Stick together and we’re going to win this game.” We’ve got to stay positive and fight for your brothers.
We play like the score is nothing-nothing. “We’re the best team in baseball, and we’re the best team in baseball for a reason,” Heyward said. “At first I was afraid it was going to be negative,” Ross would say later, “and I thought, This is nothing any of these young players needed to be hearing. Heyward began, “I know some things may have happened tonight you don’t like.” All of us were just kind of pacing, and then J starts speaking.” “When we got in,” first baseman Anthony Rizzo said, “the mood was definitely down. Heyward was calling a players-only meeting.ĭirectly behind the visiting dugout at Progressive Field is a weight room about 50 feet long by 25 feet wide. The strong voice that pierced the quiet belonged to Heyward, who had struggled to hit all year after signing a $184 million contract, who began the World Series on the bench and who was hitting. Somehow, Chapman got away with all of them. At least six of the 14 pitches were full-blown mistakes in the strike zone. Facing Cleveland’s three best hitters, when one run would have ended the World Series-and one base runner might easily have led to that run-Chapman threw 14 pitches: 10 sliders and four fastballs. Chicago and Cleveland put at least one runner on in 16 of their 20 turns at bat.īut the most amazing half inning of all might have been one of those four half innings when “nothing happened”: the bottom of the ninth. The only Game 7 with more base runners was played 104 years earlier, in 1912, when the Red Sox and the Giants put 38 runners on. The Cubs and the Indians combined to put 34 runners on base. This would be one of the most frenetic Game 7s in World Series history. Lindor popped it up to Jason Heyward in rightfield. With his 97th pitch over three games in four days, Chapman started him with another fastball, down and in. But Kipnis, after seeing slider after slider, chased it and missed. Chapman threw whatever he had left-it was 99 mph-and missed badly above the strike zone. And the story line is too easy if he beats us: the kid from Chicago who grew up on the same street as Bartman beats the Cubs.”Īt 3 and 2, Montero called for a fastball. “The truth is, I thought Kipnis had ended the game when Chapman hung a slider to him,” Hoyer said of the 1-and-1 pitch. He hung three of the six sliders to Kipnis: one on the first pitch that Kipnis took for a strike, one on 1 and 1 that he fouled hard and fairly deep down the rightfield line, and one at 3 and 2 that he fouled straight back, after which he whirled around in anger, knowing he had missed his chance at a fat pitch. His fatigue showed not just in the diminished velocity on his fastball, but also on the lack of tilt on his slider. I didn’t feel comfortable about catching his fastball.”Ĭhapman was unable to throw 100. “To be honest,” Montero said, “I hadn’t been out there behind the plate in so long, and catching a guy throwing a hundred is not easy when you haven’t played. Montero was calling a completely different game with Chapman than David Ross had the previous inning.
Chapman threw him six consecutive sliders.
#2016 WORLD SERIES GAME 7 EVEN CROWD FULL#
Kipnis was next in what would be another at bat that reached a full count. The pitch hung in the middle of the plate with no bite to it-a worse delivery than the previous one. At 3 and 2, Montero called for a slider and set his target low.