The Jerusalem Post

Yankees oust Indians, advance to ALCS

NY win Cleveland sets up duel with Astros Cubs, Nationals comes down to decider

-

This is how it ends, the New York Yankees dancing around the pitcher’s mound at Progressiv­e Field.

Final score: New York Yankees 5, Cleveland Indians 2.

The Indians had three chances to win one game, three opportunit­ies to keep what was once such a wonderful season alive.

The last chance was at home with ace Corey Kluber on the mound. And they failed ... again. For the Tribe and their fans, this is so painful.

The Indians were this easy-to-love, record-setting baseball team that played the game with joy and confidence.

They were the team with the 22-game winning streak, the team that won an American League best 102 games.

It’s a team that made Cleveland feel like a baseball town, an Indians team that drew 2 million fans for the first time in 10 years. Then came October. The playoffs. And there was more winning ... the first two games of the American League Division Series.

The Indians had won 35-of-39 games heading in the third game of this best-offive series with the Yankees. Talk about Tribe Time Now. One more win, the Yankees were gone. History. World Series dreams still alive.

Then it stopped. The team that couldn’t lose suddenly forgot how to win.

For the Indians, three games in four days ended seven sensationa­l months of baseball.

“Nobody wanted the season to be over,” said Tribe manager Terry Francona. “It doesn’t wind down. It comes to a crashing halt.”

Then comes a winter of wondering, an off-season of regret. It’s one thing to be upset by the Yankees ... and this was an upset. It’s another to score only five runs in the last three games. And to strike out 40 times in their last 27 innings. And to make seven errors in the last two games.

This from a team that made the fewest errors in the American League this season.

“Sometimes you don’t swing the bat,” said Francona. “That’s part of it. But we did some things in this series that I don’t think were characteri­stic of our team. We made some errors, kicked the ball around a little bit.”

The truth is the Tribe ... this terrific regular season team ... unraveled under the bright lights of the playoffs when it meant the most.

There are several reasons for the Tribe’s playoff collapse, losing three consecutiv­e closeout games.

But the main culprit was this: The bats went silent.

Francisco Lindor? The All-Star shortstop was 2-for-18 ... six strikeouts. Jason Kipnis? He was 4-for-22 ... eight strikeouts. Jose Ramirez? He was 2-for-20 ... seven strikeouts. Edwin Encarnacio­n? He was 0-for-7 ... and missed three games with an ankle injury. Michael Brantley? Coming back from an ankle injury, he was 1-for-11.

Tribe designated hitters were designated outs ... a combined 1-for-18, Brantley’s single was the only hit.

The weight of great expectatio­ns combined with a fear of a postseason flop seemed to infect nearly ever Cleveland player swinging a bat.

The Indians batted .171 for the five games. Were they pressing? Kipnis would not quite agree to that. But he added: “When it means so much to you, when you want to get it done ... you just want it so bad.”

And that seemed to make everything worse for the Tribe.

From the moment the Tribe announced Corey Kluber as the Game 2 starter, I wondered if the Tribe ace had physical problems.

He did have a back injury early in the season. But after June 1, he was 16-2 with a 1.64 ERA.

Consider that Kluber didn’t allow more than two runs in a game for his last nine starts of the regular season.

Let’s repeat that: From August 13 to the end of the regular season, Kluber held every opponent to two or fewer runs. NINE starts like that.

Then came the playoffs. There was his dismal start in Game 2 (six earned runs, 22/3 innings). In this game, he gave up three runs in 3 2/3 innings. Didi Gregorius accounted for them all, blasting homers to right field in his first two at bats. Now think about this: 1. Gregorious came into the game batting 2-for-15 (.133) against Kluber.

2. This season, it was 0-for-9 against the Tribe.

3. In their first playoff matchup where Kluber had so many problems with the Yankees, Gregorius struck out and grounded out in his two at bats vs. Kluber.

4. Kluber had allowed only two homers on his curveball all season. The second homer by Gregorius was on a low, inside curveball.

5. It was as if the rockets launched by Gregorius came out of nowhere. The Yankee shortstop is an All-Star and hit 25 homers this season. But until this night, he had never done a thing against Kluber.

After the game, Francona didn’t want to go into detail about Kluber’s condition, but there was something wrong with the 31-year-old right-hander.

“He’s fighting a lot,” said Francona. “You have to respect the fact that the guy wants to go out there ... he’s our horse.”

Kluber had a 12.79 ERA in two playoff starts, allowing 10 hits, 9 runs, 4 homers in 6 1/3 innings.

“I don’t want to get into details right now,” Kluber said. “I was healthy enough to go out and pitch.”

He pitched, but that was not the real Corey Kluber.

There are several stats about teams winning at least 100 regular season games, but not winning the World Series. Some were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs.

That includes the 2001 Oakland A’s. The Indians broke their regular season winning streak of 20 in a row.

How about this? Those A’s finished 10260 (same as the Tribe). They had a 2-0 lead on the Yankees in the playoffs, then lost the next three games (same as the Tribe).

They lost Game 3 (1-0) and scored only five total runs in the last three games (same as the Tribe).

Tribe reliever Andrew Miller was dealing with questions about winning more than 100 games, but losing in the playoffs.

“What are you supposed to do, stop at 99?” he asked.He sadly shook his head.

“You work so hard to put yourself in this position,” he said. “It’s such a grind to get here ... Look, they outplayed us.”

The Yankees had a 91-71 regular season record. They won a wild card game for the right to face the Indians.

“I’m not saying they are the better team,” said Kipnis. “But they played better than us. They deserved to go on.”

Yes, they did.

 ?? (Reuters) ?? THE NEW YORK YANKEES celebrate after defeating the Cleveland Indians in game five of the 2017 ALDS playoff baseball series at Progressiv­e Field on Wednesday. The Nationals defeated the Cubs 5-0 in Game 4 of the NLDS, leaving the series tied 2-2.
(Reuters) THE NEW YORK YANKEES celebrate after defeating the Cleveland Indians in game five of the 2017 ALDS playoff baseball series at Progressiv­e Field on Wednesday. The Nationals defeated the Cubs 5-0 in Game 4 of the NLDS, leaving the series tied 2-2.
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Israel