The hope is that the experience of watching the Cubs in the World Series for the first time in 71 years isn’t marred by watching them picked apart in the first game of that series by the American League Cy Young winner of two seasons ago. Both teams came into the Fall Classic with long histories of not reaching the mark in October, but for the Cubs just getting this far has already felt like a momentous accomplishment. This doesn’t mean that they came to the shores of Lake Erie to rest on the laurels of a National League Championship, but after ultimately defeating Clayton Kershaw to advance this far, Corey Kluber blocked their path to victory in Game One.
Corey Kluber isn’t the whole story of this game, however. Were it so simple, but it’s not. First though, we should talk about Kluber. On an ordinary night, he stays in and completes this job himself and likely finishes the night with a strikeout total in double digits, but tonight, with Andrew Miller ready to take over, Kluber made an earlier exit. Before doing so, Cleveland’s ace kept the Cubs from getting any serious footing, and their only real potentially fruitful scoring opportunity came in the seventh inning, as he left the game.
Before doing so, however, his curveball dropped into the bottom of the zone with regularity, and his slider bit hard enough to keep the Cubs bats from making any headway. Only Ben Zobrist and Kyle Schwarber could boast effective at bats against Kluber, but perhaps there’s some solace in that, especially in Schwarber’s case. In his six innings of work, Kluber would spread four hits, walk none, and strike out nine.
For the Cubs, Jon Lester, who has pitched so brilliantly throughout this postseason, put together a start that meets the standard in terms of respectability, but when it comes opposite of Kluber’s night, respectable isn’t enough. Lester fell into early trouble that yielded a 2-0 hole for the Cubs in the first inning. Beginning a trend that would continue for the rest of the night, Cleveland rallied with two outs on the board, and this time it started with a single from Francisco Lindor. Mike Napoli followed him and drew a five pitch walk. It would take just another five pitches for Carlos Santana to walk as well and load the bases. This set the table for Jose Ramirez to hit Lester’s 0-1 sinker for an RBI single that scored the first run and kept the bases loaded. Brandon Guyer drove in the next run, sort of, when he took a cutter to the leg from Jon Lester. After Guyer, Lonnie Chisenhall’s strikeout ended what had abruptly turned into a rough inning for the Cubs pitcher.
Chicago’s Game One starter generally settled in from there, his only other run surrendered on a rocket from Roberto Perez just barely over the yellow line on the wall in left field in the fourth inning. After Lester left the game though, Cleveland tallied three more runs in the eighth inning. Again, this would come with two outs, and again, on a home run from Roberto Perez. (At this point, you would be forgiven for feeling compelled to stop and look up who the heck Roberto Perez is. It’s fine. I’ll wait.)
Normally the backup catcher who finished the regular season hitting well, well below the Mendoza line doesn’t drive in the dagger in a World Series game, but so it goes.
But for all of that, there are things worth feeling good about after tonight. Though the Cubs put together a particularly golden opportunity to score in the seventh inning and came out empty-handed, much of the order hit the ball hard off of Kluber and made Andrew Miller work very hard to get through two innings and the entire order got to face him tonight. Ben Zobrist finished the night with a 3 for 4 effort, including a double, and for all the hoopla surrounding his return, Kyle Schwarber really did not disappoint. He went 1 for 3, and his one hit was a wall-banger double off of Kluber. Even in his first at bat strikeout, he strung Kluber along for six pitches, and in his third at bat, he drew a walk off of Miller. And the icing on the cake in this plate appearance was the fourth ball slider that he laid off of—a breaking pitch at the knees that is usually impossible for hitters to stay away from. Despite his lengthy time away and only two game stint in the Arizona Fall League before returning, and in the World Series at that, Schwarber’s eye at the plate was impressive. The hope is that he’ll get enough at bats during this season to capitalize on that.
As a whole, the Cubs offense wasn’t in the abysmal shape that led to back-to-back shutouts in the NLCS last week, but the glaring hole tonight came from the top three in the order. That, along with a lack of effective situational hitting, kept the runs column in the box score at zero. But the Cubs best batters can be forgiven for struggling to get hits when eight of the innings were handled by Corey Kluber and Andrew Miller.
Like the NLCS and Clayton Kershaw, seeing Kluber again later in the series may work to the Cubs’ advantage, and some solace can be taken in the fact that Miller isn’t likely available for Game Two tomorrow. And the Cubs offense has already shown that a couple of flat games at the plate doesn’t spell doom.
For tomorrow night’s game, be sure to note that the expected forecast has pushed the start time to an hour earlier at 6:08 pm CT. Game Two can also be found on FOX and heard on 670 AM.
Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire—USA Today Sports