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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)

Tribe doubles its pleasure in sweep of White Sox

Still trying to process how the Cleveland Indians were able to sweep the Chicago White Sox on Friday night in the longest nine-inning doubleheader in Major League Baseball history.

When the Tribe fell behind 5-0 in the first inning of the opener as starting pitcher Trevor Bauer decided that pitching exclusively from the stretch (without telling anyone prior to the game) was the way to go, it seemed like it was going to be a long night for the Indians.

But somehow the Tribe rallied back with 14 consecutive runs and took the opener, then followed that up with a five-run ninth inning of the nightcap (with Nick Swisher delivering the go-ahead home run; more on him in a moment) to pull off the sweep and pull within two games of Detroit in the American League Central Division.

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This year it was supposed to be different

This season was supposed to be different for the Cleveland Indians.

Or so we were told.

Terry Francona is not Manny Acta. The manager and the front office are on the same page together.

Or so we were told when Francona was hired last fall.

Forget the left field platoon of Johnny Damon and Shelly Duncan. And the predominately left-handed hitting lineup. This year’s lineup is better.

Or so we were told.

Don’t worry about the 5-24 stretch from last August. That can’t happen again.

Or so we were told.

Don’t worry about the collapses of 2011 and 2012. This is a different team. Things will be different.

Or so we were told.

But after Wednesday’s loss to the New York Yankees, one thing has started to become crystal clear about this Indians team:

The names on the back of the jerseys and the faces in the dugout may have changed from last season, but this is still the same Tribe.

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Wheels are starting to fly off the Tribe’s party bus

What a difference a week makes for the Cleveland Indians.

The Tribe headed into last week’s two-game series with Detroit riding high, winners of 18 of their past 22 games following a four-game sweep of Seattle that, while entertaining, sent up enough warning signs that the Tribe was living on borrowed time. The Indians were also in first place, 2.5 games in front of the Tigers.

Now, after seven losses in their past eight games, including five in a row, some of the shine has rubbed off Francona Ball. The Tribe comes home tonight for a two-game series with Cincinnati, 2.5 games behind the Tigers and once again nursing a Detroit hangover.

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