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Castrovince: Tribe is compelling playoff tale
- Updated: October 11, 2016
BOSTON — He was shoeless, sockless, his naked feet soaked in champagne and bad beer. But they needed Chris Antonetti outside for a television interview, so a media relations guy offered the Indians president his slippery-but-still-functional sandals for the walk through the dank hallway that leads to Fenway Park’s visiting dugout.
Yes, even after the Indians had toppled the Red Sox in a three-game American League Division Series sweep on Monday night, there were signals of how they got here in the first place — excellent acquisitions, perseverance in the face of bad breaks … or, in this case, bare feet.
“Instead of focusing on what we didn’t have or which guys weren’t healthy or what challenges we encountered,” Antonetti said, “our guys just focused on trying to find a way to win that night’s game.”
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The Indians won 94 games to claim the AL’s second seed, but to believe they’d win three more required either a die-hard disposition or, at the very least, an intimate understanding of October’s nuances.
You’ll remember, of course, the kerfuffle that arose when a local writer deemed the Tribe’s hope of advancing out of the ALDS to be DBA (that’s Dead Before Arrival) at the time No. 2 starter Carlos Carrasco broke a bone in his hand, and the sentiment was perhaps understandable. But focusing on what wasn’t here distracted onlookers from what was.
“People can say whatever they think,” Carrasco said on Monday. “The truth is here.”
The truth lied in an underrated offense accustomed to platoon advantages, a deep bullpen anchored by Andrew Miller, an aggressive mentality on the basepaths, a dependable defense and, perhaps most importantly, a progressive and proactive manager in Terry Francona.
All of those attributes came in handy this past week. And when Sunday’s rainout threatened to neutralize Francona’s ability to be aggressive with his ‘pen (read: Miller) because of the pertinent possibility of Games 3, 4 and 5 being played in successive days, the Indians got just what they needed to go for the throat.
Josh Tomlin gave them five good innings in which the once-mighty Red Sox’s offense continued to be mystified by these new creations known as breaking balls and changeups. Then it was Coco Crisp delivering the dagger in …
