This is just a hunch, but I think I figured out why the Indians got so lousy over the past two months. Take a look at this table:
| Date | Indians W-L record |
Games above or below .500 |
| July 15 | 45-43 | +2 |
| July 22 | 47-48 | -1 |
| July 29 | 50-52 | -2 |
| August 5 | 50-58 | -8 |
| August 12 | 53-62 | -9 |
| August 19 | 54-67 | -13 |
| August 26 | 55-72 | -17 |
| September 2 | 56-78 | -22 |
The fifth season of the AMC television program “Breaking Bad” began to air on Sunday, July 15. I suspect that the Indians, like many other people, are in thrall to this program. In the case of the Tribe, once the show began to air, they could think of nothing else. Their minds were clearly in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with Walt and Jesse and Mike and Skyler and everyone else.
As the table shows, at no point during the eight-week run of Season 5 did the Indians have a week in which they won more games than they lost. Now that the season has ended, I look for the Indians to focus once again on baseball.
The second part of Season 5 is scheduled to air next summer. If my theory is correct, you can look for another summer swoon during the final eight weeks of the series. As Indians fans, our only hope for a successful 2013 season is to convince AMC not to televise the episodes until November. As a Breaking Bad fan, I don’t want to have to wait that long, but as an Indians fan, we have no other choice. I don’t want to see the Tribe meth up another season.
Update: As I predicted would happen, now that “Breaking Bad” has ended for the year, the Indians are back on track.
You may be on to something. You could further your research by checking their won/loss record on Sundays and Mondays during the breaking bad season. Additionally, we should probably run the numbers on some other shows that may prove distracting, like Boardwalk Empire, Dexter, Game of Thrones, and in the tribe’s case, probably Toddlers and Tiaras.