Early Second Half Wins Could Go a Long Way in Helping the Indians Inch Closer to Other Top AL Teams

It might still be an early start to the second half of the season for the Indians, but the team has already been active in the trade market, making a move for a pair of relief pitchers from the Padres for prospect Francisco Mejia.

Looking at the team and the early part of the second half, it’s a great chance to bet online at one of these books and put some money that the Indians are going to breeze through some of the early competition to get to the postseason come early October.

They already own a close to double digit lead in the very weak AL Central, but more importantly they have to start playing better against the rest of the league in order to close the door on the rest of the better teams in the American League.

The second half for the Indians starts with a series in Texas against a pretty weak Rangers team that sits in last place in their division. With Texas looking up the other teams in the AL West, the Indians should do whatever they can to feast on them and at the very least, take two of the three games over the weekend in Arlington.

After the three games against the Rangers, the Tribe will come back for a very short series at Progressive Field starting on Monday night to take on the Pittsburgh Pirates in another Interleague series.

The Pirates are another team that is under .500 at 48-49, but the Indians have to be wary of what lies ahead playing Pittsburgh, as they have struggled against the National League this season, going 8-6 against teams like the Reds, Cubs and Brewers.

Playing the Pirates at home will be the final games at Progressive Field this season against the National League, that is unless the Tribe can get back to the World Series like 2016 against the Cubs.

After those three games against the Pirates, the Indians are right back on the road, but against a couple of teams they should feast off of in both the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins.

This season the Indians, as they should, have owned the Tigers, going 10-3 against them in 13 meetings thus far between both Progressive Field and Comerica Park.

While they have dominated the Tigers, they have had their share of struggles with the Twins, a team that was expected to put up a bigger fight against the Indians in 2018.

Thus far in nine games, the Twins have won six of the nine meetings. As July comes to a close and the Indians look to expand their lead in the AL Central and also challenge some of the top teams in the AL, it would be big to get off to a good start as they wrap up the final two weeks of the month against the Rangers, Pirates, Tigers and Twins.