Cleveland Advances To World Series, Beating Toronto

This year will mark the first time in Indians club history that they will serve as hosts in the opening game of the World Series.

He was wrong; the Indians won 3-0 on the strength of Merritt’s 4.2 scoreless innings and advanced to their first World Series since 1997.

The Blue Jays’ offense went from scorching hot against the Rangers in the ALDS to ice cold against the Indians in the ALCS.

“I feel like I’ve said the word “special” a million times in the last 20 or 30 minutes”. “We don’t worry about stuff like that”. We knew he wasn’t going to be rattled.

“No Jose, but we got to keep Edwin though”, Kehoe said. We believe in each other, no one tries to do too much. Those words are essentially the Indians’ mission statement.

“I think the first thing that really struck a chord with me, is when we walked into the clubhouse when we first got him and he’s watching videos of the opposing hitters and scouting report”, said pitching coach Mickey Callaway. “It’s about winning. As I said earlier, I would have given up 100 runs if we won 101-100”.

Bauer sliced his pinkie last week repairing one of the drones he enjoys flying as a hobby.

The Indians pitching staff as a whole has been stalwart as well.

The Indians had an impressive game plan to help the kid along. “We would love to have [Bautista] back, we would love to have [Encarnacion] back”, said Donaldson. Facing Josh Donaldson, the Blue Jays’ best hitter in the series, Miller induced an inning-ending double play on the first pitch. Indians manager Terry Francona elected to start the game with Ryan Merritt, a pitcher with only one career start under his belt and 11 innings pitched to his major league career. The Jays did not offer him a single run of support against Cleveland. He went 1-for-2 before being pulled for Rajai Davis. “Hey, that is an wonderful lineup over there and for him to kind of breeze through it the first [three] innings is incredible”. “These guys have been faces of the franchise for many years now and anyone who watches the Toronto Blue Jays or watches the game of baseball knows how important they are to our team”. “Getting through that first inning was a confidence booster”.

Cleveland jumped to a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a two-out single from Francisco Lindor and a double by Mike Napoli. Carlos Santana scored two runs, with Coco Crisp adding a third, for the historic win.

It has already been an improbable run, as the Indians have gone 7-1 in the postseason with a makeshift starting rotation and some shaky hitting. As Crisp rounded first he gave the No. 1 sign.

Although Merritt claimed to be nervous, his demeanour was no different on the mound as when ice cold sparkling wine was trickling down his hat and soaking his American League Champion shirt.

Their opponents are still unknown, as the Chicago Cubs beat the LA Dodgers 10-2 to tie their series at 2-2. “You can’t hardly believe it but then again you can”. “I’ve got to leave it to somebody to continue the fight”.

Evidently, nothing is impossible in BelieveLand.