TBT: Similarities between Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Indians winning streaks
By Trisha Garcia
They’ve both been eliminated from the 2017 postseason, but the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Cleveland Indians had historic and overlapping winning streaks in the regular season.
The Arizona Diamondbacks won a franchise-best 13 games straight, while the Indians won a league-best 22 straight games for the better part of the second half of the season.
Critics are already saying that the Indians did too much during their streak, which ultimately cost them the ALDS against the New York Yankees. The Diamondbacks on the other hand could credit their brief postseason run almost entirely to their 13-game run.
Whatever your beliefs (or your fandom), the overlapping streaks were the perfect way to wrap up August and head down the stretch in September and into October baseball.
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Here are some strange, but interesting facts about both teams and their respective streaks:
24
Both streaks started on August 24th.
The Indians kicked off their streak by beating the Boston Red Sox in a 13-6 game, while the Diamondbacks got started with a 3-2 win over the New York Mets.
Coincidentally, each team earned their 70th win to start their win streak.
Runs, Runs and more Runs
The Indians (142) and the Diamondbacks (80) scored a combination of 222 runs in the 35 wins. Their opponents? A combined 64 runs.
Terry Francona’s Indians had seven shutouts, while Torey Lovullo’s Diamondbacks had four in the same span. Each team had four victories determined by just one run, but only the Indians had a walk off victory.
They accrued 70 doubles and 66 home runs in the process.
Dominant Starters
Between the two teams, there were only four no-decision performances by a starting pitcher.
There was only one occurrence where the starting pitcher did not pitch more than five innings.
The Arizona Diamondbacks pitching staff totaled 127 strikeouts in their 13 games, where the Indians punched out 194 batters in 22 games.
Both rotations also averaged 6.1 innings per start. There were ten total starts where the starting pitcher continued into the seventh inning or later, including two complete games.
In reality, the two teams were not that different, despite the nine-game difference in their winning streaks. Unfortunately, the season ended the same way for both teams – eliminated in their respective LDS.
Both were heart-wrenching for their own reasons too. The Indians blew a two-game lead (again) and the Diamondbacks were swept in three games.
Nevertheless, the streaks are highlights of the season for the individual teams and across the league.
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