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.
"We're still in good shape," said reliever Andrew Miller. "We've got Corey Kluber going tomorrow, and he's as good as they come. You've got to like our chances. We have a chance to win at home, with our best guy on the mound. It's every kid's dream. How many times have we all pretended we're in Game 7 of the World Series? Well, here we are."
When the Indians failed to close out the Cubs in Game 5 on Sunday night at Wrigley Field, they could take solace in having won two of three games in Chicago to seize a 3-2 lead in the Series. But the combination of Josh Tomlin's early woes and the Tyler Naquin- Lonnie Chisenhall outfield hijinks sucked all the energy out of Progressive Field and made Indians fans wonder if they weren't about to be subjected to a uniquely Cleveland brand of sports torture.
Never mind Earnest Byner's fumble, The Drive or all the torment the Browns have endured over the past few decades. Indians fans with long memories have plenty of worst-case scenarios embedded in their brains. The Tribe endured a 41-year stretch of postseason-free baseball from 1954 through 1995. Cleveland fell to Atlanta in the '95 World Series after going 100-44 in a strike-shortened season and lost the 1997 World Series to the Florida Marlins when closer Jose Mesa failed to seal the deal.
More recent examples of Cleveland's postseason baseball failings are particularly stark. Since 1999, the Indians are 3-13 in potential series-clinching games in October, and they've been outscored 119-49.
The track record would be suffocating if the Cleveland players allowed any trace of negativity to pervade their thoughts. So they use some things for motivation and weed out the rest.
"We want to win for these fans just as much as we want to do it for ourselves," closer Cody Allen said. "I think we owe it to this city and to each one of these guys in here to leave it out there tomorrow. That's all we can do."
Does the Indians' team history pose an extra burden as they try to craft a positive ending? Not really.
"I mean, look at their history," Allen said of the Cubs.
While it's a challenge to find positive omens in a 9-3 loss, the Indians showed a few signs of life on the way to being steamrolled in Game 6. When Jason Kipnis hit a solo homer off Jake Arrieta in the fifth inning to cut Chicago's lead to 7-2, his teammates picked him up and carried him through the dugout in a "wedding chair" celebration, as they've done all season. They certainly didn't look defeated or uptight.
"Even down in the bullpen, if they showed us on camera during the game, we looked pretty loose," Miller said. "There's a never-give-up mentality. That looseness is something we strive for. What those guys were doing in the dugout wasn't fake. It's what works for us. There's just this assumption that we'll find a way to come back, or show up tomorrow, or whatever it is.
"We're here for a reason. We're a really good team, and we've won a lot of games, and we just have to find a way to win one more."
The Indians also forced Chicago closer Aroldis Chapman to throw 20 pitches before he gave way to Pedro Strop in the ninth inning. In contrast, Cleveland's big three relief contingent of Miller, Allen and Bryan Shaw all had the night off.
"That's us kind of fighting back and putting on a little pressure and saying, 'Hey, they had a big lead, but let's get something out of this game,'" Kipnis said. "Maybe it's setting yourself up with some big swings so you can take some positivity into tomorrow. Even if it just means we have some guys who have now seen [Chapman] a little bit more and can have a different approach against him the next day, that's a silver lining."
Ultimately, all conjecture and conversation circled back to Kluber, who has embraced every challenge the Indians have thrown his way this month. It all began during the division series, when he returned from a quadriceps strain to beat Boston's David Price on 10 days' rest.
Kluber threw on short rest for the first time against Toronto in the league championship series and will become only the seventh pitcher in the past 30 years to make three starts in a World Series. The list includes Boston's Bruce Hurst (1986), the New York Mets' Ron Darling (also 1986), Minnesota's Frank Viola (1987) and Jack Morris (1991), Arizona's Curt Schilling (2001) and St. Louis' Chris Carpenter (2011).
With each new honor or historical precedent thrown his way, Kluber keeps the focus on pitching and nothing more. During an interview session Tuesday, he was asked about joining Cincinnati's Jose Rijo as the first pitcher since 1990 to win Games 1 and 4 of a World Series.
"I know he pitched for the Reds in the World Series," Kluber said. "But as far as appreciating the historical significance, probably not."
Could Kluber appreciate the cosmic significance of having won the All-Star Game in San Diego in July, then standing on the Progressive Field mound in Game 7 almost four months later because of a home-field advantage that he helped create?
"No, I never connected those dots at that point in time," he said.
When Kluber reports to work Wednesday for the biggest game of his life, he will prepare with the same tunnel vision that he brings to a postseason game or a garden-variety start in spring training. He maintains the same high standards all season long, and his teammates take heart in that, because they know he'll bring his best.
"Who else would you want?" Kipnis said. "That's our guy. That's our stud. That's our bona fide ace. You ask everybody in here who we want on that mound, and you're going to get Corey Kluber as the answer."
Earlier in this series, Kipnis expressed puzzlement that Kluber isn't already a household name. If Kluber beats the Cubs in Game 7 to end Cleveland's 68-year World Series drought and extend Chicago's dry spell to 109, it will be hard for America not to take notice. It might even be enough for Corey Kluber to crack a smile.