The Cleveland Indians Cannot Be Stopped, Take Game 3 To Hold 3-0 Series Lead Over The Toronto Blue Jays
The team that nobody thought had a chance in hell at making it out of the first round of the postseason is now one win away from the World Series, and they’ve yet to lose a game.
I feel like I need to reiterate this point — they weren’t written off because people thought they weren’t a good team. They’re a great team, actually. They were written off because they sustained injuries to two of their top three starting pitchers. In the postseason, that’s a death sentence. But the Cleveland Indians weren’t some fraud team that fluked their way in and got hot. They had the second best pitching staff in the American League, and the second best offense. This team was built to win.
You don’t accumulate the second best team ERA in the league with just two pitchers. As long as the next guys in line stepped up, conceivably, the Indians could do…well, what they’ve been doing. This is a team that won 14 straight games during the regular season. When they get hot, they get HOT, and they’re now in a position where they could win their seventh consecutive postseason game to advance to the World Series for the first time since 1997.
In order to attain that 3-0 series lead, though, they needed Trevor Bauer to take the mound and not bleed out on the rubber. He was unsuccessful in doing that. Bauer, who sliced his finger open/off while working on his drone, numbed up his pinky, but was not allowed to wear a bandage over it. The ten stitches in the pinky opened up just four batters into his outing, and he was deemed unable to continue by the home plate umpire, effectively making it a bullpen game for Cleveland.
Unfortunately for Toronto, that didn’t matter. Like, not even a little bit. Six Indians relievers combined to toss 8.1 innings, allowing two earned runs, while striking out eight. Terry Francona continues to manage circles around the managers who oppose him, and last night was no different. Francona locked down the last three innings of the game with Andrew Miller and Cody Allen, just as he’s done all postseason, only in Game 3, he flip-flopped them. Allen was called upon first for five outs, followed by Miller, who got the last four.
Allen and Miller recorded five of the their nines out via the strikeout. The duo has appeared in five of Cleveland’s six postseason games, and they’ve thrown a combined 15.2 innings with 30 strikeouts, a 0.00 ERA, 0.83 WHIP, and a 17.23 K/9. Those two, mainly Miller, have been an absolute nightmare for the Red Sox and the Blue Jays. They allowed Francona to lose his Game 3 starter just four batters into the game, and only have to worry about how he’s going to manage his bullpen through the sixth inning. After that, it’s game over.
Jason Kipnis and Mike Napoli haven’t looked great at the plate this postseason, but that wasn’t going to last long. The duo came into Game 3 of the ALCS hitting a combined .167 with a .488 OPS this postseason, but they got back on the right track when Napoli smashed a solo home run off of Marcus Stroman in the fourth inning to give Cleveland a 2-1 lead, followed by Kipnis crushing a solo shot of his own in the sixth to give the Tribe a 3-2 lead. Napoli and Kipnis drove in three of Cleveland’s four runs.
The Blue Jays are toast. They’re down 3-0, and they’re no 2004 Red Sox. Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling aren’t walking through that door. They’re a bunch of whiny, excuse-making babies that will be crying about “circumstances” and mean journalists right up until the Indians bounce them from the postseason. When good teams have their backs against the wall, they play their best baseball. When the Blue Jays have their backs against the wall, they cry about how uncomfortable the wall feels on their back, and complain about the circumstances that allowed the wall to be constructed in the first place.
Final score: Indians 4, Blue Jays 2 — CLE leads 3-0