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CLEVELAND -- The Cleveland Indians are on the verge of clinching their first American League Central title in nine years. The Chicago White Sox, meanwhile, are on the verge of completing their fourth straight losing season.The teams meet Friday night at Progressive Field in the first contest of a three-game series. The Indians, who are coming off a three-game sweep of Kansas City, are 89-63 and hold a seven-game lead over second place Detroit with 10 games to play. Clevelands magic number for clinching is four.The White Sox have lost five games in a row and are 72-75, fourth place in the Central.The Indians overcame a rash of injuries this season and are on the brink of winning their eighth Central Division title. Even more impressive is that the Indians are where they are despite losing their best hitter, Michael Brantley, their starting catcher, Yan Gomes, plus two of their top three starters, Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, to season-ending injuries.Through it all, Cleveland manager Terry Francona has remained upbeat.Whenever you lose somebody, whoever takes his place may not be capable of doing it all year, but in the short term they may be very capable, Francona said.The injuries to Carrasco and Salazar, the clubs Nos. 2 and 3 starters, makes the approaching postseason look very daunting.What we have are not just bodies, but some young pitchers we feel pretty good about, Francona said. Id much rather have Danny and Carlos, but were not going to whine about it. You do the best with what you have.What the Indians have is a starting rotation of Corey Kluber, who could win the Cy Young Award this year for the second time in three years, plus Trevor Bauer and Josh Tomlin. After that it gets a little murky. Mike Clevinger, a candidate to be the fourth starter in the postseason should Cleveland need one, started Thursday night against Kansas City and in five innings gave up two runs on four hits, with four strikeouts and two walks. He was not involved in the decision.Kluber will not pitch in the Chicago series.Fridays pitching matchup will be Clevelands Trevor Bauer (11-8, 4.24) versus Chicagos Miguel Gonzalez (4-7, 3.83).In three appearances (two starts) against the White Sox this year, Bauer is 0-1 with a 4.40 ERA. In his career against Chicago, he is 3-2, 3.70 in 11 appearances (nine starts).Gonzalez has never lost to the Indians. In five career appearances (four starts), he is 4-0 with a 3.26 ERA. He has made one start against the Indians this year, winning 11-4 on Sept. 12. Cheap Luka Modric Jersey . -- Kyrie Irvings last-minute 3-pointer helped seal another victory for Cleveland -- and the Cavaliers longest winning streak since LeBron James left. Cheap Isco Jersey . Meanwhile, there were huge victories for Sunderland and West Ham over fellow relegation rivals, leaving the battle to avoid the drop up for grabs with the bottom 11 teams separated by just six points. Eden Hazard and Fernando Torres scored second-half goals to seal a fourth straight victory for Chelsea, which climbed above Arsenal and Manchester City in the standings ahead of their games on Monday and Sunday respectively. http://www.cheaprealmadridjerseys.com/?tag=cheap-marcelo-jersey . -- Three close looks at the bucket, three misses. Cheap Achraf Hakimi Jersey . -- Anaheim Ducks captain and leading scorer Ryan Getzlaf has been scratched from Sunday nights game against the Vancouver Canucks because of an upper-body injury. Cheap Real Madrid Jerseys . Still, Brewers manager Ron Roenicke thought taking him out before the fifth inning was an unusual move. "Im looking up at the board and hes got two hits given up and one run, and Im taking him out after the fourth inning," Roenicke said. MINNEAPOLIS -- The alarm rings at 4:30 a.m., but only for a split-second. Tom Thibodeau has been wide awake for the last eight minutes, waiting for the buzzer to go off.He unplugs himself from the matrix, where he has spent the last four hours downloading video of Rick Carlisles push offense, all 722 of Russell Westbrooks pick-and-rolls last season and diagrams of Gregg Popovichs plays after a timeout straight into his brain.Or so goes the caricature of the NBAs ultimate grinder, a reputation that has morphed from reality to apocryphal over Thibodeaus three decades in the league. The snarling, growling, basketball savant so consumed by the game there seems to be little room for anything else in his life.I think thats sort of the way it is today, Thibodeau said with a hearty laugh. You get put in some type of box. Im like everybody else. There are a lot of other things that I enjoy doing also.Thibodeau insists hes more than the basketball junkie that people cast him to be. In addition to visiting teams during his sabbatical last year, he also saw his family over the holidays for the first time in recent memory, took trips to Napa and St. Thomas and watched the occasional movie. He loves U2 and Bruce Springsteen and relishes a great meal with good company.But now that the season is here, its time to work.The Timberwolves brought him back to Minnesota -- the place his NBA coaching career began 27 years ago -- with the hope he can galvanize a promising young roster and end an interminable 12-year playoff drought. He arrived in Minneapolis in 1989 as a mullet-wearing, 31-year-old making the jump from Harvard. He returns as a 58-year-old coaching veteran, empowered by owner Glen Taylor as coach and president of basketball operations.Im never going to apologize for working hard, Thibodeau said. I just dont believe in that. I believe that when you make a commitment to do something, put everything you have into it every single day and then you let the chips fall where they may. Its worked well for me.His ability to balance the patience it takes to construct the long-term vision he has for the organization with the win-at-all-costs mentality that made him a success with the Chicago Bulls will be crucial to the downtrodden franchises ability to pull out of the abyss.In some ways this is similar to when I took over in Chicago, when Derrick (Rose) was 22 and Joakim (Noah) was 25, he said. But how you pace the team, I think thats one of the biggest challenges for a head coach.That Bulls team went 62-20 -- a 21-game improvement over the previous season -- and lost in the Eastern Conference finals. In MMinnesota, he takes over a team that won just 29 games, but boasts a treasure trove of young talent including Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine.ddddddddddddI think hes going to be great for the city, great for these young guys, said Memphis Grizzlies coach David Fizdale, who along with Thibodeau is among the 10 new coaches in the league this season. Hes going to make them into a serious threat in the West.In his first month coaching this team, there have been signs of the old and new Thibodeau. His practices are long and intense, but he has granted several days off for rest and even gave the entire starting lineup the night off on the second night of a back-to-back last weekend.He is hilariously profane while storming up and down the sideline, but also laughs uncontrollably and cracks jokes while presiding as judge and jury over a competitive shooting drill in practice.Hes tough. But at the end of the day, this is our job. This is our profession, said guard John Lucas III, who played for Thibodeau in Chicago. This is what we do. All he asks of you is give him 100 percent. Take no possessions off. Help each other. Leave nobody on an island. Have your teammates back. And thats the culture were trying to build here.Its an all-business culture cultivated by Thibodeau and GM Scott Layden. The demands made of players here in the past -- meeting with corporate sponsors or season ticket holders to try to spur interest in the team -- have been significantly reduced to allow them to focus on basketball.Hotels on the road have been upgraded and trips home in between spaced-out road games have been eliminated to give the team more bonding time.And after a messy exit from Chicago plagued by mistrust between the coaching staff and front office, Thibodeau has established a unified management front in Minnesota. During big news conferences, he and Layden sit side by side. And Thibodeau has followed the lead of several other head coaches around the league by not permitting his assistants to do interviews with the media, an effort to make sure there is one message being delivered.Its all part of his mission to build a championship foundation in an organization that has advanced out of the first round of the playoffs one time in its 28-year history.I love the game so its not work to me, he said. I enjoy being part of a group and the camaraderie of being with a team. And I love the competition.---Follow Jon Krawczynski on Twitter: http://twitter.com/APKrawczynski Wholesale Jerseys 2020 Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale Wholesale NFL Camo Jerseys Wholesale NFL T-shirts Cheap NFL Jerseys Throwback Youth NFL Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys From China ' ' '