CHICAGO -- With one dominant pitching performance after another, Corey Kluber and the Cleveland Indians have pushed the Chicago Cubs out of the spotlight. And with one more headline-making performance, it will be the Indians, not the Cubs, who snap a generations-long title drought.
Kluber gave up an early run but recovered to shut out Chicago for the rest of his outing, and the Indians beat the Cubs 7-2 in Game 4 of the World Series. Kluber lowered his postseason ERA to 0.89. Only Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson (0.38) has had a lower ERA over his first five postseason outings.
Cleveland leads the heavily favored Cubs in the Series three games to one. The last time the Indians took a 3-1 lead in the World Series was 1948, the last year they won it all. Thirty-nine of the 44 teams to go up 3-1 in the World Series have taken home the crown.
Chicagoland native Jason Kipnis, who grew up a Cubs fan, broke open the game in the seventh with a three-run homer to right that silenced a stunned gathering at the Friendly Confines. The blast off Justin Grimm put the Indians up 7-1 and was the first three-run World Series homer against the Cubs at Wrigley Field since Babe Ruth in 1932.
Before the game, Cubs manager Joe Maddon reiterated the importance of getting an early lead because of the strength of the back end of Terry Francona's bullpen. The Cubs accomplished that goal but gave their early advantage right back. Chicago entered the game 7-1 in the postseason and 73-20 during the regular season when scoring first. Instead of building on those trends, the Cubs added another data point in the wrong column: They fell to 2-13 all time in World Series games at Wrigley Field.
The game began amid dropping temperatures and an encroaching fog carried by a pitcher's wind blowing toward home plate. The fog blew away, but the Cubs' malaise continued. At the outset, it appeared things would be different.
After starter John Lackey blew through the Indians with a sharply dropping slider in the top of the first, Dexter Fowler got the Cubs going against Kluber with a leadoff double off the glove of diving left fielder Rajai Davis. He scored one batter later on Anthony Rizzo's sharp single. Rizzo moved into a tie with Javier Baez for the Cubs' postseason lead in RBIs with seven, but that turned out to be the Cubs' high point of the evening.
Lackey ran into trouble immediately in the second, surrendering a leadoff homer to Carlos Santana into the right-field bleachers, a ball that went out despite the sharp wind blowing off Lake Michigan. Santana's blast was the first World Series homer at Wrigley Field since Detroit's Hank Greenberg went deep in Game 6 of the 1945 Fall Classic.
The Indians added an unearned run to take the lead when Kris Bryant committed two throwing errors within the space of four batters. Lackey threw 34 pitches in the inning, which featured the first lead change of the entire series.
The Indians stretched their advantage to 3-1 in the third. Kipnis doubled into the right-field corner and scored on Francisco Lindor's single up the middle. From there, the game and the Series began to take on a slipping-away feeling before an increasingly nervous gathering at Wrigley Field. Lonnie Chisenhall's sacrifice fly in the sixth gave the Indians a three-run advantage, something they have squandered just once in 71 games this season.
Working on short rest, Kluber was mostly in command after his shaky start. Bryant walked and Kluber hit Rizzo with two outs in the third, but Ben Zobrist struck out. That continued the Cubs' woes with runners in scoring position. Chicago entered the game 4-for-30 in those spots during the World Series and didn't fare any better in Game 4.
On Sunday, the Cubs will attempt to prolong their season and send the Series back to Cleveland by sending No. 1 starter Jon Lester to the mound. The Indians will start Trevor Bauer, who has struggled with injuries and ineffectiveness. However, thanks to Kluber's outing and the blowout score, Cleveland will also enter the game with its lethal bullpen well rested.
The last team to win Games 3, 4 and 5 of a World Series on the road was the 1996 Yankees. The Indians will try to replicate that feat in Game 5 at Wrigley Field on Sunday. They will also try to hand the Cubs a third straight loss for the first time since before the All-Star break.
If the Indians can do all that, it will touch off a celebration on the shores of Lake Erie not seen since the days of Bob Feller, Larry Doby, Lou Boudreau and Satchel Paige. One drought would end, and another drought would continue -- 68 becoming zero and 108 becoming 109 -- leaving the Cubs in a very lonely historical class.