CHICAGO -- By Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo's thinking, the math just didn't make sense for Game 3 of the World Series on Friday night.

"All things added up is like a negative to it," Rizzo said half-sarcastically after losing 1-0 to the Cleveland Indians. "Fly ball pitcher, wind is howling out, it's October, so of course 1-0 game with a broken bat to win it. That's the way this game is. You have to roll with it."

The Cubs will have to "roll" just as they did last series, down 2-1 and coming off a shutout. They've scored no "points," as manager Joe Maddon likes to call runs, in two of their past three games and four of their past eight, and this time they don't have home-field advantage to fall back on. Things look even more dire with Indians ace Corey Kluber going in Game 4. So how did Josh Tomlin and three relievers shut the Cubs down?

"We were so anxious in the first few innings," catcher Willson Contreras said. "We were swinging at everything. We didn't have the right approach."

If a rookie noticed bad at-bats, you'd better believe his manager did, too. This was not the same Cubs team that saw 196 pitches two nights ago while grinding down the Indians' bullpen in their Game 2 victory. In fact, they saw 72 fewer Friday and the results weren't pretty: five hits to go along with one walk. They were aided by some poor defense by the Indians, but the Cubs could never get that decisive hit. This was supposed to be the night they pounded the ball against a No. 3 pitcher while sending their own ace to the mound. Kyle Hendricks did his part, but the lineup could not. The Cubs wasted a good hitter's night.

"It's rare that you see those conditions, and it's a 1-0 baseball game," Maddon said. "But that's how it works out sometimes. ... From our perspective, we got out of the zone way too much. We've got to get our strike zone organized again for [Saturday] night's game."

Of course, once Cleveland took the lead on a soft Coco Crisp hit to right field in the seventh, the Indians were able to pitch their big guns in the final innings, beginning with Andrew Miller who actually came in with the score still 0-0. He struck out three and earned the victory, and the team scoring first has won every game since the beginning of both league championship series.

Maddon had one more rabbit to pull out of his hat. If Kyle Schwarber couldn't get four plate appearances in the game as a starter, at least the Cubs' manager could choose when to hit him. Down 1-0 in the eighth inning was as good a time as any.

"Even though there was nobody on base there and that 1-0 game, he's already in scoring position," Maddon said. "And if he were to get on, we were going to pinch run and run it there with the top of the order coming up, which is also a good part about it."

Alas, not even Schwarber could ignite the Cubs' offense as he popped out to second, breaking his bat in the process. So the Cubs didn't take advantage of the conditions and got no help from the opposing pitcher. Tomlin kept them off balance, then three relievers used their breaking stuff to stymie the Cubs some more. According to ESPN Stats & Information, the home team was 0-for-7 with five strikeouts against the Indians' bullpen in at-bats that ended in a breaking pitch.

"Sometimes we were taking fastball swings and it wasn't a fastball," Ben Zobrist said. "We didn't square a lot of pitches up."

The natural thinking in this moment would be to question if the atmosphere at Wrigley Field worked against the Cubs in their first home World Series game since 1945. It was raucous from early in the afternoon. If the Cubs got out of their hitting plan, why did it happen?

"I don't think it was the residue of our guys being overwhelmed by the situation at all," Maddon said. "I thought our guys -- evidenced by how well we played defense, we had great awareness on defense, so the minds are working good -- we just chased a little bit."

The Cubs don't often have great success against pitchers they haven't seen or against one who won't give them a few free passes. And if they're willing to help opponents out by swinging outside the zone, that's an even bigger problem, because it's hard to earn base hits on pitches you can't reach. Just as they did after getting down 2-1 to the Los Angeles Dodgers, they'll need to find that correct approach again. For the moment, all the Cubs can do is lament a missed chance to win with one of their aces on the mound and favorable hitting conditions.

"Fly ball pitcher with the wind blowing out, it's crazy how we didn't hit fly balls," Rizzo reiterated.

Zobrist added: "There wasn't a lot of hard-hit balls, and if they were, they weren't up in the air."

Tomlin came in with the highest ground-ball-to-fly-ball percentage of his career, though he did give up 36 home runs in the regular season. On Friday, the right-hander beat the elements, he beat the crowd and he beat the Cubs along with a little help from what's becoming a historic postseason bullpen for the Indians.

"Tomlin was really on top of his game, and the three relievers you saw did the same thing to Toronto, which is a pretty good offensive ballclub," Maddon said.

So here we are again. Struggling on offense and down 2-1 in the series. Inside the clubhouse, there was no connecting the dots among the four shutouts the Cubs have endured during the past eight games; as Rizzo rightly pointed out, losing 20-10 or 1-0 is all the same. But can they get it back against Kluber who just beat them Tuesday? Will he be as sharp on three days' rest? The Cubs might not be in any dire straits, but they're not in the driver's seat in this series, either. That much we know.

"We were going to have to beat Kluber anyway," Zobrist said. "We'll get a chance to do that [Saturday]."

Actually, there is one common theme among the Cubs' shutouts in the postseason, but it's unclear if anything can be done about it from their side. Credit has to come where credit is due.

"Good pitching," Zobrist said. "That's the common theme."