. Since Cleveland’s first walk-off win of the season, they’ve gone on to own the second best record in the MLB at 48-32, trailing only the Toronto Blue Jays (47-30).
And it’s not like they’ve dominated late in games, either. Late-inning relief pitchers make that extremely difficult for most teams, as is reflected by the fact that the Indians are hitting .229 with a .670 OPS in the ninth inning or later, which is a little bit below league average. The league average for teams hitting in the ninth inning or later this year is .239 with a .691 OPS. Another team who celebrated a walk-off win last night, their fifth, was the Chicago Cubs, who lead the majors with a .278 batting average in the ninth inning or later, with the second highest OPS (.771). But that’s not a tremendous shocker, given that they’re well above league average in just about every statistic imaginable.