TORONTO – While the Cleveland Indians made short work of the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series, nobody can accuse them of running away with things.
On aggregate, Cleveland outscored Toronto 12-8 and was out-hit 32-24 during a five-game win that featured very little in the way of breathing room for the victors. The Indians’ outstanding bullpen and gutsy starters did a marvellous job silencing the Jays bats and the hitters did just enough to make sure all that great pitching didn’t go to waste.
“That’s us,” said designated hitter Mike Napoli, who drove in Cleveland’s first run with a double in the opening frame of Game 5’s 3-0 win. “We’re not trying to go out there and be this crazy offence. We’re an offence that works together.”
While the Indians did manage 4.83 runs-per-game during the regular season — good for the fourth-best mark in Major League Baseball — they’ll never be mistaken for the ’27 Yankees. Cleveland, which was middle of the MLB pack in terms of home runs in 2016, did help its cause with six dingers in the ALCS, the final being a fourth-inning solo shot off the bat of Coco Crisp that actually stood up as the last scoring play of the game.
“Oh man, it’s huge,” catcher Roberto Perez said of the round-tripper, noting every run they could scrape out was critical versus the Jays.
The gameplan, of course, has a lot to do with what the Indians can trot out to the mound in the back end of the game.
“We try to score early, let our pitchers settle in and as it goes on we try to tack on runs,” Napoli said. “[Game 5] was a carbon copy of what we’ve been able to do all year.”
Crisp was hitting out of the seven-hole on Wednesday and it wasn’t the first time he made a big contribution from the bottom of the order. In the third game of the division series, when Cleveland completed a sweep of the Boston Red Sox, Crisp hit a two-run shot that wound up being the difference in the game. The man who bats one spot before Crisp, right fielder Lonnie Chisenhall, had four hits against Toronto, the second-highest total on the club after the seven posted by shortstop Francisco Lindor. No other Indians player had more than three hits in the series.
“Our goal is to be one run better every night,” said closer Cody Allen “I think those guys do a good enough job of just continuing to push.”
The approach has now carried Cleveland to the World Series — and don’t expect anything to change once the Indians are on the biggest stage in baseball.
“We believe anyone in our lineup can do anything at any time,” Napoli said. “That’s the beauty of our lineup. We believe in each other, no one tries to do too much. Pass it on to the next guy, grind out at-bats. Whatever the situation in the game [calls for], that’s what we’re going to try to do.”