No one likes a good sports streak any more than your friendly Hot Hand blogger. Sometimes, though, one or more qualifiers have to be appended to a streak to maximize its length. A case in point is today's headline on Cleveland's 4-2 baseball win over the Oakland A's, "Starter scoreless streak ends at 44 1/3 innings but Indians still sweep."

As can be seen in this game-by-game log, the results of Cleveland's last five games before today were as follows:

Cleveland 12, Toronto 0
Cleveland 3, Toronto 0
Toronto 3, Cleveland 0 (10 innings)
Cleveland 4, Oakland 0
Cleveland 2, Oakland 0

Don't get me wrong -- Cleveland's pitching has been superb. Yet, given Toronto's three runs in the third game listed, it's hard at first glance to discern a long scoreless streak by Cleveland's pitchers. Ah, what happened in that game was that Cleveland starter Cliff Lee pitched nine scoreless innings, only to have his reliever give up the three runs.

Hence, the headline's reference to "Starter scoreless streak ends..."