Indians must do to Astros what’s been done to them lately

‘17 Yankees, ‘16 Cubs captured 3 straight in rallying to series wins

The last time the Cleveland Indians won the World Series, gas cost 16 cents a gallon, the first Polaroid Land camera went on sale. and the Chicago Daily Tribune was three weeks from declaring “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

The world has changed a lot since 1948. The disappointment of baseball in Cleveland has not.

LeBron James freed his city from its fatalistic complex by leading the Cavaliers to the 2016 NBA title, but the Indians have the longest ongoing championship drought of any American sports franchise. Another loss to the Astros, who won Games 1 and 2 in the best-of-five American League Division Series, will make it 70 years.

Indians manager Terry Francona led the 2004 Red Sox to the greatest comeback in baseball history. Down three games to none to the Yankees in the AL Championship Series, they won four consecutive games, the only time in MLB history a team has rallied from that deficit.

Despite witnessing a baseball miracle then, Francona, who is managing his ninth trip to the playoffs, did not sound optimistic about countering the Astros.

“They’ve really kind of had their way with us,” he said.

Astros pitchers have overwhelmed opposing batters. In the first two games of the series, the Indians totaled six hits and struck out 24 times. Francisco Lindor’s third-inning home run put the Indians up 1-0 in Game 2. Three innings later, their only lead of the series was gone.

After losing Game 2 in Houston 3-1 on Saturday and on the eve of Monday’s Game 3 in Cleveland, Francona addressed questions about the burden of needing to beat the Astros for three consecutive games. In both press conferences, he said the Astros would enjoy the Sunday off day more than the Indians.

“Show up on Monday and play for our baseball life,” Francona said of his team’s mentality. “Nobody wants to go home. So try to keep this thing going.”

Out of the 92 teams to compete in the Division Series, which MLB implemented in 1995, 10 have mounted comebacks after losing the first two games. Cleveland has seen it done before — just not from the victor’s side.

“It might be unfortunate that we know it can be done,” Indians reliever Andrew Miller said.

Last year, the Indians put together an AL-record 22-game winning streak and entered their Division Series as heavy favorites over the Yankees. Cleveland won the first two games before Miller took a loss in the next one, allowing a homer to Greg Bird for Game 3’s only run. Then the Indians imploded, and the Yankees’ “Baby Bombers” exploded as New York took the series in five games.

The Indians squandered two wins in the 1999 Division Series by allowing 44 runs in three subsequent losses to the Red Sox.

Cleveland’s baseball bad luck runs deeper. The 1954 team won a then-American League record 111 games. Then came The Catch. Willie Mays turned back, sprinted toward the warning track and made an improbable over-theshoulder, no-look catch to keep Vic Wertz from breaking open Game 1 of the World Series. The New York Giants went on to a four-game sweep.

From 1995 to 2001, the Indians won six division titles in seven years but reached the World Series only in 1997. They were leading the Marlins 2-1 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7, but Jose Mesa gave up a sacrifice fly to blow the save, and Charles Nagy let a ball deflect off his glove for a walk-off single in the 11th.

In 2007, the Indians had a 3-1 lead in the Championship Series before falling, again, to the Red Sox.

Of all their losses, none seemed so close to becoming the championship victory they spent decades chasing as Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. But the Cubs scored two 10th-inning runs and held on for an 8-7 victory, giving Chicago its first title since 1908 and leaving a loser’s curse in Cleveland. The Indians led that series 3-1, meaning in the last two years they’ve lost six consecutive postseason games that could have been clinchers.

Indians third baseman Josh Donaldson has been on the winning side of a big playoff comeback. In his MVP year with the Blue Jays in 2015, Toronto came back from a 2-0 ALDS deficit to beat the Rangers. Not that he takes the Astros lightly.

“You have two not good ball teams but great ball teams,” Donaldson said. “Great ball teams take advantage of mistakes. It’s going to be magnified that much more. You start allowing a team to have that momentum, it can be dangerous.”

But Donaldson saw one Texas team crumble. He’s hoping the Astros will do the same.

“Things happen fast,” Donaldson said with a snap of his fingers. “Not everybody’s going to be perfect. Up to this point, they’ve played pretty much flawless. … But we still have an opportunity to crawl back from this.”