Now that it has been almost a week since the Cleveland Indians were eliminated from the playoffs, it’s time for a little reflection on what happened. There are many reasons why the Tribe lost the seven game series to a team that looks as though it will win the World Series, perhaps as early as this weekend, but to me they did not choke, as many fans are saying.
Baseball is a different sport. The best team loses 60 games in a season. There are no upsets. If the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Yankees in the middle of June, there are no headlines proclaiming a shocking win. That’s the nature of the sport. For the same reason, having a 3-1 series lead and then losing a seven game series cannot be called choking. Again, I will say it. In baseball, momentum is tomorrow’s starting pitcher. The Red Sox had the better pitching the last three games of the series, and that’s why they won.
Eric Wedge alluded to C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona, his two aces, trying too hard to win in the Games 5 and 6, but I think they just ran out of gas. That’s understandable since neither had thrown as many innings as this year in their professional careers. There are many experts who will tell you, it’s not the velocity that decreases, as you get tired, it’s the command. That would explain why the two 19 game winners had problems throwing strikes throughout the playoffs, especially against Fenway Park.
As for the hitters, Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore did struggle against Boston, but I’m sure you can pick out a week during the regular season where both did not hit. In the playoffs, these weeks are magnified because the games are bigger. It doesn’t mean they choked. If both players were consistently hot all season long, and then hit the skids in the playoffs, you might have an argument. What the two lefty hitters did against the Sox was in tune with what they did all year. It just happened at the wrong time.
In fact, the entire offense was streaky all year. How many times did the Tribe go through stretches were they couldn’t put anything together on offense. Heck, they went an entire month (mid July to mid August) where scoring runs were like pulling teeth. Part of that inconsistency was the ballclub propensity to strike out. Next year, the Indians need to improve on that aspect of hitting. They have to make more contact. It makes them vulnerable to pitchers like Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling who have good command when they are throwing well.
There are many reasons the Indians’ season came to an end last Sunday night at Fenway Park. They didn’t pitch well, they didn’t hit well. They didn’t get any breaks, such as ground balls hitting the lip of the infield grass and either flattening out or hopping over the infielders. Starting pitchers simply wore out. You can fault Joel Skinner or the bullpen collapse. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t a choke. It’s just how the game of baseball is played.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 
if losing a 3-1 lead in the alcs with game 5 at home with your two best pitchers who were arguably two of the top 3 pitchers in the american league all season slated to go in games 5 and 6 on their normal 5 days rest isn’t a choke, i don’t know what else to call it??? certainly it’s a collapse. what were talking about really is mere semantics. the fact of the matter is that they still lost, choke or not. either way you look at it, it’s still disappointing and it hurts no matter what you call it. i just wish that one of our teams would finally come through for us, stop making excuses after the fact (not to mention all the happy-happy-joy-joy-back-patting-mutual-appreciation-society for at least getting as far as they did) and just win us a freaking championship. i don’t want to be greedy about it. i just want one. the yankees have won 26 world series championships. the boston celtics have won 16 nba titles. the pittspuke steelers have won 5 super bowl trophies. now that’s being greedy. like i said, all i want is one. i was born in 1965 which just so happens to be one year after the last cleveland team won a championship when the browns won the nfl title in 1964. so in other words, in my lifetime, i have yet to enjoy the thrill of victory and have been saddled with nothing but the agony of defeat while even expansion teams in all 3 sports have won multiple titles. why is it so much to ask for even one of our teams to just win one single title??? surely the law of large numbers would have to fall in our favor even at least once, but for some reason it hasn’t. i sure would like some mathemetician to explain the statistical probabilities as to why we haven’t won a title of any kind since 1964 and the world series since 1948 while expansion teams like the tampa bay buccaneers in just 31 years of existence have won a super bowl whereas the browns have never even appeared in one and the florida marlins in just 14 years of existence have already won 2 world series titles without ever having even won their division once while the indians have won 7 a.l. central titles in the last 13 years with nothing to show for it??? maybe we are cursed??? hee-hee, dave . . .