I easily could have given this to Corey Kluber, who won Games 1 and 4 for the Indians and was the only starting pitcher on either team to throw a pitch in the seventh inning (he threw three in Game 1, giving up a single to Zobrist before being pulled for Andrew Miller). The Indians can rightly feel things could have been different with Michael Brantley in the lineup or Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar in the rotation.īut those aren't regrets. The injuries that were supposed to catch up with them in the regular season or in early October may have kept them from winning. Manager Terry Francona, who has transformed the franchise and had a great postseason, had little choice but to start Corey Kluber repeatedly on three days' rest and to push Andrew Miller into four games as early as possible. 360 batting average in the postseason the rest of the Indians combined were hitting. Going into Game 6 of the World Series, Francisco Lindor had a. The Indians went through the postseason with one dependable starting pitcher and one hot hitter. But this Indians team deserves tons of credit for what it accomplished and no complaints about falling just short. They've lived all the disappointment over all the years. "Brutal," as an Indians fan texted me minutes after it was done. It's tough to lose the World Series, doubly tough to lose in Game 7 and triply tough to lose in extra innings in Game 7.
#Who won the 2016 world series baseball series#
It's safe now, I think, so here are Bleacher Report's 2016 World Series awards. It won't change again, because after a baseball season that went the distance and then some, the Cubs have ended a legendary drought that went the distance and then some. And it changed two or three more times over the course of a Game 7 that began Wednesday night and ended after midnight Cleveland time Thursday morning. It changed even more when they won Game 6 Tuesday.
It changed Sunday night when the Cubs won Game 5.
As you might imagine, it looked a little different then. They have the World Series title they deserve, and they have a more-than-memorable Game 7 to talk about for the next 108 years.Īnd here at Bleacher Report, we have World Series awards I started working on Sunday, when the Cleveland Indians had a 3-1 series lead.
The Chicago Cubs had more dependable starting pitchers and more productive stars. After all the talk of curses and droughts, and all the angst about which manager shouldn't have used which pitcher at which point, it came down to simple baseball logic.