World Series Game 3: Indians blank Cubs again, take 2-1 series lead

Coco Crisp (4) hits an RBI-single scoring pinch-runner Michael Martinez (not pictured) during the seventh inning in game three of the 2016 World Series against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. (Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports)

About a half-hour before something 71 years in the making, dozens of lonely souls stood outside Wrigley Field with an index finger extended in the air, like they were tsk-tsking the sky. In the vicinity of a baseball stadium, that translates to only one thing: someone needs a single ticket. As appealing as the prospect of spending upward of $2,000 to sit alone might sound, on this night, in this stadium, there was no better place to be.

The finger waggers and millions of Chicagoans and others displaced from the sudden center of the baseball universe wanted to be there, even among strangers, because at this moment that seemed like it never would come, there was no such thing as a stranger. Everyone was family.

And it was OK to cry on a night like this, tears of joy that the Chicago Cubs were playing a World Series game at Wrigley for the first time since 1945 and those of sadness that the final score on the board in center field read Cleveland 1, Cubs 0. In a game worthy of the occasion, the difference came down to a pinch-hit single from Coco Crisp in the top of the seventh inning that accounted for one tick mark surrounded by zeroes.

Though nothing could spoil this night, even a two-games-to-one deficit in the World Series, Crisp’s knock to right field off reliever Carl Edwards Jr. left the Cubs in scramble mode for the final nine outs. They dispatched slugger Kyle Schwarber as a pinch hitter, only to see him pop out. They stranded a runner in the eighth, as Indians manager Terry Francona turned to Cody Allen to strike out Kris Bryant. And as Allen wrapped up the fourth shutout of the Cubs this postseason by wriggling free from a jam in the ninth, the home-field advantage they’d bought with a Game 2 win melted away in a Game 3 loss.

Wrigley was a sight before the game. Grown men walked around in Cubs snuggies. Fans lined up to pay hundreds of dollars to watch the game in bars. And for the 2½ hours between the time the gates opened at 4:38 p.m. CT and the first pitch was thrown, they stood in front of the sign at Clark and Addison that says WRIGLEY FIELD HOME OF THE CHICAGO CUBS and snapped selfies.

All the photos went on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, shared with a world jealous it wasn’t there. Because this was supposed to be the night. They wore T-shirts that said Goatbusters, held signs that said It’s Gonna Happen, tried to overwhelm with positivity a stadium that has never housed a World Series champion.

Then came the game, and the zeroes, and the tension, and the fear, and the first-and-third-with-one-out situation. Andrew Miller, Cleveland’s ace reliever who had just struck out the top three hitters in the Cubs’ lineup, was up to bat, and much as Francona didn’t want to replace him and leave the final three innings to others, the Indians needed to play for one run because one run looked like it was all they’d need. So up came Crisp, the 36-year-old who came up with Cleveland, went to three other organizations and was traded back to the Indians on Aug. 31, the final day a player could be traded.

He did what he did, and Bryan Shaw and Allen took care of those final nine outs, and the game played to the conclusion Francona had hoped for after he matched Cubs manager Joe Maddon by relieving his starter early.

While the Cubs’ Kyle Hendricks was shaky and needed a groundball double play from reliever Justin Grimm to escape the fifth inning, Indians starter Josh Tomlin was in control for almost all of his 4 2/3 innings before Francona yanked him for Miller.

Only 18 times in major league history had both starting pitchers been pulled with fewer than five innings pitched while throwing a shutout. Never in postseason history had it happened. These playoffs – the ones in which a non-closer, Miller, won ALCS MVP and the Los Angeles Dodgers threw their closer for three innings in a losing effort – have altered the dynamics of October relief-pitching usage and made it not just OK to go to the bullpen early but almost imperative.

Francona handled his with a deft hand again. Shaw worked out of a jam in the seventh when right fielder Lonnie Chisenhall mishandled a flyball down the right-field line that Jorge Soler turned into a triple, even as he didn’t run out of the batter’s box. The Cubs came even closer in the ninth, with pinch runner Chris Coghlan, in after Anthony Rizzo’s leadoff single, advancing to second on defensive indifference and third after Indians first baseman Mike Napoli couldn’t handle pinch hitter Jason Heyward’s chopper. Javier Baez, an October hero already, couldn’t muster any more magic, striking out on a 95-mph fastball to end the tense, exciting game.

Cubs fans stood the entire inning, hoping Baez could summon his wizardry, that Chicago could rewrite its story. This was classic Cubs, though, so close and yet not close enough. There is Game 4 on Saturday and Game 5 on Sunday, two more chances to hug strangers and love life and hope that, by the end of the series, an index finger pointing to the sky means something altogether different.