Kuzul

It only feels right that the 2016 World Series is already a back-and-forth affair, considering the history hanging in the balance.

The Cleveland Indians struck first in Game 1 behind a gem from Corey Kluber and dominant bullpen pitching from Andrew Miller and Cody Allen. The Chicago Cubs bounced back in Game 2 after Jake Arrieta took a no-hitter into the sixth inning.

Now Cleveland is three wins away from winning its first title since 1948, while the Cubs are three wins away from shedding their “Lovable Losers” moniker and capturing their first championship since 1908.

With that in mind, here is a look at the remaining games, as well as predictions for each team. The schedule is courtesy of MLB.com, and ticket information can be found at ScoreBig.com.

Remaining World Series Schedule

Breakdown and Prediction

The first thing that jumps out about the pitching matchups is the fact Cleveland will be using a starter on short rest every game after Friday’s contest.

Indians manager Terry Francona talked about using that strategy, per the Associated Press (via USA Today): “We tried to look at our team and how we best set up, and what’s in our best interest to win four games before the Cubs do, and that’s how we came to this conclusion.”

There is a reason the Indians are predicted to win Game 4 in Wrigley Field—Kluber. He already left the Chicago hitters helpless in Game 1 with six shutout innings, and he preserved his freshness for Saturday by throwing only 88 pitches in the process.

The Indians have the perfect combination of six innings from Kluber, two innings from Miller and a save from Allen when their ace starts the game. That will show up once again in Game 4.

Kluber has been essentially unhittable in the postseason with a sparkling 0.74 ERA in four starts. The the Cubs will want to do everything in their power to prevent a Game 7 in Cleveland with the 2014 American League Cy Young Award winner on the hill.

However, Cleveland’s advantage in the starting-pitching matchups begins and ends with Kluber.

Josh Tomlin finished with a pedestrian 4.40 ERA this season, although he has been impressive in the playoffs with just three earned runs allowed in 10.2 innings of work. That formidable stretch will end against a powerful Chicago lineup that has 28 combined runs in its last five games, which includes a shutout loss in the contest against Kluber.

Trevor Bauer is the other Cleveland starter, and Chicago already knocked him around once with six hits and two walks in 3.2 innings. He limited the damage to two earned runs, but that is not a strong enough performance when squaring off with the Cubs rotation.

That Chicago starting staff as a whole finished with the best ERA in baseball by a wide margin this year. Its 2.96 ERA was well ahead of the second-place Washington Nationals, who checked in at 3.60.

Fred Huebner of ESPN 1000 in Chicago thinks the rotation will prove to be the difference moving forward in this World Series:

Kyle Hendricks is next on the docket for Chicago. His confidence should be at an all-time high after he threw 7.1 scoreless innings and allowed just two hits in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series. He outdueled the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw and proved his overwhelming effectiveness at Wrigley Field once again.

According to ESPN.com, Hendricks finished with a 1.32 ERA and .201 batting average against in 95.1 innings in the Windy City this season.

Jon Lester is another Cy Young Award candidate alongside Hendricks, and he won’t match up against Kluber this time after he allowed three earned runs in 5.2 innings in Game 1.

Despite the lackluster outing, it is wise to trust the southpaw’s track record. He has a 2.60 ERA and 1.04 WHIP in 20 postseason appearances for Chicago and the Boston Red Sox. Lester also is a battled-tested veteran who has delivered on some of the biggest stages of his career. He sports a head-turning 1.35 ERA and 0.938 WHIP in four World Series starts, per Baseball Reference.

The Cubs will move from two Cy Young candidates to the 2015 National League Cy Young winner when Arrieta takes the ball again in Game 6. He already proved he can baffle the Cleveland lineup with Wednesday’s performance when he allowed just one earned run and two hits in 5.2 innings.

John Lackey squaring off with Kluber in Game 4 is not an ideal matchup for Chicago (even if Lackey has a 3.26 ERA in 25 career postseason appearances), but the team’s overall depth in the starting rotation is one reason it won an MLB-best 103 games this year.

It is also the reason the Cubs will lift the World Series trophy after six games in this series.

Prediction: Cubs in six

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

CLEVELAND — Don’t worry. Hitting savant Kyle Schwarber isn’t Superman all down the line. In some respects, he’s just like you and me.       

Take the private plane that winged him back to the Chicago Cubs on Monday night, his first trip to the majors since the devastating knee injury in early April. OK, so the private plane part might not be like you and me. But the accompanying boredom was.

“It was a long three hours,” Schwarber said.

Three hours and a million miles. That’s how long his trip back to the big leagues was this week. Private plane or no, the Wi-Fi was spotty and unworkable. He tried to watch one of his favorite television shows, The Blacklist, but no dice.

So what he had was plenty of time to think. As he reviewed his painful and laborious summer, there was no way he could envision what was up ahead.

But in one area, he had an idea.

Whack!

After not facing major league pitching since April 7, Schwarber stepped into the World Series with aplomb. After rapping a Game 1 double Tuesday, he knocked in two Game 2 runs to key the Cubs to a 5-1 win over the Cleveland Indians on Wednesday night to even the 2016 World Series at one game apiece.

Thwack!

The man who went 0-for-4 during the regular season before blowing out his knee against the Diamondbacks in Arizona is 3-for-7 with two walks and two RBI in nine plate appearances in these two games.

“I can see why Theo sent a plane for him,” Cleveland manager Terry Francona quipped, referring to Theo Epstein, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations. “I would too.

“That’s a lot to ask. But special players can do special things.”

It’s absurd, is what it is. You have a 23-year-old kid who has only played in 71 career MLB games at this point, essentially missed an entire season, missed the first two rounds of the postseason, and Chicago ushered him straight into a World Series.

“Most teams wouldn’t even do that,” Cubs second baseman/left fielder Ben Zobrist said. “No one else in history has done that, right?

“And to get hits in the World Series? It’s just crazy. It really is.”

Yes, Schwarber envisioned this. Well, sort of.

“You want to visualize what it’s going to be like when you come back so you’re not thrown off by what happens when you’re there,” he said. “You want to put yourself in good situations in your head, and hopefully they play out in the field.

“Visualization is a very powerful tool, and I believe in that.”

So instead of watching The Blacklist as he became the first player in history to jump from the Arizona Fall League’s Mesa Solar Sox straight into a World Series, he envisioned hits. He pictured success. He dreamed a thousand dreams over again, the ones he imagined when he was a kid, the same dreams other kids who get bored on plane rides dream. World Series, game on the line, runners on the bases, here comes Schwarber to the plate…

Crack!

It was early April when Schwarber blew out his left knee, and it was mid-April when he had a full reconstruction of his ACL ligament and a repair of his LCL ligament. The surgery was performed by Dr. Daniel Cooper, the team physician for the Dallas Cowboys, and the upshot of it was, work hard and you’ll be good as new next spring, kid.

All summer, as the Cubs played, Schwarber worked. His goal, he said, was to “dominate the day.”

“It was just constant grind,” he said. “There were days when I wasn’t feeling it.”

On those days, when the Cubs were home and in the clubhouse while Schwarber was rehabbing, players by the handful would look to pick him up. Led by reliever Pedro Strop, they would tell him, “You’ll be back by the World Series.” You know, well-meaning things to boost a friend’s confidence. But stuff maybe both of you know is a long shot.

When the Cubs were in Los Angeles during Games 3, 4 and 5 of the National League Championship Series against the Dodgers, the long shot moved onto their doorstep. At his six-month appointment, doctors cleared him to hit. Schwarber immediately phoned Epstein and asked for a chance. The Cubs sent him to the Arizona Fall League to see some pitching.

So now, Schwarber suddenly is locked in a battle with his second colossal problem of the year. Now, he faces reporters, and they ask him questions like the leadoff query following Game 2: Not to be disrespectful to anyone, Kyle, but is this game so easy that you can take six months off and do this?

Schwarber listened and grimaced.

“No, it’s not that easy, first off,” he said. “Baseball’s a crazy game. It will do crazy things to you.”

It will, and it has. Nobody outworks this kid. Ask any of the Cubs; they’ll tell you he was the first one in the clubhouse every day covered in sweat even though he had no chance of playing for months. For Schwarber, every day was Groundhog Day.

Work ethic? Check this out: During his brief time in Arizona, where he went 1-for-6 with one double and two walks for the Solar Sox, before and after the two games he played, he says he tracked roughly 1,300 pitches off of a pitching machine.

“I tried to set it to the nastiest setting that I could, to where it would be a really sharp break, just to train my eyes all over again,” he said.

“He’s insatiable with his work,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said.

Man, it shows. In Game 1 against Corey Kluber, who threw some of the filthiest pitches the Cubs have seen all season, Schwarber worked a full count in his first at-bat before striking out, scorched a double to right field his next time up and then battled for six pitches to draw a full-count walk in his third plate appearance against Kluber.

He hadn’t faced major league pitching since April 7, yet against a man who won the 2014 American League Cy Young Award, Schwarber battled as well as any other Cub.

“You see how he’s taking pitches that are just borderline,” Maddon said. “And that’s probably the most amazing part. Hitting the ball is one thing, but you can see he’s not jumpy. He’s seeing borderline pitches, staying off a ball, he’s not check-swinging and offering.

“That’s the part that’s really impressive to me.”

You can see why in July, when many folks thought acquiring Aroldis Chapman from the New York Yankees would cost them Schwarber, among other pieces, the Cubs figured out a path to the trade to keep him.

In July 2015, he was the MVP of the Futures Game. His uncle, Thomas Schwarber, pitched for Ohio State and in the Detroit Tigers system. Kyle, though, opted to attend Indiana University because he knew, despite his success as a middle linebacker at Middletown (Ohio) High School and all the recruiters who were wooing him, he wanted to play baseball. At Indiana, he could.

As recently as August 2015, he told me he still missed playing football because of the “physical factor.” Meaning: He missed hitting people.

But don’t think the football background contributed to his plow-forward determination through rehab this summer.

“No, I think it’s just my personality,” the Cubs’ first-round draft pick in 2014 told me Wednesday night. “That helps more than anything.”

He’s a keeper, in so many ways.

“You saw how he jacks everybody up,” Maddon said of the two RBI Wednesday. “Those couple of big hits he got, again, really, Anthony Rizzo responded well to it. The whole group did. It makes your lineup longer. It makes it thicker. It makes it better.

“Ben Zobrist is seeing better pitches right now because of that, too, I believe.”

The Cubs won 103 games this summer without Schwarber, so the natural question now is, how much better are they with him?

“Good question,” Zobrist said, pausing for a moment to ponder. “I don’t know. I think he certainly adds wins to the team. You talk about that WAR statistic, whatever…he probably would have added some wins to the equation if we had him all year, but we didn’t. He worked his tail off, and it’s huge.”

Third inning, Cubs clinging to a 1-0 lead with Rizzo on second and Zobrist on first. Schwarber got the green light on a 3-0 Trevor Bauer pitch and drilled it up the middle to score Rizzo.

“I was thinking, ‘Please swing,'” Rizzo said. “On 3-and-0, the pitcher doesn’t want to walk you, so he usually throws it down the middle of the plate.”

Said Kris Bryant: “Pretty much everybody here has the 3-and-0 green light, but it takes some guts to do that. It was awesome to see. I love when guys swing at 3-and-0.”

Yes, as Maddon said, you can see how Schwarber jacks everyone up. So now as this World Series heads for Chicago, will the kid be in the lineup Friday night to help jack up a Wrigley Field crowd already salivating at hosting its first World Series game since 1945?

As of Wednesday, doctors hadn’t cleared Schwarber to play defense. Maddon said he has total faith that the kid can play defense. The questions are, what about lateral movement? Quick stops? Change of direction?

“Those are the kinds of things I don’t know anything about,” Maddon said.

Best bet: The Cubs keep Schwarber out of the outfield at home, and Maddon picks a big moment to send him to the plate as a pinch hitter.

But that’s all for Game 3 Friday. As the rain poured down late Wednesday night, Schwarber and his teammates headed for their flight home, an airplane that certainly was going to have good Wi-Fi and better company for Schwarber. His long road back has delivered him into the World Series.

What a place to be.

“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 until it ends.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.       

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The postseason of the bullpens ran into an everlasting truth in the first two games of the World Series.

The team with the better starting pitcher still wins most games. And the team with more good starting pitchers has an edge over the team that doesn’t have enough.

Officially, this World Series is tied at a win apiece after Wednesday night’s 5-1 Chicago Cubs victory in Game 2. Realistically, the Cubs have a significant edge over the Cleveland Indians for the same reason they had a big edge in Game 2.

Overall, their starting pitchers are better.

Maybe you didn’t see it in Game 1, because Corey Kluber is a true ace who was able to outpitch Cubs star Jon Lester. You sure did see it in Game 2, because while Cubs starter Jake Arrieta was a perfect fit for the assignment, Trevor Bauer was just an Indians version of Julio Urias or Kenta Maeda.

Remember them? They were the guys the Los Angeles Dodgers had to send to the mound in Games 4 and Game 5 of the NLCS after back-to-back shutouts put the Cubs in a 2-1 hole in the series.

Urias went 3.2 innings. The Dodgers lost big.

Maeda went 3.2 innings. The Dodgers lost big.

Soon enough, the Cubs were out of the hole and headed to the World Series.

So there the Cubs were Wednesday, trying to recover from their Game 1 loss to Kluber. They turned to Arrieta, who won a Cy Young Award last year. The Indians went to Bauer, who has talent but can’t always harness it.

Bauer went 3.2 innings. Guess who won big?

It helped, obviously, that Arrieta didn’t give up a hit for the first five innings. It helped that the Cubs had Kyle Schwarber, whose miraculous return looks more amazing by the day.

But on a night where the cold weather made pitching difficult, the Cubs had a starter who was up for the job. The Indians didn’t.

Arrieta threw too many pitches (98 in 5.2 innings), and he admitted to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal that the cold weather kept him from getting a consistent feel of the ball.

“I did my best just to make some pitches,” he said.

That’s the difference between a guy who has won a Cy Young and a guy who has good stuff but is still far from figuring things out. Arrieta made pitches to get himself out of trouble, while Bauer kept making pitches that got him into trouble.

For all the questions after Game 1 about whether Andrew Miller’s 46 pitches would keep him out of Game 2, what really kept him out of Game 2 was the starting pitching mismatch. By making sure the Indians never got the lead, Arrieta kept Miller safely stowed away in the Indians bullpen.

Miller could still have a major impact on this World Series. So could Kluber, with the Indians making plans to start him on short rest in Game 4 and thus have him available to start a Game 7 (also on short rest).

But it’s going to take more than the two of them for the Indians to win it. They’re going to need a good performance from Josh Tomlin, who starts Game 3 against National League ERA champ Kyle Hendricks. They’re going to need someone to give them a chance in a Game 5 and a Game 6.

The Cubs have four legitimate World Series starters, with John Lackey set to go in Game 4. The Indians would have had the same thing if Danny Salazar (forearm) and Carlos Carrasco (hand) hadn’t got hurt in September.

It’s a credit to this team that it got this far without Carrasco and Salazar (who returned for the World Series and pitched out of the bullpen Wednesday). They deserve their place in the World Series, and they still could win it.

As big an edge as the Cubs starters have on paper, it’s no bigger than the edge Florida Marlins ace Kevin Brown had over Chad Ogea in Games 2 and 6 of the 1997 World Series. Ogea won both of those games and would have been the World Series MVP if the Indians had held on in Game 7.

The Indians are going to need another Ogea this week, another relative unknown to shine. Otherwise, the Cubs’ rotation edge will likely play out the way it did Wednesday night.

They had the better starting pitcher. They won the game.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Jake Arrieta, line one is for you. It’s destiny calling—and it’s urgent.

Don’t worry. We’re not going to get too melodramatic after the Chicago Cubs‘ dispiriting 6-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians in Game 1 of the World Series at Progressive Field on Tuesday.

Wednesday’s Game 2, which will begin an hour early at 7:08 p.m. ET on Fox because of the threat of rain, isn’t a must-win for Chicago.

It’s a best-of-seven series; the math is simple.

It is, however, a really-should-win, as well as an opportunity for Arrieta to overcome his checkered postseason past.

Overall, Arrieta owns a 4.11 ERA in 30.2 career playoff innings. That screams mediocrity, but the story is far more complex.

All of Arrieta’s postseason appearances have come over the past two seasons with Chicago. In the 2015 National League Wild Card Game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, he twirled nine shutout innings with no walks and 11 strikeouts.

That same year, Arrieta won the NL Cy Young Award with a 1.77 ERA and 236 strikeouts in 229 innings. Still, he wobbled in his next two postseason starts.

He surrendered four earned runs in 5.2 innings in Game 3 of the division series against the St. Louis Cardinals, which the Cubs ultimately won 8-6. Then he gave up four earned runs in five innings in a Game 2 loss in the National League Championship Series to the New York Mets.

The Cubs were swept in that series. As for Arrieta, the sample-size explanation jibed at the time.

Arrieta, however, slumped in the second half of 2016 and particularly in September and October, when he allowed 27 hits, 11 walks and 15 earned runs in 29.1 innings.

That fecklessness leaked into the playoffs. He yielded 12 hits and six earned runs in his starts in Game 3 of the division series versus the San Francisco Giants and Game 3 of the NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers, both Cubs losses.

Chicago maintained its momentum and nailed down the franchise’s first pennant since 1945 thanks to an offense that leads all postseason qualifiers with 48 runs scored and a pitching staff that has gotten superlative performances from the likes of Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks. 

Lester went unbeaten in the Cubs’ series against San Francisco and Los Angeles, rekindling the October magic that defined his stint with the Boston Red Sox, but he took the loss in Game 1 of the World Series.

Hendricks, meanwhile, mustered a sparkling performance in the clinching Game 6 against the Dodgers on Saturday, facing the minimum number of hitters through 7.1 shutout innings.

Skipper Joe Maddon and the Cubs brain trust, however, opted to push Hendricks back to Game 3 of the World Series, likely to afford him extra rest and exploit the 1.32 ERA he posted at Wrigley this season.

With veteran John Lackey locked in for Game 4, that leaves Arrieta on the hill for Game 2. Fox Sports’ Jon Morosi suggested the Cubs’ rotation was set up “nicely.”

It’s hyperbole to say Arrieta is all that stands between Chicago and a 2-0 series deficit. Indians relievers Andrew Miller and Cody Allen, however, demonstrated again Tuesday that an early Tribe lead is nearly insurmountable.

Cleveland ace Corey Kluber threw six shutout innings and made strikeout history, so dish credit in his direction.

Miller and Allen, though, recorded the final nine outs, six via strikeout. They’ve now combined for 22.1 scoreless playoff frames in 2016 with 39 whiffs.

Arrieta’s directive is to tamp down early offense. He needs to keep Cleveland off the board and give the Cubs a chance to draw first blood, neutralizing the threat of the Miller/Allen two-headed demon.

Arrieta posted a 3.59 ERA on the road this season compared to a 2.62 mark at home. So Maddon isn’t exactly playing the splits.

Instead, it’s time for the 30-year-old right-hander to conjure the guy who won the Senior Circuit’s highest pitching honor a season ago and authored two of MLB‘s last three no-hitters.

“It’s why you play the whole season,” Arrieta said, per Paul Skrbina of the Chicago Tribune. “To be in this position.”

Arrieta’s drop-off wasn’t the result of some cataclysmic event. He sported a 1.56 ERA at the end of May. Overall, however, his command fizzled, as he issued 76 walks in the regular season compared to 48 in 2015.

“It’s hard to repeat what he did last year,” Cubs catcher Miguel Montero said, per USA Today‘s Josh Peter. “He hasn’t pitched as well, but the stuff is still there.”

The point is, he’s not broken. He’s merely on the fritz. This is the time of year when unlikely heroes rise and stars wake from their slumber.

Locked and loaded as they were in Game 1, Indians hitters own a .219 postseason average. That number drops to .209 against righties.

“I would say the only problem Jake Arrieta has is excellent levels,” super-agent Scott Boras said of his client Oct. 18, per Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune. “It’s the old story. Most people have a penthouse. He happens to have two or three floors. That’s where Jake is. Any one of the floors, we’re fine with.”

The Cubs would be fine with a quality outing and a chance to hand it off to their own pen, including flamethrower Aroldis Chapman.

Arrieta’s counterpart in Game 2, right-hander Trevor Bauer, is no sure bet as he recovers from a freak drone injury. 

Arrieta has every opportunity to be the better starter. He has a shot at high-profile redemption and an automatic pass to the annals of Cubbies lore.

Destiny is calling. Now, we need an answer.

All statistics current as of Tuesday and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

At the risk of going out on a limb for a team that hasn’t won a World Series in 108 years or even scored in a World Series in 71 years…

Don’t worry. The Chicago Cubs still have this.

Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday did not go as the Cubs planned. They presumably planned on preventing the Cleveland Indians from scoring runs while netting a few of their own against Corey Kluber and friends. Instead, Cleveland won going away, 6-0.

And so, the Cubs are still looking for their first World Series win since beating the Detroit Tigers in Game 6 of the 1945 Fall Classic. They’re also still looking for their first World Series run since the eighth inning of Game 7.

More troubling than that history, though, is the recent history of teams that have lost the first game of the World Series. Take it away, Jayson Stark of ESPN.com:

The latest odds don’t paint as ugly a picture, but they’re still not good. According to FanGraphs, Cleveland now has a 54.1 percent chance of winning its first World Series in 68 years.

But enough of these scary numbers.

Just because the Indians landed the first blow doesn’t mean everything has changed. The Cubs were heavy favorites with a 64.5 percent chance of victory coming into the series. And even if they’re not officially favorites after dropping Game 1, that should change quickly.

There are good reasons the Cubs lost Game 1, including two homers by Roberto Perez and stellar relief pitching by—who else?—Andrew Miller and Cody Allen. But the Cubs also played better than the 6-0 final indicates. Without Perez’s homers, the Indians would have needed a swinging bunt by Jose Ramirez and a Brandon Guyer hit-by-pitch to score runs. Cubs hitters had some good at-bats, especially against Miller in his two innings of work.

“We didn’t play as bad as that looked,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said afterward, via Richard Justice of MLB.com.

The deciding factor in Game 1 was Kluber‘s pitching. The 2014 Cy Young winner pitched like his best self, giving up only four hits and striking out nine in six scoreless frames.

You could have seen this coming. The Cubs are a patient team that specializes in working pitchers. Kluber is a strike-thrower with great stuff. He beat the Cubs the same way Clayton Kershaw and Rich Hill temporarily silenced them in the National League Championship Series: by going right at them.

Assuming Mother Nature doesn’t wash the game away, the Cubs will get a nice change of pace against Trevor Bauer in Game 2.

Bauer’s 4.26 ERA this season kept his career ERA safely above 4.00. Recently, his issues with walks (3.5 BB/9) and home runs (1.2 HR/9) came back to haunt him in the second half. He’s just the kind of pitcher the Cubs, No. 1 in the National League in walks and top five in homers, can handle.

And if an offensive barrage doesn’t result in an early shower for Bauer, the finger injury that has already taken him off the mound once this October could do the trick.

Either way, an early exit from Bauer would spell trouble for Cleveland. It would require Francona to get the best out of his bullpen. That basically means the best out of Miller, and he likely won’t be up to it after throwing 46 pitches in Game 1.

As such, the Cubs evening this series could be a matter of them getting quality innings out of Jake Arrieta. That’s an iffier proposal than it was this time a year ago. But he’s still a far safer bet than Bauer and Johnny Wholestaff.

The dominoes will line up nicely if the Cubs do win Game 2. They’ll be heading back to Wrigley Field needing just three more wins, and with the matchups in their favor.

Game 3 will feature Kyle Hendricks against Josh Tomlin. That’s a pitcher with the lowest ERA in baseball (2.13) and an even lower ERA at home (1.32) up against a pitcher who’s good, but who has only one of Kluber‘s qualities. Tomlin is a strike-thrower, but not with overwhelming swing-and-miss stuff.

Game 4 will be John Lackey up against either Kluber on three days’ rest, Ryan Merritt or Danny Salazar, or some combination of Merritt and Salazar. Either way, that game will also favor Chicago.

Kluber was not sharp when he started on short rest in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, surrendering two runs in five innings. Merritt is sort of a left-handed Tomlin. Salazar is like Bauer, except wilder and minus any stamina after being on the disabled list since early September.

If the Cubs force a Game 5, their rotation would be flipped back over again for Jon Lester. He still has a 2.61 ERA even after allowing three earned runs in five and two-thirds innings in Game 1, and even that line overstates how much he struggled.

If the series shifts back to Cleveland for Games 6 and 7, the Cubs could rest easy knowing Kyle Schwarber is back.

Just six months after he suffered a major knee injury, the Cubs appeared to be indulging in wishful thinking when they threw Schwarber into their Game 1 lineup. After taking only a couple of at-bats in the Arizona Fall League, making him face Kluber seemed cruel and/or unusual.

Instead, Schwarber darn near took him deep.

That wasn’t Schwarber‘s only bright moment. He also worked Miller for a walk in the seventh inning, becoming just the second left-handed hitter to draw a walk off the lefty relief ace this season.

“You could see on the finish sometimes maybe the brace grabs him just a little bit. I kind of noticed that,” Maddon said of Schwarber in his postgame presser, via MLB.com. “Otherwise there was no kind of negative atmosphere surrounding his at-bats. I thought they were outstanding, actually.”

Although Schwarber can only DH in games at Progressive Field, that still makes him another weapon in Maddon‘s arsenal for this series. The rest of it, meanwhile, is a reminder of why the Cubs were such heavy favorites coming into the series.

The Cubs didn’t win 103 games this season by accident. They had the best starting rotation. They gained one of the best bullpens in the second half. They had one of the best offenses. They had the best defense.

The Indians are awfully good, but not as deep. That didn’t matter in Game 1 because they mostly beat the Cubs with their best guys. They can’t do that in every game. As this series involves more players, the more it will favor the Cubs.

So, there. Now that I’ve gone and stood up for the Cubs, what could possibly go wrong?

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

There’s a growing conundrum plaguing the minds of baseball’s best executives. To a man, each is searching for the sport’s most elusive prize: a shutdown bullpen.

See, hundreds of pitchers are drafted and signed by all 30 organizations every year. But none enters the sport’s professional ranks wanting to pitch in relief. Each has intentions on being a starter, as is evident by the oft-used phrase “he was sent to the bullpen,” which has an inherently negative connotation.

Baseball’s best all-time reliever, Mariano Rivera, began his MLB career as a starter. Such was the case for prized closers Kenley Jansen of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Aroldis Chapman of the NL champion Chicago Cubs, as both dabbled with starting staffs in the minor leagues.

The difficulty in evaluating which young pitcher may be an effective reliever is difficult because nearly every player is initially being judged as a starter. So when players like Jansen, a right-hander, and Chapman, a lefty, have perfected the art of late-inning relief, they become invaluable to teams.

And both will command huge contracts when they enter free agency this winter. Given the lack of starting pitching available in the upcoming free-agent class, those teams looking to bolster their pitching staffs will have to do so by improving the back end.

It’s Jansen, though, that should be given the most consideration by those teams.

The two pitchers are this close—Chapman would be the best of consolation prizes. Jansen’s 47 saves, though, were more than Chapman’s 36. The former did blow six saves to the southpaw’s three, but Jansen was put into 14 more save situations than Chapman.

Chapman’s measurables are eye-popping. His fastball tops 100 miles per hour as frequently as a stock car, while Jansen’s hovers in the mid-90s. But as one MLB executive talked about the evaluation of pitchers—both starters and relievers—earlier this season, he said it’s important to try to find people who can get outs.

In that case, Jansen wins in a photo finish.

Chapman had a WHIP of 0.862 this season, and Jansen’s was 0.670. Jansen’s 3.2 WAR led all relievers this season and was 0.5 better than Chapman, according to FanGraphs.

Sure, the difference is minuscule, but teams won’t look to sign both. As they decide which player to make the priority, it’s these kind of finite details executives will work through.

It’s like being the judge of the Miss America pageant. You’re deciding between All-Star-caliber players. They’re two of the top five relievers in the game.

But the value of a reliever is never greater than in the playoffs, where Jansen provides a team with more versatility.

That was evident by the flurry of deadline deals for relievers, including one that sent Chapman to the Cubs and ALCS MVP Andrew Miller to the Cleveland Indians.

The value of a shutdown inning in a five- or seven-game series is far greater than in a regular season when a team needs 90-plus wins to earn a division title. A reliever would never win the MVP award, but Miller was able to win the ALCS MVP because he was called upon to pitch in the series’ critical moments.

A reliever can separate himself as a postseason stalwart with the ability to pitch in different situations, or pitch longer than he may have otherwise been used to in the regular season.

Both Chapman and Jansen were, generally, ninth-inning players this year.

But Jansen proved he has the ability to earn six-out saves and pitch in non-save situations. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts used Jansen during critical middle-inning situations and for six-out saves.

In the NLCS, Chapman pitched in four games and Jansen appeared in three. But Jansen threw 6.1 innings and didn’t allow an earned run. Chapman pitched 4.2 innings and gave up two earned runs.

Twice in the series Chapman looked uncomfortable throwing in the eighth inning.

He was inserted into the eighth frame of Game 1 with no outs and the bases loaded. Manager Joe Maddon thought Chapman was the Cubs’ best chance at getting out of the jam and into the ninth inning with the lead.

But after striking out the first two batters, Chapman gave up a two-run single, which tied the game at three. The two runs Chapman gave up came in a non-save situation in a Game 5 win.

Chapman only has one postseason outing in which he pitched more than an inning. That came in Saturday’s Game 6 win when he recorded five outs in a non-save situation.

Jansen did it three times this year, including throwing 2.1 innings in Game 5 of the NLDS and three on Saturday where he faced the minimum nine batters.

That kind of versatility is important because, in theory, a team’s worst pitchers are its middle relievers. In an ideal scenario, a starting pitcher would hand the ball to the team’s closer.

Jansen’s ability to pitch longer outings bridges that gap, whereas a team on which Chapman plays is more likely to have to rely on other relievers to get him the ball.

That’s among the reasons Rivera was so good: In 96 postseason appearances, he pitched 141 innings.

Of course, any team would love to have Chapman. He can throw harder than anyone who has ever stepped onto the rubber. But remember: It’s about getting outs.

He just gets fewer than Jansen, which means that Jansen answers more of the questions that surround baseball’s elusive prize.

Seth Gruen is a national baseball columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

For the baseball fan who appreciates the historical aspect of the game, the Chicago Cubs clinching the National League Championship Series on Saturday night with a 5-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers set up a dream World Series against the Cleveland Indians.

Before we get into the final teams remaining, here’s a look at the postseason bracket:

Odds To Win World Series

Odds relayed by Odds Shark

Cleveland Indians: 163-100

Chicago Cubs: 50-59

Predictions

Cubs defeat Indians in seven games for World Series title

These will be two teams with conflicting amounts of rest heading into the World Series. Come Tuesday, the Indians will have had over five days of rest while the Cubs will have had two. 

There are opposite views that come up about rest. Some believe a break is good for a weary team that has played over 170 games in a season. Others will say it quells the momentum gained through a busy October schedule. 

One thing that is certain is the dominant Indians pitching is coming into the Fall Classic fresh off resounding performances in the American League Division Series and American League Championship Series. 

In eight games, they went 7-1 with with a 1.77 ERA while allowing just 15 runs. Though it’s been a makeshift rotation of sorts behind Corey Kluber, Cleveland’s bullpen has been stellar behind Andrew Miller, who struck out 14 batters in 7.2 innings in the ALCS:

However, Cleveland’s offense has struggled in the postseason, batting just .208. They’ve relied on the long ball during October, launching 11 home runs compared to their 26 RBI. 

They’re going to be meeting a Cubs team that has allowed just four home runs in 10 postseason games, so that option could be in jeopardy in the World Series. 

On top of that, the Chicago offense has ignited to look like the one that led the majors with 4.99 runs per game during the regular season.

After being shut out twice in a row by the Dodgers in Games 2 and 3 of the NLCS, the Cubs scored 23 runs on 33 hits over their last three games. 

They’ve also scored 21 more runs than the Indians have this postseason, although the Cubs have played three more games.

But with their ability to get after Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw on Saturday, Cubs bats look unstoppable:

Heading into the Fall Classic, the Chicago Cubs are playing a more well-rounded brand of baseball, which is why they’ll squeak out their first World Series title in 108 years in seven games. 

Stats courtesy of MLB.com.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

I went looking to see how Bleacher Report covered things the last time the Chicago Cubs went to the World Series. No luck.

I couldn’t find any of our stories about the last Cleveland Indians‘ World Series title, either.

We weren’t around in 1945 (the last time the Cubs made it) or in 1948 (the last time the Indians won it) or even in 1997 (the last time the Indians played in it).

So yeah, you’re going to be watching history when the 2016 World Series opens Tuesday night at Progressive Field. Cubs vs. Indians: Two teams that have been around forever; two teams that haven’t won in forever; two teams that won something pretty important this week.

Tuesday night will get here soon enough. First, let’s take a quick look back on how all of this happened, how and why the Cubs beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS and the Indians beat the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALCS.

Catch your breath and enjoy the first Bleacher Report League Championship Series Awards to feature the Cubs and Indians.

Begin Slideshow

CHICAGO — So, 71 years later, this is what it looks like when the Chicago Cubs storm into the World Series…

Anthony Rizzo hitting everything Clayton Kershaw threw him on the screws: a double, a long ball, a fly ball in the first inning that Los Angeles Dodgers left fielder Andrew Toles plumb dropped. Was that a goat impeding his vision?

Kris Bryant hungrily taking a seven-decades-sized bite into Kershaw’s 95 mph cheese and looping an RBI single to right field just two batters into the bottom of the first, immediately flipping the switch from anxiety to anticipation.

Javier Baez alertly doing it again, letting a line drive skip in order to short-hop it, starting another double play and stamping another exclamation mark onto his postseason wizardry.

Kyle Hendricks, a 26-year-old right-hander acquired from Texas for Ryan Dempster four years ago, handling the Dodgers with the touch of a jeweler and the heart of a lion, mowing through 17 in a row after a rare error on Baez in the second.

Wrigley Field, stuffed with 42,386 for the game of their lives, those fans leaning into this 5-0 World Series-punching ticket like few other games in the park’s 102-year history, inhaling nervously, exhaling in relief, screaming, singing, dancing, pleading and, in many cases, shedding tears of joy.

No fear. No goats. No errors.

The Chicago Cubs, lovable winners.

“Perception,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said when this historical event was finished, standing near the pitcher’s mound, thousands of fans still in their seats, hundreds of people on the field, addressing how life had permanently changed by evening’s end. “That’s the big part of it.

“The thing I was always hearing was that the Cubs are lovable losers. I never quite understood that. That’s not the way I was raised.”

It’s not the way he’s raising these young Cubbies, clearly.

“Listening to talk about superstition and all that nonsense, that dragged a lot of people down,” Maddon continued. “I think the perception changes.”

These Cubs are so cool, display so much grace under pressure, that Steve Bartman could have tossed out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 6 and it wouldn’t have fazed them one iota.

So this, too, is what it looks like when the Cubs charge into the World Series: Hall of Famer Billy Williams standing on the field amid the celebration, nearly swallowed by the roaring wall of sound in the minutes after the final out and practically being overcome with emotion.

“I think of all the fellas I played with like Ernie [Banks] and Ron Santo,” Williams said of his two departed teammates. “They’re not here to see it, but I’m thinking about them. Like Jackie Gleason said, ‘How sweet it is!’”

Williams continued: “They’re up there celebrating, too. This is similar to what I thought it would be. I look out at the fans, the full house, the people on the street. You might have 100,000 or 200,000 people out there.

“Everywhere I go in Chicago, people come up to me and say, ‘This is the year! This is the year!’…

“This is really, really great. I can’t hardly explain the feeling I have.”

On Tuesday in Cleveland, the Cubs will play in their first World Series game since Oct. 10, 1945. A Cubs lineup featuring Stan Hack and Peanuts Lowrey was beaten by Hal Newhouser and the Detroit Tigers in Game 7 that day. Two weeks later, the United Nations was founded. Shortly after that, the first ballpoint pens went on sale in New York.

Ballpoint pens?

“This is only the beginning, you know, for myself and for this squad,” shortstop Addison Russell promised. “I’m excited. I’m excited to see what more we can do and what limits we can push. If we can do this in two seasons…”

After winning 97 games last year before running into the wood chipper that was the New York Mets’ pitching staff in the NLCS, they blasted back this year with 103 more wins and raced to baseball’s best overall record.

They took to heart Maddon’s message from day one of spring training: Embrace the target, win every pitch, win every inning, buy into the team.

So this, too, is what it looks like when the Cubs crash the World Series after 71 years: Jason Heyward, who signed an eight-year, $184 million deal last winter, taking his place on the bench for Game 6 Saturday night as Maddon inserted into right field Albert Almora Jr., the first first-round draft pick (sixth overall) of president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer after they took over in late 2011.

Heyward’s reaction?

“It’s about the team all season, but even more so in the postseason,” the outfielder said after what seemed like thousands of bottles of Blanc de Blancs champagne had been sprayed, poured, drank and saved. “It’s been that way all year, so many different players helping.

“Joe told us in spring training, if everyone on the roster does one thing positive every night, that’s 25 positive things every night. That’s a lot of positives.”

All of those positives over six weeks of spring training plus 162 regular-season games, then another four more against the San Francisco Giants in the Division Series and, well, six more against the Dodgers in this NLCS…hey, that’s a ton of positives. And at every turn when the Cubs had the chance to hit the skids, they turned it around.

There was the two-week slump just before the All-Star break. The nerves of Game 4 in San Francisco. Maddon reiterated late Saturday night how much he really, really wanted to avoid a Game 5 with the Giants because, even though it would have been in Wrigley Field, he was extremely angst-ridden about the prospect of what Johnny Cueto could do to them.

Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson always said that 1984 was his toughest season because of the way the Detroit Tigers raced out to the record-setting 35-5 start. By June, expectations were so high that all that was left for the Tigers to accomplish was to win the World Series. Sparky always said after that, the rest of that summer he feared being the manager to screw it all up.

If Maddon or the Cubs ever had any of that trepidation, they never let on. But when Dodgers pinch hitter Yasiel Puig bounced to into a 6-4-3 double play, Russell to Baez to Rizzo, with closer Aroldis Chapman on the mound, it was as if the lid popped straight off a pressure cooker.

Unleashed, Wrigley Field sent an emotional howl up to the heavens. Couples took selfies in the stands with the mob of celebrating Cubs on the field behind them. Sons high-fived fathers.

Catcher Willson Contreras hurled his glove up toward the stars, then raced to embrace Chapman.

“One more time!” Contreras shrieked to Chapman, referring to Cleveland and the World Series. “One more time! We’ve got to do this one more time!”

Thirty minutes after the game, Contreras, 24, and his glove had yet to be reunited.

“I don’t know where it’s at,” he said. “That was my first reaction when I saw the double play. It’s amazing.”

Everything about this night, this day, this summer in Wrigley Field was and is amazing.

So this, too, is what it looks like when the Chicago Cubs and the World Series meet again, 71 years later: Epstein walking his dog, a mutt named Winston, earlier in the day, through his Wrigleyville neighborhood, encountering all sorts of well-wishers.

“Yeah, walking the dog, people are very into it, as they should be,” said Epstein, who lives seven blocks from Wrigley Field, in those final, jittery hours before the night that will be remembered forever.

“I love being in a city that’s playing October baseball where you can just feel everyone captivated by the ballclub, everyone walking around tired from staying up late, prioritizing baseball above all else. It’s a great phenomenon.”

So, too, is Baez, and Rizzo, and Bryant. And Hendricks, and Russell, and Maddon.

“A lot of them are in their early 20s, and they’re not burdened by that stuff,” Epstein said of the curse.

Nor will they be, ever again.

No fear. No goats. No errors.

The Chicago Cubs, lovable winners.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Kyle Schwarber’s powerful bat has been absent from the Chicago Cubs lineup since the third game of the 2016 season, when the outfielder suffered a torn ACL and LCL. His availability for the World Series has yet to be determined.

Continue for updates.

Latest on Schwarber’s Rehab

Monday, Oct. 24

Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com reported Schwarber will serve as a designated hitter in the Arizona Fall League on Monday and will fly to Cleveland to join the Cubs afterward.

Epstein Comments on Schwarber’s Status

Saturday, Oct. 22

“He’s made it to a best-case scenario after six months,” Cubs president Theo Epstein said to Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com regarding Schwarber’s recovery. “We’re not ruling anything in; we’re not ruling anything out. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves. We have a lot of work here before this becomes pertinent.”

Schwarber Has Missed Most of Cubs’ Historic Season

The second-year outfielder suffered the injury when he collided with teammate Dexter Fowler while pursuing a fly ball during an April 7 game against the Arizona Diamondbacks:

Schwarber underwent surgery April 19 and missed the remainder of the regular season.

But Epstein suggested the outfielder is on the cusp of making an unlikely return if the Cubs win one more game thanks to his hard work during rehabilitation, per Rogers:

It was a pleasant surprise. We got news that was better than expected. …

He asked for a chance to do this. With as hard as Kyle has worked and as much as this means to him — and potentially us — we wanted to give him that opportunity. …

We’re going to evaluate him day to day from a medical standpoint and a baseball standpoint.

With the Cubs having made it to the World Series for the first time since 1945, they could add a bat that hit 16 home runs with 43 RBI in just 69 games last season as they try and clinch their first title since 1908.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com