Written by James Wagner at NY Times.com
What Jake Arrieta did in rotten weather on Wednesday night during Game 2 of the World Series against the Cleveland Indians made little sense. He threw a first-pitch strike to only half the batters he faced. He fired 98 pitches in all, but only 55 were strikes. He walked three batters.
“Maintaining a consistent feel on a night like this, with the weather the way it was, can be tough,” he said.
Yet there he was at the start of the sixth inning, carrying the longest no-hit bid in a World Series game since the Mets’ Jerry Koosman in 1969. By the time Arrieta left the mound in the sixth, he had allowed only one run and two hits. In a sloppy four-hour game that nonetheless finished before heavy rain arrived, Arrieta guided the Cubs past the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field in a 5-1 win that tied the series at one game apiece.
“He was just attacking them,” Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant said. “It’s tough to hit in the cold, especially with his stuff moving all over the place.”
Arrieta’s outing was not pretty or graceful, but he overcame his early problems with command to neutralize the Indians’ lineup. The home team did little to help its cause, with the Indians’ starter, Trevor Bauer, lasting only three and two-thirds innings because of a pitch count ballooned by a feisty Cubs lineup.
“I kind of had my foot on the gas a little too much at the start, trying to do more than I needed to,” Arrieta said. “Then I really got back to just executing good pitches towards the bottom of the strike zone.”
The Indians committed two official errors, but they made many more miscues. Two mistakes by right fielder Lonnie Chisenhall and an error by second baseman Jason Kipnis contributed to three Cubs runs. The normally stout Indians bullpen was not as sharp as it has been through the postseason.
“For us to win, we generally need to play a clean game, and we didn’t do that,” Indians Manager Terry Francona said.
The Cubs’ offense was powered by the veteran Ben Zobrist and by Kyle Schwarber, the 23-year-old hitting prodigy who was thrust into the lineup after missing six months because of knee surgery. Two days earlier, Schwarber was playing in front of 900 people in the Arizona Fall League. On Wednesday, only his fourth major league game of the season, he drove in two runs in front of 38,172 spectators.
“I’m just going to keep riding the wave till it ends,” Schwarber said.
The Cubs had a 2-0 lead in the third inning, but the game felt more lopsided. Francona, who had never before lost a World Series game, began cycling through relievers in the fourth, and the Cubs padded their lead with a three-run fifth inning
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