CHAPMAN SAVES DAY
CLOSER SHUTS DOWN INDIANS; CUBS STAY ALIVE
Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon, in his gutsiest move of the postseason and stealing a page straight out of the Cleveland Indians’ handbook, went for the jugular Sunday night. And the Cubs lived to see another day. The Cubs, using closer Aroldis Chapman for 22⁄ innings and 42 pitches in the 3 longest stint of his career, hung on to beat the Cleveland Indians 3-2, staving off elim- ination and sending the World Series back to Cleveland for Game 6 trailing three games to two.
“Whoever says they want to go to Cleveland?” Cubs catcher Miguel Montero said before the game. “Especially in November. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say those words.
“But right now, there’s no place I’d rather be.”
Wish granted, and the Cubs will take their dreams to Cleveland, trying to win their first World Series title since 1908.
“There’s no way you thought winning a World Series was going to be easy,” said retiring Cubs catcher David Ross, who played his final game at Wrigley Field.
The Indians, of course, still are in fabu- lous shape. A team hasn’t blown a 3-1 World Series lead with the final two games at home since the Baltimore Orioles lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1979.
Then again, the Indians have been in this position before, only to endure their own heartache.
They were up 3-1 in the 2007 American League Championship Series against Boston, only to be outscored 30-5 in the next three games and watch the Red Sox go on to sweep the World Series.
They were two outs away from winning the 1997 World Series against the Florida Marlins, only to blow a ninth-inning lead and lose in 11 innings.
Still, the Indians insist, there’s no reason to panic. They have Game 6 at Progressive Field on Tuesday. And, if needed, Game 7 in Cleveland on Wednesday.
Yet even with ace Corey Kluber scheduled for Game 7, the Indians would prefer not to have that kind of pressure.
“You don’t want to give lineups like that momentum or teams to start feeling good about themselves,” Cleveland second baseman Jason Kipnis says. “So the best thing to do is kind of put them away before they can do that.”
But if the Indians can close it out, they have a chance to do something quite unique in the city of Cleveland.
The only championships ever clinched in Cleveland were by the 1964 Cleveland Browns and the 1920 Indians.
So after all the heartbreak the Indians have put their fans through all these years, they are finally giving them a chance to let out 68 years of emotion.
The Cubs, who haven’t won the World Series since 1908, are battling their own demons. Six times they were down 3-1 in a best-ofseven series, and six times they’ve lost.
“We’ve got to play like it’s just a game,” Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo says, “and not worry about the outside noise.”
Well, if not for Chapman, their rent-a-player pickup in July, there wouldn’t even be another game.
Maddon called upon Chapman to work longer than at any other time in his career, summoning his closer with one out in the seventh inning, trying to save their season.
Just once in Chapman’s career had he worked more than two innings, and that was July 9, back when he was pitching for the New York Yankees and went 21⁄ against the Indians.
And never had he thrown more than 36 pitches in a game.
He came in with Mike Napoli on first and Jose Ramirez at the plate. Ramirez had homered in the second inning off Cubs starter Jon Lester for Lester’s lone blemish. Chapman, who crossed up catcher Willson Contreras on one pitch permitting Napoli to reach second, came back and stuck out Ramirez.
Chapman ran into trouble when he hit Brandon Guyer with a pitch but escaped when he induced a ground ball to Cubs second baseman Javier Baez for the inningending out.
In the eighth, Chapman ran into more trouble, with Rajai Davis getting a one-out single and stealing second. Chapman got Kipnis to fly out for the second out. Davis put on even more pressure by stealing third base uncontested. But Chapman got dangerous Francisco Lindor to look at two consecutive 101-mph fastballs for the strikeout.
Chapman got through the ninth 1-2-3, and the Cubs had life.