The Indians lost 5-1 yesterday to the Toronto Blue Jays in the AL Championship Series. Cleveland still leads the series 3-1 and will try again today to win to earn their first World Series trip since 1997.
WKSU commentator Terry Pluto says they weren't hitting the ball well and Toronto starting hitting.
"It's very easy to come up with a gloom and doom scenario," Pluto says. "We are the masters of disaster when it comes to looking at our teams and thinking about how things can fall apart."
The Indians had won nine games in a row going back to the end of the regular season. But, all of the injuries to the starting rotation have piled up.
Cleveland is forced to use an untested rookie in today's fifth game. The man in question is 24-year-old Ryan Merritt, who has just 11 innings of big-league baseball under his belt.
"Who knows how [Merritt] will pitch, and Toronto finally has some confidence. The nice thing is, if they lose today, they'll do have the two games in Cleveland and they'll come back around to Josh Tomlin and Corey Kluber, their two healthy starters."
Only once in Major League Baseball history has a team come back from being down 0-3 to win a series; that was the Boston Red Sox in 2004. They came back to beat the Yankees.
"We certainly don't want to see the Indians be on the wrong side of baseball history," Pluto says.
