Written by Mike Vorkunov at USAToday.com
They all circled together in the visiting clubhouse of the Rogers Centre, the 25 players who had just ousted the Toronto Blue Jays from the American League Championship Series, the executives who have built an organization that is quickly becoming a model around baseball, the coaching staff and all the cameras waiting to see them bathe in their glory. To celebrate that theCleveland Indians — 19 years removed from their last pennant, 68 from their last title — are going to the World Series.
They had done it in this improbable way, by riding their bullpen and a rotation stitched together, well, by stitches, and with the facile genius of a manager who so deftly managed his relief corps. To beat Toronto in Game 5, they stuck close to the formula that had worked so well for them — an unheralded starter good enough to grab a lead and a large heaping of Andrew Miller. But even as Miller dominated again, winning the ALCS MVP and whipsawing through a fearsome lineup, there was an unlikely star who had outshined him, and there were calls for him.
Ryan Merritt did not come out of nowhere, but it was close. His last start was in Arizona in instructional league. He had faced 37 batters in the majors before Cleveland tabbed him to start Wednesday. He was a no-name to everyone except the Indians. But the teammates who knew his name kept calling it, kept calling him into the middle of the circle, calling for a speech, trying to get him to bask in this moment.
“Shaking in their boots!” someone yelled. And then again.
All the while, Merritt stood there in a gray hat too big for him, holding a champagne bottle he looked too young to drink and sporting a grin on his face.
“It’s almost like a fairy tale,” Merritt said. “It’s like I can’t hardly believe it, but then you can. It’s slowly hitting me, but it’s just so awesome to be a part of this.”
The man who had taken down Toronto didn’t know when he took the mound that Jose Bautista had taunted him the day before, saying of Merritt, “He’s going to be shaking in his boots more than we are.”
“We knew,” Indians reliever Mike Clevinger said. “No. I’m glad he didn’t know, just because I know what kind of person he was, so when they were saying he was shaking in his boots and I actually got to see — I knew he was going to be that Merritt. I knew he was going to be that same guy.”
If Merritt was the same pitcher then perhaps Toronto would still be playing. He had a 3.70 ERA in Class AAA this season and wasn’t even active for the division series. He didn’t know he was on the ALCS roster until a reliever, Cody Anderson, called and congratulated him. “On what?” he said.
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