Oh, Yes, They Call Him the Streak

The Indians today set an American League record for consecutive wins with their 21st.
Last night, the Dodgers ended their longest losing streak in Los Angeles at 11.
Tonight, the Rockies go after their season high tying 7th win in a row and thier franchise tying 9th win in a row on the road.

Winning streaks are fun, losing streaks are frustrating.  And streaks don't just end with the one win or loss, you have to sustain it over a period of time.  The Dodgers earlier this season, won 59 of 72 games, the Rockies in 2007 won 20 of 21.  In 2009 they won 17 of 18.  In 2010, they won 10 in a row and 13 of 15 before turning it around and losing 13 of 14 to finish the season.

The point of all this is just to temper the excitement that comes with a winning strreak or keep perspective when your team is losing.  Cleveland has won 20 regular season games which means nothing other than their seeding in the playoffs. The streak will end at some point, will it go straight into a nosedive like the 2010 Rockies, or take them to the World Series like the 2007 Rockies.

DODGERS QUIETLY CLINCH:  The Dodgers have clinched a spot in the playoffs, althourgh many people will tell you that they still have a magic number of 2 ESPN actually has this correct.  The Reason:  The Cardinals need to win all but one of their games to catch the Dodgers and Milwaukee would have to win all of their games plus a tiebreaker game against the Dodgers (and the Dodgers would have to lose all their games.)  The Cubs can win all but 4 to catch the Dodgers if they lost all their games. Problem is the Cubs have 7 games against the Cardinals, and 4 against Milwaukee, while Milwaukee and St. Louis have the final 3 games against each other.  Only one team could possibly win all their games, which would give them the NL Central Division, while the H2H would knock the other two out of reach of the Dodgers.  Therefore the Dodgers have clinched the Visitor's Wild Card.