Indians ace Kluber to start Games 4 and 7, if necessary
CLEVELAND — If there’s a fine line between proving a point and just showing off, Kyle Schwarber took a sledgehammer and shattered that line Wednesday night on baseball’s biggest stage.
It can’t be this easy, can it? It shouldn’t be, right? What’s next? Schwarber comes out of the bullpen and throws a shutout inning in Game 3?
The Cubs gained the World Series home-field advantage by stomping on the Indians, 5-1, in Game 2, tying things up at one game apiece, and designated-hitter Schwarber, the man whom the Cubs announced on April 9 would not play again until 2017, raised the ask on the film rights to his saga. By going 2-for-4 with a walk and two RBIs, the 23-year-old led his team’s rise on the offensive side as starting pitcher Jake Arrieta picked up 16 outs before giving up a hit.
“Hey, man, I’m living the dream,” Schwarber said. “We’re playing in the World Series. What else can you ask for? I’m just going to keep riding the wave ‘til it ends.”
What a wave. The first of its kind, by all reasonable measures. You just don’t suffer a serious injury (full tears to the UCL and LCL in his left knee) on April 7 and play your next big-league game on October 25 — a World Series game, for crying out loud — and do what Schwarber has done: A .429/.556/ .571 slash line in two games.
“I’ve seen guys come back from injuries during the season, but they’ve done rehab, and they didn’t have that severe of an injury to come back and play,” said Cubs manager Joe Maddon. “I don’t think there’s any real comp for it. I don’t. Nothing that I’ve seen. I’m just going through the mental Rolodex right now. I don’t think I’ve seen that.”
“I think he’s really good,” Indians manager Terry Francona said of Schwarber. “I can see why [Cubs president of baseball operations] Theo [Epstein] sent a plane for him. I would, too. That’s a lot to ask, but special players can do special things.”
A private plane picked up Schwarber in Arizona, where he had been testing his repaired knee in the Fall League, and delivered him to Cleveland, where he arrived in time for Tuesday’s opener and contributed a double and a walk to the Cubs’ 6-0 loss.
On Wednesday, he showed no signs of fatigue from the ramp-up. In the third inning, with teammates on first and second and two outs, Schwarber worked the count to 3and-0 against Indians starter Trevor Bauer. Bauer offered a fastball that Schwarber grounded up the middle, scoring Anthony Rizzo from second for a 2-0 Cubs advantage.
“I had the green light,” Schwar- ber said. “… 3-0, really big advantage for me. He has to throw a strike. So I thought if he just threw it over the plate and I put a good swing on it, a good thing will happen. And there we go.”
And in the fifth, after Ben Zobrist tripled home Rizzo for a 3-0 lead, Indians manager Terry Francona lifted reliever Zach McAllister for Bryan Shaw and brought his infield in as Schwarber stepped to the plate. He thwarted that easily enough, pounding a single up the middle to score Zobrist, and he eventually scored on Addison Russell’s bases-loaded walk for the Cubs’ fifth run.
No, with Game 3 set for Friday at Wrigley Field without a DH, we wonder whether Schwarber can play the field. “We’ll see,” he said, when asked if he thought he was ready. In Thursday’s workout, Maddon said, “You might see him taking some fly balls.” He has yet to receive medical clearance to do so.
At the worst, the Cubs will have themselves one heck of a bench threat, and then a DH if the series makes it back here. They have themselves a major upgrade, not to mention an inspiration.
“It is an overused word,” Cubs GM Jed Hoyer said, “but it really is unbelievable, what he is doing facing World Series-caliber play.”
Believe it. Watch it. Remember it. We might not see its likes ever again.
CLEVELAND — Corey Kluber won’t leave anything on the mound this season.
Indians manager Terry Francona announced Wednesday, before World Series Game 2, he would go with a three-man starting rotation against the Cubs. That means Kluber, the Game 1 winner, will pitch in Game 4 and Game 7, if necessary, both times on three days’ rest barring weather issues. Game 2 starter Trevor Bauer and Game 3 starter Josh Tomlin will go in Games 5 and 6, respectively, each also on short rest.
“In our situation right now, there [are] a couple of factors,” Francona said Wednesday. “One, some guys have gotten hurt. Two, we still wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t think it was the right thing to do.
“And part of that is, the workload the starters have had lately hasn’t really been [bad]. This has been Kluber’s least amount of pitches [88 in Game 1] this month just because, when they’re winning, we go to the bullpen and if they’re losing, we take them out. So I think they’re all situated to handle it.”
The last team to win a championship with a three-man rotation was the 2009 Yankees, who defeated the Phillies in six games and therefore avoided going to CC Sabathia a third time.
The last pitcher to make three starts in one Fall Classic was the 2011 Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter, although he pitched Game 5 on four days’ rest and then, when rain pushed back the schedule for a day, started Game 7 on three days’ rest. Curt Schilling, with the 2001 Diamondbacks — three years before he teamed with Francona to bring joy to Boston — was the last guy to start Games 1, 4 and 7, the latter two on three days’ rest.
“Everything that you talk about in the game of baseball today is such a defeated mindset,” said John Smoltz, the Hall of Famer and FOX broadcaster, who started Games 1, 4 and 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series for the Braves against the Pirates. “‘You’re gonna get hurt. You’re throwing too many pitches.’ I’ve never understood it. Until you’ve been in the shoes of somebody that knows what it’s like? It’s an unbelievable feeling. I don’t know too many people that wouldn’t want to do it.”
Kluber, asked Tuesday night about such an assignment, said of Francona: “I’ll pitch whenever he asks me to.”