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It’s Sunday, September 5th and the Cleveland Indians just beat the Boston Red Sox. The score being 11-5 with the game held at the historic Fenway Park. Sure, the Indians are not looking to be a playoff team this year, but scoring 11 runs in a game that led to a victory is still exciting.

Up next was a three-game series against the Minnesota Twins in Cleveland at Progressive Field. Right now, the Twins actually sit at the bottom of the American League Central standings. What was to come is shocking.

The Indians managed to salvage two runs in the first game of the series, which was a 5-2 loss. It was a fourth-inning Franmil Reyes two-run home run that put the Tribe on the board. The team would be held scoreless the rest of the way en route to the loss.

Unfortunately, the Indians did not score a single run in the next two contests against the Twins. Nine complete innings of scoreless baseball; both losses by marks of 3-0 back-to-back.

Doing the math and that’s 23-consecutive innings without scoring a run. Compare that to just a few nights ago when that same team with those same batters put up 11 runs and it is unbelievable. A complete paradox.

Sure, the Indians are without manager Terry Francona. The skipper has been out due to medical reasons. Even so, these are professional baseball players that get paid millions of dollars to score runs. Thus, this type of streak is absolutely unacceptable.

After a final game against the Twins on Thursday, the Indians will welcome the Milwaukee Brewers to town. Then, the team heads to Minnesota to play those very same Twins in a three-game series.

It will be very interesting to see how the Indians, currently with a 68-69 record, respond in this next stretch of games. Certainly, the offense is capable of producing. This, as shown by the game against the Red Sox.

The team must regain focus, making sure to not let the streak of scoreless innings get inside the heads of those in the batter’s box. Luckily, one solid swing and seeing that ball go over the fence and this will all be over.

Let’s hope, in Cleveland, 23 can once again be associated with star basketball player LeBron James and not a scoreless innings streak.