How is the Tribe in first place?
The Cleveland Indians hit the halfway mark of the 2013 Major League season over the weekend and, thanks to their first four-game sweep of the White Sox in Chicago since 1948 and Detroit’s loss on Monday afternoon, will head to Kansas City in first place in the American League Central Division.
The sweep gave the Tribe a winning record in the month of June (15-13) for the first time since 2007. (We’ll let you decide if you want to place any significance on the years 1948 and 2007.)
The Indians lead Detroit by a half-game despite allowing 43 more runs than the Tigers (while scoring the same amount), despite having their bullpen give up essentially the same amount of runs (4.4 per nine innings) as Detroit’s sub-par bullpen (4.3), and despite blowing more saves (13 to nine) than the Tigers.
How the heck is the Tribe in first place now that the calendar has turned to July?
We start looking for answers at The Cleveland Fan.
(Photo by The Associated Press)