Soft-spoken Kluber lets Game 1 gem do the talking

CLEVELAND — Andrew Miller’s new neighbor was basically a stranger, and to some extent, he still is. Miller, the trade acquisition who arrived in August, had only met Corey Kluber once, at this summer’s All-Star Game, and so suddenly occupying a locker next to that of the man affectionately and accurately known as “The Klubot” has given the reliever his first real window into the world of the stoic, dry, impassive ace of the Indians.

“He is,” said Miller, “a man of few words.”

• Game 2: Tonight, 7 p.m. ET game time on FOX (6 p.m. ET pregame show on FS1)

Few words, sure, but in this October, in his first extended opportunity to show the baseball world at large what they might have missed in his American League Cy Young Award season of 2014, Kluber has combined with Miller to level the playing field for a short-handed Tribe team that is now just three wins away from its first World Series title in 68 years. The Indians’ 6-0 win in Game 1 at Progressive Field on Tuesday night was further confirmation that the Klubot’s mainframe is operative in October, as if there were much concern to the contrary.

Game Date Time (air time/game time) Matchup TV Gm 1 Oct. 25   CLE 6, CHC 0 Gm 2 Oct. 26 7 p.m. (6 p.m. pregame show on FS1) CHC @ CLE FOX Gm 3 Oct. 28 7:30 p.m./8 p.m. CLE @ CHC FOX Gm 4 Oct. 29 7:30 p.m./8 p.m. CLE @ CHC FOX *Gm 5 Oct. 30 8 p.m. CLE @ CHC FOX *Gm 6 Nov. 1 7:30 p.m./8 p.m. CHC @ CLE FOX *Gm 7 Nov. 2 7:30 p.m./8 p.m. CHC @ CLE FOX * If necessary | All times listed ET • World Series coverageShop for postseason gear: Cubs | Indians

On this night, Kluber set a Cleveland World Series record with his eighth strikeout.

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Then the game moved to the fourth inning.

So, yeah, Kluber, who would give the Tribe six-plus scoreless innings with nine K’s in all (six of them of the backward variety) was on his game, getting insane movement on his sinker to leave a tough Cubs lineup befuddled.

“It just starts at your hip,” Chicago first baseman Anthony Rizzo said of that two-seam fastball. “And it comes in at you and then he can cut if off of that, too. … It’s just really picking a lane.”

In Game 1, the Cubs’ lane led straight back to the first-base dugout, and Kluber’s performance — in front of the young Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital patient he had supplied with tickets — was what allowed the Indians to take advantage of one of the more bizarre two-out, two-run rallies the World Series has likely ever seen, as well as the first of Roberto “Yogi” …

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