Kuzul

The Loveable Losers can’t afford to lose again.

Cleveland took a 3-1 lead in the World Series on Saturday night, leaving the Chicago Cubs on the brink of adding another season to a title drought dating back to 1908.

In the process, Cleveland now has registered as many wins at Wrigley Field during the World Series (two) as the Cubs have in their entire history, per ESPN Stats & Information.  

Cleveland’s first chance to end the series will be Game 5 on Sunday.

You can also stream the game on Fox Sports Go.

Certainly, the Cubs will be pleased to be done with Corey Kluber for the time being. He’s now held the Cubs to a lone run in 12.0 innings pitched this World Series, with 15 strikeouts, nine hits allowed and one walk. 

Andrew Miller has also played a huge role in all three of Cleveland’s wins, pitching a total of 5.1 innings and allowing one run on three hits, two walks and eight strikeouts. The combination of Kluber and Miller stifled the Cubs once again in Game 4, leaving a dim light at the end of the tunnel for the Cubbies.

After all, the Indians will call on Miller at some point again if the Cubs can prolong this Series. And Kluber will loom in Game 7 if Chicago makes it that far. 

But the Cubs can take some solace in the fact they actually managed to score against both Kluber and Miller in Game 4. Or that they can turn to Jon Lester in Game 5 and potentially Jake Arrieta in Game 6 and Kyle Hendricks in Game 7.

Still, Lester knows his work is cut out for him.

“You have a lot of contact in that lineup. So that puts pressure on your defense when you’re able to do that,” he said per ESPN.com. “When you don’t strike out a lot, that puts pressure on your defense and makes you continually execute pitches. And I think that’s where they wear the starting pitcher down and get to that bullpen early.”

So what are the keys to the game for the Cubs as they hope to stay alive?

• A strong performance from Lester
• An early lead

“So the big thing again is to grab the lead somehow,” manager Joe Maddon noted, per the ESPN.com report. “Grab the lead, hold onto the lead. You don’t want to try to fight from behind on these guys because that trilogy (relievers Miller, Bryan Shaw and closer Cody Allen) and they’re throwing out there is pretty good.”

Indeed, Cleveland’s formula for success has been to score early, rely on the bullpen and make defensive moves to limit the chances of allowing any runs late in the game. It’s a tactic that Terry Francona has orchestrated to near perfection this offseason and one the Cubs can’t allow him to utilize in Game 5.

But the Cubs also need their bats to wake up. In their three losses in this World Series, they’ve scored a total of two runs. In their one win, they put five on the board. 

Kris Bryant is 1-for-14. Addison Russell and Javier Baez have just two hits apiece. The team can’t call on its best hitter in the Series, Kyle Schwarber, who hasn’t been cleared to play in the field.

The Cubs have the depth and talent to swing their way back into this series, especially against Trevor Bauer and Josh Tomlin. It will be key in Game 5 that the Cubs get to Bauer early. If Cleveland’s starter can give the Indians quality innings and hand the bullpen a lead in the later innings, the Cubs will likely be staring down another loss.

And another season with the curse intact.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.

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HERZLIYA PITUACH, Israel — On Monday night, Dan Shapiro stood outside the American embassy in Tel Aviv and pressed a button that bathed the edifice in pink to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

If Shapiro, who has served as the United States ambassador to Israel since 2011, had a say, the embassy might next be illuminated in blue and red to honor his beloved Chicago Cubs.

“It probably would have to come out of my pocket,” Shapiro joked at his home here during the wee hours of Thursday morning while watching a live broadcast of the Cubs’ 5–1 win over the Cleveland Indians that squared the 2016 World Series at a game apiece.

Or maybe he could seek a special budgetary allocation from his ultimate boss and fellow Chicago sports fan, President Barack Obama.

Obama, of course, touts his love of the White Sox, the Cubs’ intracity rivals, who broke their own World Series drought in 2005, just over a year before Shapiro began consulting on foreign policy for the then-Illinois senator’s presidential run.

Shapiro said that he and Obama both love their teams while harboring no animosity toward the other Windy City club.

When Obama tweeted congratulations to the Cubs for reaching the World Series, Shapiro retweeted it.

Still, while Shapiro said he appreciates that Obama “comes by his being a White Sox fan honestly,” he wonders if the First Fan sometimes goes too far. 

“When he threw out the first pitch at a [Washington] Nationals game with a White Sox hat, I thought: Really?”

The two men don’t often banter about sports, in person or long distance, and there’s been no Cubs-related smack talk this October.

Not that Shapiro, a Champaign, Illinois, native, is loath to dish some bull—or bear or cub—to everyone else when it comes to his favorite professional franchises.

Last spring, he posted congratulations on Facebook to the Golden State Warriors for breaking the NBA record for wins in a regular season. But it was accompanied by a picture of a T-shirt with the Chicago Bulls logo—the previous record holder—and the caution: “Don’t mean a thing without the ring.”

He’s posted remarks and photos on the Cubs all season long, including while attending two games in July at Wrigley Field. This spot-on comment following Chicago’s World Series Game 1 loss was among them: “One thing I know about [manager] Joe Maddon and these Cubs: They don’t get down over a loss, and they come right back fighting the next day. Jake [Arrieta] is on the mound in Game 2. I like our chances.”

For that game, Shapiro greeted me at 1:30 a.m., about a half-hour before Arrieta‘s first pitch. He sported a Cubs cap and wore the official jersey of Addison Russell, his daughter Merav’s favorite player, over a team T-shirt. Next to the big-screen television in his office, Cubs nesting dolls sat on a shelf, just above Obama’s book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters.

Atop a lounge chair were arrayed two Cubs caps, a Cubs yarmulke and a Wrigley Field giveaway “W” towel for waving purposes. Shapiro’s wife, Julie Fisher, a Minnesotan, slept upstairs throughout the game but had thoughtfully placed yellow Post-it notes across the coffee table, one letter handwritten on each. The message?: GO CUBS. THIS IS THE YEAR.

By game’s end, just after 6 a.m. local time, Shapiro, too, was bushed—but giddily so. Indians catcher Roberto Perez grounded to Addison Russell to seal the Cubs’ first victory in 71 years in a World Series game.

Shapiro screamed, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Meg Ryan-in-the deli-like, rushed over to high-five each of his three daughters and led them in an ear-splitting chant of “This. Is. The. Year.” that must have shaken Julie’s bed.

The dude is a regular fan working as an envoy in an important posting. He just happens to be living in a U.S. government-owned mansion in this upscale neighborhood as a result of that posting.

He shares some of those same qualities to the man signing his checks. Obama is “a normal person who happened to become president. Part of that was a guy who liked going to ballgames,” Shapiro said.

“What I have seen of him up close and as a more distant observer is that he is someone who, with all his responsibilities and all on his plate, follows sports. So when teams come to the White House [after winning championships], he’s probably followed the team.”

Shapiro said he has yet to be invited to the White House’s residential quarters to watch any games.

He’d also like to golf with him someday soon. Someone who has is Alan Solow, a longtime Obama donor and a fellow Chicagoan.

When they played in a foursome at Olympia Fields Country Club south of Chicago on Oct. 8, the Cubs-Giants National League Division Series was just getting underway, and sports, not politics, dominated the chatter.

“He was looking forward to watching,” Solow, a lawyer, said of Obama. “There was a lot of banter about what a good team the Cubs were this year and about the Dodgers‘ pitching. Part of the discussion was that baseball is probably more unpredictable in the playoffs than other sports are, because of the impact of pitching.”

Solow, who’s spent time with Obama both in the White House and on the golf course, said the president enjoys being in a sports environment, whether that means attending a playoff game, honoring championship teams at the White House or golfing.

“It was a much more relaxed setting for him, and it’s important to respect his decision to get away from the job and stay away from the hard subjects,” he added, speaking of the Oct. 8 outing.

Shapiro, too, has witnessed Obama’s passion for sports bubble up. Sometimes, that’s occurred in unexpected circumstances. He’s been in the Oval Office when Obama tossed around a football.

Then there was Obama’s visit to Israel in March 2013. Shapiro and other key personnel, including then-National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and Secretary of State John Kerry, were with the president in his hotel suite.

“ESPN was on, and he was tracking the games with his bracket,” Shapiro said of Obama’s March Madness fandom. “We were talking about his next meeting with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu…and he said, ‘Dan, I want to hear your view of this.’ I forget what the issue was, and I said, ‘Well, Mr. President, I think,’ and he said, ‘Oh, my God, what a dunk!’ And I lost my train of thought.”

If basketball wasn’t uppermost in Shapiro’s mind that March Madness day, it was front and center when he first heard he was on Obama’s radar in early 2007. Shapiro was on the staff of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) when Mark Lippert, who worked for then-Sen. Obama (and now serves as U.S. ambassador to South Korea), recruited him to join the presidential campaign team.

Once the particulars of his advisory role on foreign policy were made clear, Shapiro, aware even then of Obama’s love of hoops, put in an early non-political request.

“I told Mark, ‘All I want is the chance to play basketball with him,'” Shapiro said, adding that the affirmative response “was easier said than done.” It wasn’t until 2010 that his opportunity arose. By then, Shapiro was the National Security Council’s senior director for the Middle East and North Africa. Obama had added a basketball court on the White House’s South Lawn, just a few steps from the NSC’s complex in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and Shapiro learned of Friday afternoon games David Axelrod, Obama’s senior advisor, arranged.   

“We were shooting around on a half court: me, Axelrod, Gene Sperling and [Michael] McFaul [then-Treasury Department official and then-NSC adviser on Russia, respectively], and on the other end, the president was shooting around with [aide] Reggie Love. Axelrod said to him, ‘Why don’t you run with us one game?’

“I ended up on [Obama’s] team. There’s an interesting dynamic that occurs: a deference to get him the ball. I didn’t embarrass myself. I hit a shot or two and acquitted myself acceptably. I think we won.” “I can say that I played with the president of the United States.”

All Shapiro wants now is for his beloved Cubbies to pull off a historic rebound from 3-1 down and earn an invitation to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. World Series champions traditionally drop by to be feted by the president when on a road trip to play the nearby Baltimore Orioles or Washington Nationals. 

But by next season, Obama will be an ex-president.

Don’t be surprised, then, if Air Force One is dispatched to swoop up the members of a curse-breaking, ‘comeback kid’ Chicago club and deliver them to the White House for a pre-January 20 visit.

Hillel Kuttler covers baseball for Bleacher Report. His work has previously appeared at the New York Times and the Washington Post. Follow Hillel on Twitter @HilleltheScribe.

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The 112th edition of the World Series will see its last game played at Wrigley Field and possibly the last game of the series on Sunday night after the Cleveland Indians defeated the Chicago Cubs 7-2 in Game 4 on Saturday.

With the Indians one win away from their first World Series title since 1948, here is a look at the Game 5 schedule:

The Cubs are expected to roll out Jon Lester for Game 5, and the Indians will start Trevor Bauer. But both of these pitchers have been touched up a bit during this World Series.

After Lester shut down the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS, he faced off against Corey Kluber, who pitched a gem in Game 1.

While Kluber struck out eight Cubs in the first three innings, Lester allowed three runs in the first four as Chicago was shut out, 6-0:

The following night would see the inconsistent Cubs offense come alive against Bauer, grabbing two runs off him in 3.2 innings before he was pulled for Zach McAllister, who gave up two more earned runs:

But Chicago’s bats have gone silent over the last two games. They’ve combined for just two runs in the past 18 innings, as Cleveland’s pitching has been just about unhittable. 

Cleveland’s pitching staff has been headlined by reliever Andrew Miller, via Fox Sports: MLB:

If the Cubs do find a way to come back, it will add on to a historic World Series win, via ESPN:

Given the way the Indians are playing, though, it looks like an insurmountable challenge at the moment. 

The Indians have scored eight runs in their past two games and benefited from their dominant pitching. Now, they have three chances to win just one more game. 

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The Cleveland Indians can complete their miracle October run with a World Series title if they can defeat the Chicago Cubs in Game 5 at Wrigley Field on Sunday night. 

The Indians will hand the ball to Trevor Bauer, who will be looking to redeem himself after struggling through Game 2. The right-hander lasted just 3.2 innings, allowing six hits, two walks and two runs while throwing 87 pitches in a 5-1 loss. 

The Cubs will counter with Jon Lester, who is coming off his worst start of the postseason in Game 1. He battled a tight strike zone and some erratic command while giving up three runs on six hits and two walks in 5.2 innings.

Preview

Bauer has had one of the most interesting postseasons in recent memory, though the same can be said for the Indians given the way manager Terry Francona has essentially pieced together a starting staff behind Corey Kluber. 

There’s no other way to classify Bauer’s first World Series start than bad. He was constantly shaking off catcher Roberto Perez, seemingly unsure of how he wanted to attack the Cubs and couldn’t put them away when he got to two strikes. 

Kris Bryant singled and Anthony Rizzo doubled after Bauer got to two strikes in the first inning to put the Cubs on the board, giving starter Jake Arrieta breathing room to work with. 

If one were to try putting a less negative spin on Bauer’s evening, it was his first real start since Game 1 of the division series against the Boston Red Sox. He attempted to start Game 3 of the American League Championship Series before his lacerated pinkie started pouring blood, causing him to be removed after 21 pitches. 

Speaking after Game 2, Perez told reporters he felt Bauer was affected by essentially having three weeks off between starts.

“I think so,” Perez said, per ESPN.com’s Andrew Marchand. “Having not thrown in a week or so, I don’t know. I have confidence in him that he is going to bounce back.”

However, citing ESPN Stats & Info, Marchand noted Bauer was not coming anywhere near the strike zone with a lot of his pitches: 

More than a third of his 87 pitches were at least a foot-and-a-half off the center of the plate, which ESPN Stats & Information calls non-competitive pitches. There were 32 of them, and the Cubs were more than willing to watch them sail on by. Bauer leaned on his fastball, which the Cubs keyed in on after getting ahead in the count. 

The Cubs are the wrong team to try throwing a fastball by, which is why we have seen the Los Angeles Dodgers and Indians feed them a steady diet of offspeed pitches in the last two series.

As Clayton Kershaw found out in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, if your breaking ball isn’t going anywhere near the strike zone and you are forced to throw fastballs, the Cubs will go to town. 

This home run from Rizzo is evidence of how dangerous the Cubs can be when they can sit on the heater:

One thing the Cubs should not have to worry about on Sunday is Lester. He didn’t have his sharpest command in Game 1, but his worst inning was in the first after recording two easy outs.

The two runs Lester gave up in the opening frame came on a swinging bunt by Jose Ramirez and hitting Brandon Guyer with a pitch, so it’s not as if the Indians were scorching the ball against him. 

Any talk of the yips for Lester as it pertains to his inability to throw the ball to first with a runner on base is ludicrous, though Chicago White Sox announcer Ken Harrelson told Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune it’s a hurdle:

I feel bad for him. You look at Steve Sax or Chuck Knoblauch, they had mental blocks on throwing. One of our guys, Clayton Richard, couldn’t throw to first base.

Lester has the yips, no question. Doesn’t make him a bad guy. And I know one thing: He doesn’t have the yips throwing 60 feet, 6 inches. That’s what [Cubs manager] Joe Maddon is worried about.

Throwing to first is clearly not something Lester wants to do, but there’s no evidence his performance suffers as a result.

The Dodgers tried to distract Lester in Game 5 of the NLCS, with Enrique Hernandez dancing as far off the base as possible without trying to steal, yet he allowed just one run on five hits in seven innings. 

Lester is excellent at limiting stolen bases by being quick to the plate, and catcher David Ross is fantastic at getting rid of the ball quickly, as Mike Petriello of MLB.com noted during that fifth game against the Dodgers:

Because Lester is so good at limiting baserunners anyway, his “yips” about throwing to first base rarely play a big role in the outcome. 

The Cubs have a decided advantage on the mound in Game 5, making this their game for the taking in order to send the series back to Cleveland on Tuesday. 

Prediction

Nothing about this postseason has made much sense. The only discernible pattern is that scoring first essentially guarantees a victory, though that didn’t hold in Game 4, as the Indians responded with seven runs after the Cubs took a 1-0 lead in the first inning.

This is the kind of game Lester was signed to pitch for the Cubs. He’s not going to be overwhelmed by the pressure of keeping his team’s season going. His postseason resume has been fantastic, with a 2.60 ERA and 1.04 WHIP in 124.2 innings.

It stands to reason that, at some point, Chicago’s offense will break out of its malaise, so what better time than against the one Cleveland starting pitcher they have already gotten the better of in this series.

Prediction: Cubs 6, Indians 2

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If the Chicago Cubs want to be a team of destiny, they better come up with a miracle.

If they don’t, a season in which they won 103 games on their way to their first World Series since 1945 could be over as soon as Sunday. The Cleveland Indians lead the series three games to one.

If the advantage feels even bigger than that, it may be because the latest entry in this Fall Classic was a thumping that only Cleveland fans had an easy time watching.

After winning a 1-0 squeaker in Game 4 on Friday, the Indians took Game 5 on Saturday by a 7-2 final. The Cubs could once again do nothing against Corey Kluber, who regressed to only six one-run innings from his six shutout innings in Game 1. John Lackey and a host of Chicago relievers served up 10 hits. Carlos Santana and Jason Kipnis sent two of those into the Wrigley Field bleachers.

And so, it’s down to this for the Cubs: One more loss, and their trip to the World Series will have proved powerless to stop their championship drought from turning 109 years old.

Oh, there are silver linings, of course.

There are the pitching matchups, for one. Jon Lester will get the ball against Trevor Bauer, who will be on three days’ rest, in Game 5. That’s a mismatch if there ever was one.

“To have a guy that’s [a] been-there, done-that kind of a guy, and been very successful, been a World Series champion, he knows what the feeling is like, he knows what it takes,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said, via Jamal Collier of MLB.com. “It’s definitely comforting to the rest of the group for [Sunday].”

If there’s a Game 6, there will be another mismatch in Jake Arrieta against Josh Tomlin on short rest. If there’s a Game 7, major league ERA leader Kyle Hendricks will go against Kluber, who will be making his second straight start on short rest.

On the other side of the ball, Chicago’s vaunted offense showed more life in Game 4 than the box score suggested.

Dexter Fowler finally got the Cubs’ first home run of the series with his solo dinger off the previously untouchable Andrew Miller, but that could have been the team’s third home run of the night under better conditions. Ben Zobrist and Anthony Rizzo crushed balls that got knocked down by the wind.

And if there is indeed a Game 6, the Cubs know Kyle Schwarber will return to the lineup, as the designated hitter will be re-introduced to the series back at Progressive Field. He was Chicago’s best hitter in the first two games.

There are, however, two things standing in the way of the miracle the Cubs need: history and a team that is playing better baseball.

The easy reference to make in support of Chicago is to the last time a team from Cleveland was involved in a championship series with a 3-1 deficit. Just check Twitter. I’ll wait.

Easy jokes aside, though, 3-1 deficits are no laughing matter in the World Series. There have been 46 teams that have fallen behind 3-1. Only six of them have come back to win.

As Mike Puma of the New York Post noted, the last of those comebacks was three decades ago:

For the Cubs to break the streak, they need to figure out an Indians team that already has them figured out.

It’s not just the wind that’s keeping Chicago from living up to its reputation as one of baseball’s best power-hitting teams. Cleveland pitchers know that hitters have a hard time smacking breaking balls over the fence. Per Baseball Savant, they’ve gone from throwing 23.9 percent breaking balls in the regular season to 38 percent in the postseason. Cubs hitters have had no answer for that.

In what seems to be an offshoot of its struggles to hit the ball over the fence, Chicago has also lost its trademark discipline. Baseball Savant’s figures had it swinging outside the zone only 18.9 percent of the time in the regular season. That number is up to 22.4 percent in the World Series.

Cue Maddon saying this in his postgame press conference Saturday, via MLB.com: “We just need that offensive epiphany somehow to get us pushing in the right direction.”

As Cubs hitters struggle to be themselves, Indians hitters have largely been doing just fine.

They have a .248 team average to Chicago’s .204 and are out-homering the Cubs four to one. They’re taking more disciplined at-bats and benefiting from that with better contact, holding the average exit velocity advantage at 91.1 mph to 86.8 mph.

It helps that manager Terry Francona is pushing all the right buttons. Pinch-hitting Coco Crisp in Game 3 resulted in a game-winning RBI single. Santana rewarded Francona for starting him over Mike Napoli in Game 4 by hitting a game-tying home run.

Meanwhile, Francona’s button-pushing is another thing that’s made life difficult for Cubs hitters.

Whereas Maddon has leaned on relievers not named Pedro Strop, Hector Rondon or Aroldis Chapman, Francona has continued to ride Miller and Cody Allen as much as he can. When he hasn’t used them, he’s pushed the right buttons anyway. Take out Fowler’s dinger off Miller, and Zach McAllister is the only Cleveland reliever to allow an earned run in this series.

“I think our guys have done terrific,” Francona said after Game 4, via MLB.com. “But I think the people that are surprised don’t know our pitchers very well.”

All this is the long way of telling a shorter story. What the Indians are doing to the Cubs is basically the same thing they did to the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays en route to the World Series. That led to seven wins in eight games. Lo and behold, more of the same has them one win from snapping a World Series drought that’s only 40 years younger than Chicago’s.

According to FiveThirtyEight, the odds the Cubs will reverse Cleveland’s stranglehold over this postseason stand at just 15 percent. That number is one of two things.

One: The start of a storybook comeback 108 years in the making—one that will be defined by Chicago taking advantage of favorable pitching matchups and finally finding its offense.

Or two: just another step down toward zero.

Anticlimactic? Maybe. But if it’s a team of destiny you want to see, you’re better off looking at the one from Cleveland.

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

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After letting their pitching do most of the work through the first three games of the 2016 World Series, the Cleveland Indians let their bats put them one win away from a championship with a 7-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs in Game 4 on Saturday night. 

Carlos Santana and Jason Kipnis had the big blasts, with the latter being a three-run shot in the top of the seventh inning that put the Indians up 7-1. 

The Cubs couldn’t have asked for a better start to the game. They jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Dexter Fowler doubled to lead off and was driven in on Anthony Rizzo’s RBI single. 

Considering how overmatched the Cubs looked against Cleveland starter Corey Kluber in Game 1, those two hits and an early lead were a huge step in the right direction. 

Getting off to such an opening this postseason has been the successful formula for both of these teams. The Cubs had won their previous five playoff games when scoring first. 

The Indians made sure things would not be that easy. Santana, who was starting at first base and hitting cleanup in place of Mike Napoli, tied the score with a home run that cut through the wind at Wrigley Field. 

That would not be the only run Cleveland got against John Lackey in the second inning.

After the Cubs intentionally walked Tyler Naquin to pitch to Kluber, Cleveland’s ace worked an eight-pitch at-bat before hitting a swinging bunt that led to a bad throw to first base from Kris Bryant and allowed Lonnie Chisenhall to score. 

Zack Meisel of Cleveland.com had fun with Kluber’s hitting stats this season after the single:

The Indians tacked on another run against Lackey in the third inning after Kipnis doubled to lead off and Francisco Lindor singled. 

It was Lindor’s first RBI of the World Series, with Baseball Tonight noting it was also a historic one from the young shortstop:

Kluber soon continued his postseason excellence. After allowing two hits and one run in the first inning, Cleveland’s ace held the Cubs to three over the next five. He wasn’t quite as sharp with his command as Game 1, but he worked around damage at key moments.

For instance, Rizzo doubled to start the sixth inning but was left stranded at second when Ben Zobrist flied out, Willson Contreras struck out and Addison Russell grounded out. 

With the Indians needing to keep a close watch on Kluber’s pitches for another potential start on three days’ rest if the series is extended to seven games, he was lifted after six innings. The right-hander allowed five hits and struck out six Cubs. 

T.J. Zuppe of 92.3 The Fan provided the updated postseason stat line for Kluber after Saturday:

The Indians knew coming into the playoffs they needed Kluber to essentially fulfill the role Madison Bumgarner played for the San Francisco Giants in 2014. So far, so good. 

Skip Bayless of Fox Sports 1 offered this assessment of the series so far:

The news was not all good for Cleveland, though no one is likely to complain. Andrew Miller, who had never given up a run in his playoff career coming into Saturday’s game, allowed a leadoff homer to Fowler in the eighth inning.

Meisel provided the heavily inflated ERA for Miller after giving up the blast:

It was a curious decision by Cleveland manager Terry Francona to have Miller pitch two innings in a game his team was winning by six runs. The big lefty threw 27 pitches one night after appearing in Game 3 for 17 pitches. 

From a Cubs perspective, while the pitching was not good, the offense remains a huge problem. ESPN’s Freddie Coleman provided the information everyone in Chicago can see:

Looking ahead to Sunday’s fifth game, the Cubs are set up well to at least send the series back to Cleveland. Jon Lester will take the mound for his second start of the World Series. He did battle through 5.2 innings in Game 1, allowing three runs on six hits, but he still struck out seven. 

The Indians will counter with Trevor Bauer, who struggled in Game 2. The right-hander gave up six hits, two runs and two walks to go with two strikeouts in 3.2 innings. 

Lester has the playoff resume, with a 2.60 ERA in 124.2 career innings. He’s the guy the Cubs want on the mound in this spot. It’s on him to deliver to keep Chicago’s dream season alive for at least one more game.

Postgame Reaction

Even though the Indians are riding high after their third win of the World Series, Kluber made sure to note they can’t get complacent now, per Jordan Bastian and Carrie Muskat of MLB.com: 

I think we like the position we’re in, but the task isn’t done yet. We still have one more game to win, and I think we’re gonna show up tomorrow and we’re gonna play with the same sense of urgency that we’ve played with to this point. We don’t want to let them feel like they’re building momentum or getting back in the Series.

Francona echoed the sentiments of his star pitcher. 

“Nothing changes,” Francona said, per Bastian and Muskat. “We’re going to show up [on Sunday]. The only thing that changes is we’ll pack our bags, because we’re going to go home one way or the other. We’ll show up and try to beat a really good pitcher [on Sunday], and that’s what we always do. Nothing needs to change.”

Kipnis, who grew up a Cubs fan and was born in Northbrook, Illinois, tried to explain what hitting a home run in the World Series at Wrigley Field meant to him, per Meisel:

Cubs manager Joe Maddon acknowledged his team’s defensive miscues but once again emphasized the offense needing to step up. 

“So we made mistakes,” Maddon said, per the Associated Press (via ESPN.com). “Absolutely, we made mistakes tonight. That was part of it. But then again, we just have to do more offensively to give ourselves a chance.”

Maddon did take comfort in knowing he will have Lester on the mound in Game 5. 

“To have a guy who’s [a] been-there, done-that kind of a guy and been very successful, been a World Series champion, he knows what the feeling is like—he knows what it takes,” Maddon said, per Jamal Collier of MLB.com. “It’s definitely comforting to the rest of the group for [Sunday].”

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Welcome to Bleacher Report’s live coverage of Game 4 of the 2016 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs! Will the Cubs even the series up, or will the Indians jump out to a commanding 3-1 lead?

Keep it here for all the latest analysis, reaction, pictures, video and whatever else pops up from Wrigley Field! Partake in the fun by dropping a line in the comments below and on Twitter (@RickWeinerBR).

Final Score

Indians 7, Cubs 2

WP: Corey Kluber

LP: John Lackey

SCORING

Bottom 1st: Rizzo RBI single

Top 2nd: Santana solo HR

Top 2nd: Kluber RBI single

Top 3rd: Lindor RBI single

Top 6th: Chisenhall sac fly

Top 7th: Kipnis 3-run HR

Bottom 8th: Fowler solo HR

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It’s crunch time for the Chicago Cubs. 

Following Friday night’s 1-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians, the Cubs now trail 2-1 in the 2016 World Series and face the prospect of falling behind 3-1 if they can’t solve Corey Kluber on Saturday evening at Wrigley Field.

So as first pitch approaches and tensions in the Windy City grow, here’s a look at when and where you can catch all of the Game 4 action:  

Game 4 Preview

With a chance to take a commanding lead in the Fall Classic, the Indians will hand the ball over to Kluber—who last pitched on short rest in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays.  

Kluber was solid in that outing to the tune of seven strikeouts, four hits and two earned runs allowed in five innings, but the Indians fell 5-1 in Kluber‘s only loss of the postseason to date. 

But this time around, Kluber sounds more confident in his ability to pitch on three days’ rest. 

“The last time was first time on short rest, so I didn’t know what to expect about how I was going to feel,” he said, according to Cleveland.com’s Paul Hoynes. “Now that I do know I felt fine, it’s just a matter of using those three days to recover.”

And while Kluber is feeling more confident the second time around, so are the Cubs. 

Although Chicago was shut out by Kluber when he went six innings and struck out nine in Game 1, the Cubs appear confident they will have a better approach against the 2014 AL Cy Young Award winner when they hit the field on Saturday night. 

“Anytime you see a guy multiple times in a week, you’re going to feel more comfortable,” Cubs outfielder Dexter Fowler said, according to the Chicago Tribune‘s Mark Gonzales. 

The Cubs will counter with John Lackey, who hasn’t made a postseason appearance since Oct. 19 against the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

Furthermore, the 38-year-old hasn’t pitched more than four innings in the 2016 playoffs. However, the Cubs aren’t letting those numbers dampen their optimism. 

“I have a lot of faith in John, and I know he’s going to be ready,” manager Joe Maddon said, according to the Chicago Tribune‘s Paul Skrbina. “I never worry about him, man. He has been there, done that, and I know he’ll be ready for (Saturday).”

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The Chicago Cubs find themselves in a difficult situation as they prepare for Game 4 of the World Series.

The Cleveland Indians are sending ace Corey Kluber to the mound with a 2-1 lead in the World Series, and he has already dominated the Cubs lineup once. They need to find a way to get to him or they face the very real possibility of going down three games to one.

Going into the World Series, Cleveland manager Terry Francona set up his starting pitching rotation so Kluber could pitch Game 1, Game 4 and Game 7. In that scenario, the Indians would have to come out on the winning side of one other game if they were going to earn their first title since 1948.

They earned that victory in Game 3 as the Indians pulled out a 1-0 win with starter Josh Tomlin and relievers Andrew Miller, Bud Shaw and Cody Allen holding the Cubs in check.

The Indians scored the only run of the game in the top of the seventh inning as pinch hitter Coco Crisp lined a one-out single to right field that brought in pinch runner Michael Martinez. The Indians had threatened several times in the first six innings, but starter Kyle Hendricks and reliever Jason Grimm had quashed those threats with excellent pitching.

The Cubs did not have a strong threat until the bottom of the ninth inning. Anthony Rizzo singled to open the inning, and pinch runner Chris Coghlan advanced to second on a ground ball.

With two outs, pinch hitter Jason Heyward hit a ground ball that got to first baseman Mike Napoli on an awkward hop, and he could only keep the ball in front of him and was charged with an error. Heyward stole second, giving Javier Baez an opportunity with runners on second and third to tie or possibly win the game with a base hit.

Allen worked him perfectly and struck him out on a high fastball to end the game. The shutout was the Indians’ fifth of the postseason, a new major league record.

While Kluber will get the ball for the Indians in Game 4 at 8:08 p.m. ET (Fox TV), veteran John Lackey gets the starting assignment for the Cubs. Lackey has played the role of World Series hero in previous stints with the Anaheim Angels in 2002 and the Boston Red Sox in 2013.

Kluber had an 18-9 record with a 3.14 earned run average and a 1.056 WHIP during the regular season. He has been even better in the postseason with a 3-1 record, a 0.74 ERA and a 0.986 WHIP.

Lackey, clearly the Cubs’ No. 4 starter this season behind Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and Hendricks, was 11-8 with a 3.35 ERA and a 1.057 WHIP. Lackey has pitched 8.0 innings in the postseason and has given up five earned runs as he heads into Game 4 of the World Series.

Kluber would appear to have the advantage, but he is pitching with just three days of rest. Additionally, the Cubs are now familiar with him, because he pitched 6.0 innings against them in the series opener.

However, they will have to swing the bats a lot better than they did in Game 1, when Kluber struck out nine and gave up just four hits without walking a batter.

Kluber told Paul Hoynes of Cleveland.com that he is not worried about pitching on short rest. 

“It’s basically doing the same stuff in one less day,” Kluber said. “Your side sessions are a little shorter and things like that, but I’m still able to get in the things I need to do.”

Prediction

The Cubs had the best record in the regular season by a wide margin this year, and they are a confident team. 

While they rarely had any problems in the regular season, the San Francisco Giants pushed them hard in the National League Division Series and the Los Angeles Dodgers also tested them in the NLCS.

They responded to adversity in both of those series, and they will in the World Series as well. Look for Lackey to play the role of bulldog on the mound and fight his way out of trouble. Kluber will have a strong game for the Indians, but the Cubs will do just enough to build a lead.

Look for the Cubs to come away with a 3-2 win and tie the series at two games each.

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The Cleveland Indians took a critical 2-1 series lead Friday night in the 2016 World Series over the Chicago Cubs, and the road team now has a chance to take a commanding advantage Saturday night in Game 4 at Wrigley Field.

In a tight pitching affair, Josh Tomlin allowed only two hits through 4.2 innings, and the dynamite bullpen combination of Andrew Miller, Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen held down the fort for a 1-0 Cleveland win. Meanwhile, Chicago’s streaky offense made its presence felt again, as the team was shut out for the fourth time this postseason.

Here is a look at the full viewing schedule, including live stream, in addition to odds and some notable comments from both teams ahead of Saturday’s showdown.

Odds are according to Odds Shark.

Corey Kluber will take the mound Saturday looking to lift Cleveland with a repeat of his dominant Game 1 performance. In a 6-0 win, the Indians ace was nearly flawless in six innings while allowing no runs and four hits.

The movement of his sinker—which is especially difficult for right-handed hitters, as it ties them up at their hands to force easy grounders—was working at full force to frustrate the Chicago lineup. Anthony Rizzo elaborated on the pitch’s effectiveness after Game 1, per MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince.

“It just starts at your hip,” Rizzo said of the pitch. “And it comes in at you and then he can cut it off of that, too. … It’s just really picking a lane.”

There could be more of that sort of frustration coming for Chicago, as Kluber has been locked in during this postseason. In four starts, the 2014 American League Cy Young Award winner is 3-1 with a microscopic 0.74 ERA. Kluber had never pitched in the playoffs before his current campaign, and he attributes his success so far to elevated focus, per Castrovince.

“Not that there is less importance on a regular-season game,” said Kluber, “but it’s almost like you have that extra level of intensity or focus and stuff that it’s not really something you can replicate.”

Chicago proved this postseason it can rebound against top pitchers the second time around.

In the National League Championship Series, Los Angeles Dodgers star Clayton Kershaw owned the Cubs in Game 2 with seven innings of work while allowing no runs, two hits and one walk. In Game 6, Chicago was much better; Kershaw allowed four runs and seven hits in five innings, as the Cubs were able to advance to the World Series.

Can Chicago replicate this success against Kluber? Well, it may need to find a way to get Kyle Schwarber involved. At this point, though, it seems Schwarber will not be available for multiple at-bats in any game at Wrigley Field:

He can make an impact as a pinch hitter and as a presence in the dugout, as Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein said the team views his bat and character as his greatest assets, per Sports Illustrated‘s Tom Verducci:

His bat and his intangibles are why we drafted him. He’s a complete impact hitter with the bat, but more than that he’s the perfect player to have as a franchise player because he can be one of your best players who everybody else wants to follow because of his character. He’s a special player and a special person.

Schwarber popped out in his lone pinch-hit effort in Game 3. Chicago’s lineup lacked some of the swagger Friday that it had when Schwarber was in the lineup for Games 1 and 2, as it only totaled five hits, so it will need to find another source of offense if Schwarber continues to start on the bench.

The uncertainty around Chicago’s offense puts some extra pressure to perform on John Lackey, who will start Game 4 for the Cubs. The 38-year-old has plenty of playoff experience, but his starts this postseason have been very spread out, as he noted Friday, per the Chicago Tribune‘s Paul Skrbina.

“It has been kind of a crazy schedule for me,” Lackey said. “I feel like I’m pitching every two weeks kind of deal. Once you get into the game you kind of fall back on things you’ve been doing all season, and hopefully you execute.”

Lackey has not pitched since Oct. 19, when he tossed four innings with two runs and three hits allowed in a no-decision that resulted in a 10-2 win. His only other start came Oct. 11, when Lackey also went four innings in a no-decision.

However, Cubs manager Joe Maddon is still confident he can get a quality outing out of Lackey in a critical ballgame, per Skrbina:

I just want to believe that he keeps getting stronger. But there is a certain amount of rust element involved. However, I have a lot of faith in John, and I know he’s going to be ready. I never worry about him, man. He has been there, done that, and I know he’ll be ready for (Saturday).

Lackey’s history against the current Cleveland roster suggests he should do fine Saturday, as most of the Indians have struggled against the righty:

Given Lackey’s track record this postseason, the Cubs should not expect more than five innings from their starter. This could be troubling considering the fact Chicago has not generated any consistent offense and that it will be going against an ace in Kluber.

The Indians already proved they can win at Wrigley Field, and they should be favored in this one. However, the Cubs cannot be counted out just yet, as the team responded to a two-game scoreless streak against the Dodgers with 23 combined runs in the next three contests. Chicago has the ability to explode offensively; it just remains to be seen if it can do so against Kluber.

Statistics are courtesy of MLB.com.

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