The Cleveland Indians are in the toughest division in the Majors

The Cleveland Indians have found themselves in the toughest division in the Majors.

Despite many expecting the AL Central to be one of baseball’s weakest divisions to start the season, it has somehow emerged as the most competitive division in baseball. The Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins were expected to compete for the division crown, while some hopeful Chicago fans thought the White Sox could sneak into the playoffs after the strong offseason they had. Yet after a rough start, it did indeed look like a two-team race. Then the Indians took two of three from the Twins.

To be clear, this isn’t a statement on the quality of the teams compared to every other team in the other five divisions. This isn’t the “best” division in baseball, though there is a case for that. Talent level is a pretty hard thing to debate. No, this is merely a statement that three of the teams in the AL Central are separated by a combined .5 games.

Most other divisions have a team 2 to 2.5 games back in second, and a third-team 4-4.5 games back in third. Only the AL Central, as of Aug 27, has three teams within a half-game of the division lead. Those three teams are the Indians, White Sox, and Twins. The crazy thing is, just 12 days ago, the White Sox were out of the race. Sitting at a paltry 10-11 record.

Then the team went 9-1 over their last ten games to boast them to 19-12, the same record as the Indians. The Indians also had their issues early on, namely an inability to beat the better teams. Against the Central Division leaders for both the AL and NL, the Indians were 1-5 combined against the Chicago Cubs and Twins heading into this week’s series with Minnesota.

Now they’re 3-6. Not great, but an improvement. The Indians still have four series against top teams in the two divisions, with St. Louis coming up this weekend,  as well as a series with the Milwaukee Brewers, along with one more series each against the White Sox and Twins. Those will be season-defining series for sure.

Thankfully if the team does struggle, the Indians do have two series against the awful Kansas City Royals still to come and one more with the better-than-expected-but-still-not-good-Tigers. Plus another go at the dismal Pirates awaits as well. With the team being just past the half-way point for the shortened 2020 season, the Tribe appears to be in a good position to take the division.