Indians Come Back From 10 Down to Win

Trailing 10-0 after four disastrous innings, the Cleveland Indians scored seven runs in the bottom of the ninth Monday night to mount a highly surprising 11-10 victory. I don't recall a Cleveland come-from-behind victory of this size since they rose up from 14-2 after six innings to beat the Seattle Mariners in a 2001 late-summer game.

The Seattle Mariners won 116 games that year, eclipsing even the great 1998 Yankees team that won 114. They won 14 more than any other AL team in 2001. But when they blew a 12-run lead in the final three innings (they lost in eleven innings), and even a 5-run lead with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, I pronounced that they would not win the World Series.

Seattle met Cleveland in the American League Division Series and won in five games. The Yankees beat Oakland in five games in the series that saw Derek Jeter's flip to home plate while roughly 118 feet from his normal shortstop position. The Yankees then thumped Seattle in five in the ALCS before bowing out in the World Series.

The moral of all this: I pronounce that Tampa Bay will not win the World Series this year. And I highly doubt they will get there, either.