Cleveland Indians Looks to Clinch World Series Title in Chicago Sunday

That remained the case through three innings last night, when they managed just one single and trailed 1-0.

His fourth-inning home run off starter Trevor Bauer awakened a hibernating Cubs offense and helped deliver a 3-2 win Sunday night that sent the Series back to Cleveland for Game 6 on Tuesday with the Indians holding a suddenly slippery 3-2 edge. The 24-year-old Dominican only has 19 career home runs, but 11 of them were struck during the 2016 season. This series has gone back and forth between two great teams, the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs head to Cleveland for Game Six on Tuesday, when Jake Arrieta will duel Josh Tomlin, a game in which Chicago is ever-so-slightly favored. Major League Baseball’s first black player, Jackie Robinson, did not break the sport’s racial barrier until 1947, two years after the Cubs last played in the World Series. This will be the game of his life, but if you’re the Cubs, you have to feel good about who is stepping up onto the mound.

After victory was clinched, fans inside and outside Wrigley stood and sang the team song with the title dream still alive. Neither team have closed out a World Series since the Indians won in 1948.

After missing most of the season and the first two series of the postseason with a knee injury, Schwarber returned to the lineup with gusto in Cleveland.

“We have to catch the ball to win and we did it again tonight, ” Maddon said. “That was impressive. I mean, kind of like what Andrew [Miller has] done, he kind of did the same thing”.

Said Rizzo: “We’ve got to go the distance”. Now we’re going to go home and try and win it in front of our fans. “But we’re all about writing our own history”.

Chapman recorded the first eight-out save of his career, and the first in a World Series game since Madison Bumgarner’s five-inning gem in the 2014 Fall Classic. His previous longest outing came earlier this year while with the Yankees when he threw for 2 1/3 innings on July 9, a game that happened to be against the Indians.

Maddon’s not always right, but he’s always interesting, but he needed to be right Sunday night.

Joe Maddon calls on Chapman knowing his best reliever needs to give him some distance. “He hasn’t been overused in the last part of this season nor throughout the playoffs”.

Chapman knew ahead of time that he might be pressed into duty earlier than usual.

“I’m not real big picture”, Francona said late Sunday.

“I love him like a brother, like a dad, like a mentor”, Rizzo said. One loss in three games at Wrigley Field will not change that collective mindset.

“Why not us?” asks Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant, whose solo home run launched a three-run fourth inning for the Cubs on their way to their first World Series win at Wrigley Field since 1945. Previously, the city had experienced its last major sports title when the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League won the Super Bowl in 1964.

Anthony Rizzo came within a couple feet of making it back-to-back jacks, hitting a double off the right field wall.

The crowd held its breath as Chapman struck out Jose Ramirez, hit Brandon Guyer with a pitch and induced Roberto Perez to ground to second with the tying and go-ahead runs on base to end the threat. David Ross hit a sacrifice fly to left, bringing home Zobrist to make it 3-1. Schwarber went hitless in one pinch-hit at-bat in Game 3 and didn’t appear in Game 4. Bryant was 1-for-3 with a walk. After Rajai Davis stole second and third in the eighth, Francisco Lindor took a 101 miles per hour pitch at the knees for an inning-ending called third strike, then stood in the batter’s box for almost 20 seconds in anger and frustration.

Jon Lester started for Chicago, and he gave the team six strong innings in which he allowed just two runs.