Cleveland's rallying cry: In Kluber we trust

— -- CLEVELAND -- There are 333 synonyms for the word "stoic" in the online power thesaurus, and Cleveland Indians starter Corey Kluber has displayed every one during the 2016 Major League Baseball postseason. He has been stoic working on short rest, impassive on his way to the dugout after each inning, and serenely oblivious to all the pitching icons he has passed on the way to going 4-1 with a 0.89 ERA in October.

Now it has come to this: The Indians, bedeviled by bad karma and an oppressive postseason history, will hand the ball to their ace one final time with a plea to rescue the 2016 season and the World Series. All things considered, it's a good thing Kluber projects the air of a man without a pulse.

In the clubhouse after a deflating 9-3 loss to the Chicago Cubs in Game 6, the Cleveland players expressed misgivings over their failure to put up much resistance against the Cubs. Each postmortem ultimately took a positive turn because of the rainbow on the horizon.