By Yours Truly
http://throneberryfields.com/2016/10/29/for-these-indians-the-cubs-are-hosts-too-gracious/Apparently, nobody showed the Cubs Jason Kipnis’s Game Three postgame remarks. Just as apparent in Game Four, it almost
wouldn’t have mattered if someone had.
The Indians spent the fourth game of this World Series earning the respect they think, not unreasonably, they’ve been denied.
A 7-2 win which felt like they were never behind despite an embryonic 1-0 Cub lead does that for you.
The Cubs spent it looking as though they didn’t know what they were doing, didn’t have a clue how to re-learn it, and didn’t
realise you couldn’t just bludgeon these Indians when you lost your discipline at the plate.
It just about served them right when Kipnis hit one out. The only question from there, the one Wrigley Field’s faithful were too
invested to ask, was when, not whether the Indians would shovel the final mounds of dirt to finish the Game Four grave.
It may not be unprecedented for a team to be down 3-1 in a postseason series only to pick up, dust off, and win the set, but if
Game Four was any indication these Cubs—they who just about owned the National League this season—aren’t really that well
groomed for a World Series the whole world predicted they’d win.
The Indians probably figured that out early enough and often enough. Why, they could even afford to watch Andrew Miller, their
heretofore invincible middle option out of the bullpen, serve a rare (for him this year) hanging slider to Dexter Fowler leading
off the bottom of the eighth.
Sure.
Let Fowler line it into the left field bleachers.
Let him become the first Cub to homer in a Wrigley Field World Series game
since—wait for it!—Chuck Klein, in Game Five of the 1935 Series.
Let him become the first black man in a Cub uniform to hit a
World Series homer in the Friendly Confines. The Indians can afford to be generous, once in awhile.
Everything the Cubs did right to push, shove, rap, slap, and smash their way to this World Series in the first place, they forgot
in Game Four. Everything they did wrong to help the other guys make it a little more difficult for them to do it, they did again
Saturday night against a club full of Indians who think absolutely nothing of refusing you on-the-job retraining.
It was supposed to be a Cub who hit the first Series bomb in Wrigley Field since Hank Greenberg in 1945—not the other guys.
But Cub starter John Lackey threw Carlos Santana something with a visible target on it on 3-1 in the top of the second and
Santana, playing first base in Mike Napoli’s stead this time, discovered a visible target for a game-tying solo in the right field
bleachers.
And reliever Travis Wood served Kipnis a 3-1 meatball with “I dare you” blinking visibly on it in the top of the seventh, an invitation
nobody could resist, certainly not Kipnis, who dared to drive it halfway up those same bleachers to put the game completely out
of reach.
Was it that long ago that the Cubs opened Game Four by scoring first, after Lackey zipped through the Indians in the top of the
inning on a hard groundout and two quick enough swishouts? When Fowler lofted a double that eluded diving Indians left fielder
Rajai Davis and Kris Bryant promptly sent him home with a line single right back up the pipe?
The Indians sure made it seem that long. And the Cubs were kind enough to help, almost immediately after Santana’s bomb.
Bryant made a highlight-reel stop on Lonnie Chisenhall’s one-out hopper to the third base side and threw wide enough to hit the
tarp on the fly against the first base box seats.
Then—after Tyler Naquin drew a free pass an out later, and with Kluber himself at the plate—Bryant hustled to field Kluber’s slow
chopper, but threw wide enough to pull first baseman Anthony Rizzo off the pad with Chisenhall hustling home for a 2-1 Indians
lead.
Kipnis then led off the third ripping a high liner down the right field line for a double and scored when Francisco Lindor shot a
line single up the pipe promptly enough. And Lackey from there got rid of the Indians fast enough in the fourth and the fifth. How
did his Cubs repay the favour?
They watched Javier Baez completely stripped of the plate discipline he showed earlier in the postseason. They watched heretofore
slumping right fielder Jason Heyward, starting in manager Joe Maddon’s itch to put his best defensive lineup behind Lackey, break
the slump with two sharp singles, and failed to cash him in.
And they watched reliever Mike Montgomery—who’d just had his glove taken off by a Santana ripper—try valiantly for a double
play that got only one, before Chisenhall lofted a sacrifice fly deep enough to center to score Lindor with the fourth Indians run.
While they were at it, the Cubs also watched themselves strand men in scoring position three times. They even got two gift baserunners
in the third, when Kluber walked Bryant and plunked Rizzo with two out, and Ben Zobrist said thanks by fighting Kluber to a mini-
epic at-bat, fouling off four 1-2 offerings before he struck out swinging for the side almost as if Kluber had merely toyed with him
the entire plate appearance.
They also watched Maddon fail to send Kyle Schwarber up to pinch hit for Zobrist, with a mind toward slotting Jorge Soler in left in his
stead, after Rizzo opened the sixth with a double off the ivy, when the deficit was a still-manageable 4-1. Maybe Schwarber plants on in
the seats, if not atop the scoreboard or out onto the street.
Not to mention failing to send Aroldis Chapman or Hector Rondon out for the seventh. Either of them might have gone through the side
in order, instead of pinch double, plunk, and three-run homer. Fowler’s surprise bomb off Miller might have tied the game at four, instead.
And maybe the younger Cubs would have been re-awakened. Maybe.
Indians manager Terry Francona has played chess and gone for the throat in this World Series. Maddon and his Cubs have played checkers,
barely, and gotten themselves jumped and crowned.
The Cubs picked the wrong time to be graciously accommodating hosts to the visitors. Being good hosts is one thing. Letting your
guests make off with the silver, the china, and the jewelry while binding and gagging you is something else entirely.
By the time the coppers arrive to unbind Wrigley Field’s hosts, the Indians may well have stolen the entire house.
