This is not a lazy copy-and-paste job; the Cleveland Indians really have carried on winning.
Their winning streak is now at 22 after completing a three-game sweep of Detroit and then coming from behind to walk-off against Kansas City on Thursday night.
Cleveland’s run has had baseball historians looking at the record books and confirming that the all-time MLB record is actually 26, held by the 1916 New York Giants. So there’s still a way to go for Cleveland to beat that, but they have the American League record already and have achieved something quite remarkable regardless of whenever it eventually comes to an end.
Although the Seattle Mariners have only won three in a row, they can still be considered big winners this week as those wins came against Wild Card rivals the Texas Rangers. The Rangers won the opener of their four-game series, but the Mariners took the rest with the added benefit of Felix Hernandez looking sharp on his return from the Disabled List on Thursday night. James Paxton returns from the DL on Friday night too, so whilst they are still on the outside in the Wild Card race, they are certainly in with a shout.
The LA Angels and Baltimore Orioles didn’t enjoy their weeks as much, with the Angels losing two of three against the Houston Astros and the Orioles doing the same against the Blue Jays before then losing again last night to the New York Yankees. Baltimore have now lost seven of their last eight games.
The Yankees won their series opener against the Orioles 13-5, Aaron Judge going deep twice to take his season tally to 43, to go 3-1 on the week so far and gain half-a-game on Boston in the process after the Red Sox went 2-1 in a series against Oakland.
Boston’s lead over New York is now at three games and the Yankees then have a three-game cushion over Minnesota for the first AL Wild Card. The Twins had an exciting week, setting an MLB record on Tuesday by homering in each of the first seven innings in a 16-0 thumping of the San Diego Padres and then winning their next two games (Padres first, then against Toronto on Thursday night) on walk-offs.
The Twins now have a three-game lead over the Angels, 3.5 over Seattle, 5 on Kansas City and Texas and 5.5 on Baltimore and Tampa Bay.
This weekend in the AL
Seattle look to continue their winning ways as they take on Houston, the Rangers and Angels meet in a crucial series, whilst Tampa Bay are back at Tropicana Field as they host the Red Sox.
Dodgers win again at last
The Los Angeles Dodgers finally broke their losing sequence this week, although not without suffering one more particularly painful defeat.
They lost 8-6 to the San Francisco Giants on Monday in a game that was initially delayed by 42 minutes due to rain and then halted again for nearly three hours partway through. It finally ended at 2.11 am local time. Whilst we’re used to enjoying some #BonusBreakfastBaseball from the west coast every once in a while, that’s normally when looking at the scores at 6.30am or so BST. This one ended at 10.11 UK time!
The Dodgers recovered with two wins to end their losing streak at eleven.
Elsewhere in the NL, the Chicago Cubs swept a three-game series over the New York Mets to slightly increase their NL Central lead despite Milwaukee and St Louis keeping the pressure on by winning their series (against Philadelphia and Cincinnati respectively) 2-1.
The Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks split their series 2-2, a slight disappointment for the Rockies after they took the first two games. The Philadelphia Phillies swept a three-game set over the Miami Marlins with Rhys Hoskins creating some MLB history by homering in the final two games to become the fastest player to reach 18 MLB home runs in only 33 games.
This weekend in the NL
It’s always a treat to start the weekend with a day-game from Wrigley Field. It’s all the more exciting when the Cardinals are in town for a three-game series trailing their fierce rivals by three games in the standings.
The Brewers will hope to take advantage of those two fighting each other by taking advantage of the Miami Marlins, who have lost 15 of their last 17 games.
Arizona are in San Francisco this weekend, Colorado host the Padres, and there’s a potential NLCS preview in Washington as the Nationals take on the Dodgers.
