After falling behind 2-1 in the World Series and suffering their second shutout in three games, the Chicago Cubs will hoping they fare better against Cleveland Indians’ pitcher Corey Kluber the second time around.
“You go up there, you know what he (Kluber) has,” said first baseman Anthony Rizzo after Friday’s 1-0 loss to the Indians in Game 3. “You saw it a few days ago and we have to be ready.”
Kluber, who helped shut out the Indians in the Series opener, goes against in Saturday’s Game 4 of the best-of-seven series.
More from the World Series:
• Game 2: 'Folks will be jacked up' for Cubs as series evens
• Game 1: Indians bring 'intensity' but Cubs 'have no concerns'
• Preview: A tale of two cities and futility for Chicago and Cleveland
After leading the majors with 103 wins boosted by a hard-hitting attack that racked up the runs, the Cubs have been feast or famine in the playoffs.
From the Cubs players to manager Joe Maddon, they blamed the quality of pitching they faced on Friday from starter Josh Tomlin and the Indians’ bullpen, but tried to focus on the next challenge ahead against Kluber.
Maddon said some Cubs hitters were helping the Indians pitchers by swinging at pitches outside the strike zone.
“A lot of our strikeouts obviously were us chasing pitches,” Maddon said. “We’ve got to do better than that.
“We just did not stay within our strike zones.”
Catcher Willson Contreras tipped his cap to Tomlin.
“His pitching was working all night long,” he said. “We didn’t have the good plan tonight.”
Outfielder Ben Zobrist said the Cubs will just treat Game 4 as business as usual and noted that the Cubs fell 2-1 behind in the previous series against the Los Angeles Dodgers before storming back to three straight.
“We’ll just try to have quality at-bats and assume he (Kluber) is going to make mistakes, and we’re gonna take advantage of them,” Zobrist said.
Right-fielder Jason Heyward said the Cubs were going to have to seek every opportunity to score runs against Kluber, but noted that those opportunities would likely be rare.
“You know going up against the guy tomorrow night you gotta take what he’s gonna give you,” Heyward said. “That’s the bottom line, he’s probably not gonna give us a lot.”
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