If you are interested in reading a straightforward recap — one in which the play-by-play this afternoon is broken down and described — you won’t find it here.
Two games in September don’t actually mean anything, but let’s allow ourselves to experience the emotion that they inflict upon us.
There’s something about these games that I can’t quite describe. In both, the Indians sent the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth. In both, these hitters accounted for the final out.
No, really. It really doesn’t mean anything to see two games like that in September, even back-to-back. It’s baseball. A team entering the bottom of the ninth trailing is supposed to lose.
In both games, however, I think circumstances were different. The momentum of the game broke in the Tribe’s favor, and while statistical analysis still suggested that they were likely to lose, I thought that a big, breakthrough win was coming. A serious come-from-behind jumpstart of a win; one to carry the team into October.
What makes each of these wins disappointing? In microcosm they encapsulate what it’s like to be an Indians fan lately. Hope, stretched along to the last possible moment, then severed; belief, inflated until the pressure grows too strong and it flutters away.
Yes, this is reading far too much into to games played early in September. No, it doesn’t change how they feel.
Tribe Tidbits
- They lost