Cleveland Indians: Looking ahead at the Tribe’s final 45 games

The Cleveland Indians’ schedule the rest of the way appears to be very favorable.

With the weather ruining any discussion of Wednesday’s Cleveland Indians game, there was more than enough spare time to take a look at the road ahead for the Indians.

There are 45 games left for the Tribe, including Thursday’s doubleheader in Minnesota and the return of ALCS hero Ryan Merritt. It’s great that Merritt’s pitching in the home of Target given that fans all over northeast Ohio cleared out Merritt’s wedding registry there last year.

But, we digress.

30 of the 45 remaining games are against the AL Central, with series against the Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, and Los Angeles of Anaheim Angels filling out the schedule. These final 45 games will be crucial for a few very obvious reasons.

First and foremost, Cleveland wins the division by winning games. I know, that’s not exactly ground breaking analysis. But it is nonetheless true.

While the rest of the AL Central appears to be in free fall, the Kansas City Royals are still going for it in the division (and the wild card), Boston is in the thick of their own divisional title race, and both the Mariners and the Angels are jockeying for a wild card spot.

The Indians can’t just show up and think that’s enough. The central may very well look like it’s going to go for the Tribe, but their upcoming opponents have their own reasons to win.

The second reason is the aforementioned unbalanced schedule. Of those 30 games in the division remaining, 10 of them are against the Royals and six against the Minnesota Twins, the only two teams in the division still playing as if the 2017 season is still going on.

It is crucial that the Indians take this opportunity to effectively end the divisional race by dominating those remaining games against the only semi-contenders left in the Central.

With 14 games against the Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox, who sit at 13 and 19.5 games back, respectively, there is a chance for the Indians to beat up on teams that have already waived the white flag.

These teams will be trotting out young players to evaluate as the season winds down. It’s entirely possible that when the next series against the Tigers opens on September 1st, that the team will more closely resemble the Mud Hens than the Tigers.

There’s no reason the Indians shouldn’t win at least 10 of those games, if not more. In fact, the Indians have the second easiest remaining schedule by average opponent record in the AL.

Of all of the opponents left on the schedule, it’s the Red Sox and Royals that fans need to worry about. Those are the only two teams left on the schedule where the Indians have a losing record against them.

A four game series against Boston and a three game series against Kansas City makes up next week’s slate of games. This looks like the most important week of the season for the Indians.

If the Tribe can just come out of that stretch with at least a 4-3 record, that is a positive. It will set them up to charge through the weakest part of their remaining schedule, where Chicago is 7-23 since the break, the Tigers are 13-17, and the Twins are 14-16.

Next: Someone is getting benched/demoted in the Tribe's OF crunch

45 games. That’s all that stand between the Tribe and another postseason run at Progressive Field. With a favorable schedule and a few key series upcoming, the Indians have a chance to not just win the division, but to finish the season on a tear at the most important time of the year.