- #WAS 2016 WORLD SERIES GAME 7 THE FIRST TO GO 10 INNINGS CRACKED#
- #WAS 2016 WORLD SERIES GAME 7 THE FIRST TO GO 10 INNINGS FULL#
- #WAS 2016 WORLD SERIES GAME 7 THE FIRST TO GO 10 INNINGS FREE#
The top of the ninth felt like 10,000 root canals if you were a Cubs fan. Any of one those outcomes would have been enough. The most terrifying pitcher in the league getting lit up by a slap-hitting outfielder who was on the field only because the rookie he was replacing was so out of sorts he had let a pop fly drop in for a two-run double a night earlier. Miller going 30 appearances with only one home run allowed, then serving up dingers to Cubs hitters in back-to-back games, the latter by Ross in his final major-league game. Lester coming out of the pen to pull a Madison Bumgarner. Kipnis doing him one better by dashing home from second on a wild pitch. Bryant putting on another clinic on the basepaths by scoring on a hit-and-run single. Kyle Freaking Schwarber stealing a base standing up. The Cubs beating up on a previously unhittable pitcher with the fate of the baseball world riding on the outcome? That would have been enough. And yet, few could have predicted what came next.
#WAS 2016 WORLD SERIES GAME 7 THE FIRST TO GO 10 INNINGS CRACKED#
He also cracked a career-high 12 home runs in the regular season, though he remained a hitter more committed to slapping balls in play and getting on base. The veteran outfielder led the AL with 43 steals this year, a remarkable accomplishment for a player who turned 36 in October, though still befitting his track record as one of the league's master thieves. Then Brandon Guyer greeted Chapman with a line-drive double to right-center, one of several pitches Chapman threw that came in a few ticks slower than normal, and in terrible locations.
Then Maddon summoned Aroldis Chapman to close things out. Then Ramirez tapped another infield single. And the game got weirder and weirder, to the point of absurdity.Īfter retiring the first two hitters in the bottom of the eighth, Lester and the Cubs owned a three-run lead and stood just four outs away from erasing the year 1908 from the conversation. The ageless Ross hammered a 406-foot blast to dead center in the sixth, stretching Chicago's lead to 6-3, and making what might have been 20,000 Cubs fans in the stands lose their damn minds. Jon Lester navigated some tough innings in relief, making Indians hitters suffer the wrath of his cutter and curveball. Fowler and Kyle Schwarber combined for six hits. But he also dealt a nasty changeup when he had to, including this first-inning whiff of Kipnis. Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks struggled at times with command, and got bailed out by weak swings on numerous hittable pitches. Multiple Cubs heroes chipped in as the game wore on. Watching Jason Kipnis scamper all the way around from second as the ball scooted away from David Ross, you sensed that the Indians weren't going to go down without a fight. When Andrew Miller finally showed he was mortal by ceding a run on two hits and a walk in the top of the fifth, the Indians came storming back with two in the bottom of the fifth, both runs scoring on a wild pitch. When Fowler homered, Carlos Santana came right back with a run-scoring single in the third to tie it.
#WAS 2016 WORLD SERIES GAME 7 THE FIRST TO GO 10 INNINGS FULL#
If anything, the Indians coming this close to winning it all while operating at so far below full strength was an enormous feat, a tribute to the skill and perseverance of those able-bodied enough to play, and to manager Terry Francona for coaxing everything he could out of that depleted roster. Going up against a team with dangerous threats from one almost all the way down to 25, when you're missing All-Star Michael Brantley and the beguiling right-hander Carrasco, while having Salazar and catcher Yan Gomes at far less than 100 percent, was simply asking too much. Trying to coax three dominant starts out of Kluber, who would have to battle fatigue and the threat of the Cubs finally mastering him on their third try, was asking a lot. Trying to win a series with Trevor Bauer and Josh Tomlin starting a combined four times against a loaded offense was asking a lot. Losing Carlos Carrasco until next spring with a hand injury, and Danny Salazar for seven weeks with a forearm injury, forced the Indians' rotation into survival mode. If a one-run nail-biter to end a seven-game series could ever do this, this one offered a stark reminder that attrition can be a killer. Instead, that collection of kids, bolstered by a couple of big blows by some unlikely veteran heroes, knocked around one of the American League's Cy Young front-runners, then kept mashing when Cleveland's vaunted bullpen took over.
The Cubs set a new postseason record by starting six players age 24 or younger in Game 2, and you wondered if that inexperience might trump the team's copious talent.
#WAS 2016 WORLD SERIES GAME 7 THE FIRST TO GO 10 INNINGS FREE#
The National League's top offense during the regular season had struggled badly early in the series, with free swingers like Baez helicoptering themselves into the turf and even elite sluggers like Kris Bryant flailing. This, along with their nine-run outburst in Game 6, is what we had been expecting the Cubs offense to do.