Cleveland Indians: How the AL Central was won in 2017

The Cleveland Indians had a slow start to the season, but have picked things up thanks to some great play against their AL Central foes.

They say that to win your division, you have to win in your division. Once again in 2017, the Cleveland Indians did just that going 48-25 against the AL Central with three games remaining against the Chicago White Sox.

It wasn’t easy for the Indians against the division all season. They started off going 12-12 in the first two months of the season. The Minnesota Twins gave the Tribe headaches all season long. While the Tribe went 11-7 against them, the Twins had their number in Cleveland.

A low point of the season seemed to be when the Twins came to Progressive Field and swept the Tribe; outscoring them by a combined 13-2. This came a week after the Indians went up to Minnesota and swept the Twins in four games.

Ervin Santana was a nemesis to the Indians all season long, allowing only one run in four outings against them. He will be starting in the Twins’ Wild Card game and could see the Indians one more time.

The Detroit Tigers kept things interesting as well, before their drop-off towards the end of the season. The Indians went 7-6 against Detroit before the All-Star break. After selling at the deadline, the Tigers fell victim to the Indians seven times during the 22-game win streak by a combined score of 47-9.

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The Kansas City Royals killed the Indians record-breaking winning streak at 22. They also managed to take seven games against Cleveland. Oddly enough, every series against the Royals fell on a weekend.

Jason Vargas played six games and split three and Jason Hammel was 2-1 against the Indians. The Royals were also a team Tribe fans were keeping an eye on for quite some time. Before the Indians went on a nine-game win streak the Royals had one of their own.

Ultimately, the Royals couldn’t keep up with the Indians.

After ending the legendary 22-game win streak they were promptly trounced the following night.

While the Chicago White Sox were incredibly bad this year, they still somehow managed to finish ahead of the Tigers due to Detroit’s recent nosedive. Despite some of the trouncing the Indians gave the Sox this year, they were only swept by the Indians once.

The season ends for both of these teams in Cleveland and they couldn’t be further apart in terms of their current situations. The Sox will be looking to spoil the Indians’ chances of getting home-field advantage throughout the AL playoffs.

Next: Will Bruce be on the team in 2018?

If the way the Indians have played against the division has been any indication, the AL playoffs will likely run through Cleveland.