A Surprising Game (and Loss)

I guess that's baseball, but, under the conditions, warmish night, wind howling out to center field, no one would have expected a 1-0 game.  Given the Cubs offense, no one would have expected them to be on the short end.  Give the Indians credit, they have a pitching plan, which is to stick with the off-speed stuff, and, so far, through their own playoff series and now the World Series, it has been effective.

No one wants to talk about it, but even the implication of Maddon's post-game interview is that the wind must have got into the Cubs batters heads.  I daresay there was a reason the hitters got out of the strike zone.  By and large, all of them looked like they wanted to deposit the ball on Waveland or Sheffield for a grand slam even with the bases empty.  Baez, in particular, was a mess.  Back to the old high leg kick and all.  He came up twice late in the game with a chance to tie or win it and came up empty.  The Cubs win when the grind out at-bats, swing at strikes, and play within themselves.

Tomorrow is another day.

Of the controversies created after the game among fans and commentators, I have these thoughts.  Maddon defended his decision to allow Edwards to continue to pitch in the seventh inning with Crisp coming up.  His thoughts were he liked that match-up better than Montgomery vs. Guyer, who may have pinch-hit had he made a change.  I don't like it much.  First of all, Edwards was in his second inning of work and was on the ropes.  Secondly, there is no assurance Francona would have hit for Crisp, who is a switch-hitter and a veteran player.  Maddon has had a lot of success turning the Indians switch-hitters around, so why not take a chance.  Lets just say it was an odd and uncharacteristic choice.

As it turns out, Crisp got a bloop single.  Soler chose to play the ball on a hop, a safe play.  Could he have caught it.  That's pretty doubtful, and if he had tried, he would likely have had to leave his feet, which pretty much meant the run would have scored from third base anyway.  He was playing very deep at the time, as all the fielders were given the game conditions.  As it is he got the out at third base against the advancing runner and kept the game close.  The wild pitch was the key play of that inning, getting the runner to third.  Given that pitch, all the more reason to take Edwards out.  It is fashionable to knock Soler, but the guy did go two for three with a triple and he did give the Cubs two of the three scoring opportunities they had against Indians pitching.

Saturday becomes a must-win game for the Cubs and they have to beat Kluber or get him out early.  Weather conditions are likely to be similar Friday night.  Lets hope they get it together.