Believe it, Cleveland: These Indians are going to the World Series
TORONTO — They all circled together in the visiting clubhouse of the Rogers Centre, the 25 players who had just ousted the Toronto Blue Jays from the American League Championship Series, the executives who have built an organization that is quickly becoming a model around baseball, the coaching staff and all the cameras waiting to see them bathe in their glory. To celebrate that the Cleveland Indians — 19 years removed from their last pennant, 68 from their last title — are going to the World Series.
They had done it in this improbable way, by riding their bullpen and a rotation stitched together, well, by stitches, and with the facile genius of a manager who so deftly managed his relief corps. To beat Toronto in Game 5, they stuck close to the formula that had worked so well for them — an unheralded starter good enough to grab a lead and a large heaping of Andrew Miller. But even as Miller dominated again, winning the ALCS MVP and whipsawing through a fearsome lineup, there was an unlikely star who had outshined him, and there were calls for him.
Ryan Merritt did not come out of nowhere, but it was close. His last start was in Arizona in instructional league. He had faced 37 batters in the majors before Cleveland tabbed him to start Wednesday. He was a no-name to everyone except the Indians. But the teammates who knew his name kept calling it, kept calling him into the middle of the circle, calling for a speech, trying to get him to bask in this moment.
What will Indians do for a World Series encore?
“Shaking in their boots!” someone yelled. And then again.
All the while, Merritt stood there in a gray hat too big for him, holding a champagne bottle he looked too young to drink and sporting a grin on his face.
“It’s almost like a fairy tale,” Merritt said. “It’s like I can’t hardly believe it, but then you can. It’s slowly hitting me, but it’s just so awesome to be a part of this.”
The man who had taken down Toronto didn’t know when he took the mound that Jose Bautista had taunted him the day before, saying of Merritt, “He's going to be shaking in his boots more than we are.”
“We knew,” Indians reliever Mike Clevinger said. “No. I’m glad he didn’t know, just because I know what kind of person he was, so when they were saying he was shaking in his boots and I actually got to see — I knew he was going to be that Merritt. I knew he was going to be that same guy.”
If Merritt was the same pitcher then perhaps Toronto would still be playing. He had a 3.70 ERA in Class AAA this season and wasn’t even active for the division series. He didn’t know he was on the ALCS roster until a reliever, Cody Anderson, called and congratulated him. “On what?” he said.
Merritt didn’t know about Bautista’s words until after the game, when he had retired the slugger twice. Merritt didn’t give up a hit until the fourth inning, holding a perfect game until Josh Donaldson singled to center field.
He was preternaturally cool, not belying any jitteriness he might have had. Merritt only displayed them once, when he and Clevinger showed up to the clubhouse Wednesday morning and Merritt admitted to his nervousness. And then he went on to his routine, finding soothing in his pregame routine — the video games Clash of Clans and Wayout. His boots, the brownish-red ones he actually wore, remained in his locker.
His teammates expected nothing else. Merritt is the same person who ignores ESPN, who still owns an iPhone 3 and will drive his pick-up truck until it breaks down. Instead, he was focused on the Blue Jays lineup. Roberto Perez, the Indians catcher, told him before the game to follow his lead. He was confident he had come up with a game plan to foil them and just asked Merritt to follow it. From his first pitch, an 83-mph changeup to Bautista on the outside corner, it was clear he would. He fooled Bautista with his next one, a 69-mph curveball he was desperately out in front of, and struck out Edwin Encarnacion looking with a curveball to end the inning.
After 41/3 innings, and allowing two hits, Merritt came out, having given the Indians more than they could have wanted and holding a 3-0 lead.
Indians shut out Blue Jays, advance to first World Series since 1997
And with his fastball never breaking 88 mph.
“Everyone gets built up on the velo thing,” Clevinger said. “And then they actually see him pitch and they’re like ‘Wow, that kid’s a bulldog.’”
The final 42/3 innings had an air of inevitability for Cleveland. The bullpen has been its bedrock this postseason and Miller their redoubtable weapon, deployable at any time. In Game 5, Francona brought him in the sixth and let it ride. For eight outs, he walloped Blue Jays hitters again with mid-90s fastballs and devastating sliders.
All that remained was the drama, and that subsided when Troy Tulowitzki popped out to Carlos Santana in front of the Indians’ dugout. As Santana dropped to his knees, the party began, by second base and working its way into a sweat- and alcohol-soaked clubhouse.
Cleveland had waited so long for this. The Indians have not won a World Series since 1948. They won 111 games in 1954 and got swept. So began a 41-year playoff drought. The team won more playoff games in the movies than in reality. It was a dark era for the franchise. When they made it to the World Series again in 1995, just losing to the Atlanta Braves seemed unfathomable.
“I’m a lifelong Cleveland fan,” Paul Dolan, the team’s owner, told USA TODAY Sports. “We just didn’t think it was possible we could go to the World Series. I grew up in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s — we didn’t sniff at that. So in ’95 that was extraordinary — a thrill — for any fan the idea that your team could go to the World Series. This feels much the same. Just because I never dreamed that I would be in this position with a Cleveland team going.”
Now, the Indians are four wins away from nirvana. They have done it with a team that has defied conventional wisdom. Francona has re-written the rules on how to use a bullpen. The starter who opened the postseason on the mound for them walked around the clubhouse with a plastic bag shielded his right hand, trying to keep his gashed-open pinky dry after a drone incident left him bleeding on the rubber in Game 3.
They have come close before. Sandy Alomar Jr., a catcher on the 1997 team and a coach now, still remembers the devastation of losing the 7th game of the World Series that year. He felt so close only to find failure. And he saw the jubilation in Cleveland in June when the Cavaliers celebrated their own title. When hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets.
“If the Cleveland Indians win, if we win, it’s going to be big like that,” he said. “The city is starving for this, especially the baseball team. We’ve been so close but we haven’t gotten the trophy. We’ll be pushing hard to do this.”
GALLERY: Top postseason moments
