CHICAGO _ The Indians sold out a watch party for Game 5 of the World Series on Sunday night at Progressive Field _ 350 miles east of where the game was played _ as fans gathered to see their team try to clinch its first title since 1948.
Thanks to a three-run Cubs fourth inning against starter Trevor Bauer, Indians fans will have a chance to see them try to clinch in person when the series returns to Cleveland for Game 6 on Tuesday.
The Indians managed two runs off Cubs ace Jon Lester, but they couldn't tie it against closer Aroldis Chapman, who pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings and stranded a runner in scoring position in the seventh and eighth innings.
"The whole time (the fans) have been great, so I'm looking forward to going home and hopefully getting the win over there," Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor said. "We wanted to finish it here, but it's part of the game. We know they have a good team. We knew it wasn't going to be easy."
Bauer eased through the first three innings as the Indians took a 1-0 lead on Jose Ramirez's solo homer off Lester in the second.
But Bauer gave up a solo homer to Kris Bryant to open the fourth. The Cubs had five hits in the inning, scoring runs on Addison Russell's infield single and David Ross' sacrifice fly.
Bauer smiled and applauded Cubs Jason Heyward, who caught Bauer's fly ball while hanging off the wall down the right-field line in Bauer's only at-bat in the third. But Bauer stalked off the field after striking out Lester to finally end the Cubs' surge in the fourth.
Indians manager Terry Francona went to Mike Clevinger in the fifth, and Bauer was charged with three earned runs on six hits with no walks and seven strikeouts. Bauer said afterward he thought he had good command.
"I felt great," Bauer said. "I executed a lot of pitches. I threw the ball really well. I know you guys are going to write differently, but I thought I threw well."
The bigger problem was an Indians offense that got on base three times against Chapman but couldn't score. Lindor struck out looking with a runner on third in the eighth.
"That's what you do when you get the lead and have a closer like that," Lindor said. "You get the lead, put him in the game and let him ride."
Before the game, Francona's message to the team was to treat it as a normal day, and he didn't try to deliver a big speech on the significance of the moment.
"That's our biggest challenge as you get into postseason, is fighting to have a sense of normalcy," Francona said. "Because in our game you can't give them the Knute Rockne speech every day.
"I get it that fans have lived through not winning, and it's fun to talk about it or to commiserate, but it's also unfair to the group in there to ask them to win for other people. This is hard enough doing it right now, and that's how we approach it."
Francona, who was managing his third World Series game with a potential to clinch, said he hoped that having NFL games to watch in the afternoon might help his team to maintain normalcy. Indians reliever Dan Otero said Francona has delivered a similar message all season.
"When the manager doesn't put any extra pressure or try to change anything, the players can go out and play, and it makes it somewhat easier on us," Otero said.
