Indians and Dodgers: A tale of two streaks
Cleveland has won 18 straight, L.A. has lost 10 in a row
Baseball is an up-and-down game. You win one and, well, you’ll probably lose one tomorrow or the next day.
Not this season. The Cleveland Indians are riding an 18-game winning streak, one of the longest in history. And the Los Angeles Dodgers, who put together several long winning streaks of their own this season, have somehow lost 10 in a row.
How historic the Indians’ streak is partly depends on definitions. Several of the longer streaks in baseball history took place in the 19th century, when the rules were drastically different. Some included ties, which used to be common in the days before illuminated stadiums.
Throw those asterisked streaks out, and the Indians are tied for the fourth-longest pure winning streak ever in the majors. And they are close to taking the top spot.
The greatest streak by these criteria came in 1935, when the Chicago Cubs won 21 games in a row. In second place is the 20-game streak by the Oakland Athletics that was immortalized in the movie “Moneyball.” And, in 1947, the New York Yankees won 19 in a row.
Then come the Indians, who won their 18th straight Sunday and were set to face the Detroit Tigers on Monday night. Their streak shatters the previous club record of 13.
And then there are the Dodgers. On the morning of Sept. 2, the team was 92-41, by far the best record in baseball, and on pace to win a stunning 112 games on the year. In June, they won 10 in a row, and in July they had streaks of 11 and 9.
Yet now they are riding a 10game losing streak. The mystifying run includes close losses (6-5 on a walk off against the San Diego Padres to start the streak) and blowouts (13-0 to the Arizona Diamondbacks, and 9-1 to the Colorado Rockies).
Things are even worse than that: The Dodgers have lost 15 of 16, the sole exception a 1-0 win by Clayton Kershaw over the Padres.
The Dodgers are the first team in history to both win 15 of 16 games and lose 15 of 16 games in the same season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Math would tell you that the chance of a .643 team, as the Dodgers are now, losing 10 in a row is about a third of one per cent.
Despite their abysmal form, it’s too soon to give up on the Dodgers; they still have the best record in the majors, with the Washington Nationals and red-hot Indians just behind. The Dodgers also remain the World Series favourite at bookmakers.
Yet if you’re looking for omens, no team has ever won the World Series with a 10-game losing streak, according to Elias. The record streak by a champion is nine by the 1953 Yankees.
But don’t award the trophy to the streaking Indians, either. After the Cubs won their 21st straight in 1935, The New York Times wrote: “Hang up the warning signs in the Detroit jungleland. The rampaging Cubs are on their way with levelled sights that seem as if they can’t miss.”
The Tigers beat them in the World Series, four games to two.