Kipnis, Tribe get Cubs’ goat

STAFF/WIRE REPORTS

CHICAGO

This time, Cleveland doesn’t mind a 3-1 scenario.

Corey Kluber pitched six sparkling innings on short rest for another win, Jason Kipnis hit a three-run homer in his hometown and the Indians beat the Chicago Cubs 7-2 Saturday night to take a stranglehold on the World Series with a 3-1 lead.

The Indians can capture their first world championship since 1948 in Game 5 tonight at Wrigley Field.

It would be Cleveland’s second professional sports crown in four months. On June 19, the Cavaliers won the NBA Finals after rallying from a 3-1 deficit.

That was Cleveland’s first major professional championship since the Cleveland Browns were NFL champions in 1964.

Trevor Bauer gets the ball tonight at Wrigley Field when the Indians try for the franchise’s third World Series title against Jon Lester and the faltering Cubs.

“I think we like the position we’re in, but the task isn’t done yet,” Kluber said. “We still have one more game to win, and we’re going to show up tomorrow and play with the same sense of urgency we’ve played with until this point.

“We don’t want to let them build up any momentum and let them get back in the series.”

Not bad for a team that seemed like an underdog all year long. Manager Terry Francona’s club beat the defending champion Royals and star-studded Tigers for the AL Central title, and then eliminated David Ortiz and the Red Sox and the heavy-hitting Blue Jays on their way to the AL pennant.

Then much of the talk centered on the major league-leading Cubs and their 107-year championship drought.

But it’s been mostly Indians once more as they moved to 10-2 in this postseason. They did it with Francona pushing all the right buttons while he improved to 11-1 in the World Series.

Dexter Fowler doubled and scored in the first for the Cubs, and then homered against Andrew Miller in the eighth. Fowler’s drive to left-center was the first homer for Chicago in the World Series since Phil Cavaretta connected in Game 1 in 1945 and the first run allowed by Miller during his dominant postseason.

In between Fowler’s two hits, the Cubs came up empty every time they had a chance to put any pressure on Cleveland.

The Indians won for the second straight day at Wrigley — those two wins matched the Cubs’ entire total of World Series victories in more than a century of playing at their famed ballpark.

Pitching on three days’ rest for the second time, Kluber allowed five hits, struck out six and walked one. The steady, stoic right-hander, who struck out nine in a dominant performance in Game 1, improved to 4-1 with a 0.89 ERA in five playoff starts this year.

Francona put Carlos Santana at first after starting him in left in Game 3, and he cam through at the plate with three hits.

Mike Napoli was out of the starting lineup for the time in the playoffs. And just like the rest of October, the decision worked out quite well for Francona and the Indians.

Santana led off the second with a drive to right against John Lackey, tying it at 1. Santana’s third homer of the playoffs silenced the crowd of 41,706 at Wrigley Field, and the Indians seized the momentum from there.