Kluber, Perez, Indians beat Cubs 6-0 in World Series opener

Known nearly exclusively for his defense, Perez provided plenty of pop in Game 1 of the World Series, hitting a pair of homers – a solo shot and a three-run drive – as the Indians rolled to their fourth shutout of the postseason, 6-0 over the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday night.

In a matchup between the teams with baseball’s longest championship droughts, the Indians scored twice in the first inning off October ace Jon Lester and were on their way.

Once again, Andrew Miller dominated the game, retiring the Cubs in the seventh and eighth innings before turning the game over to Indians closer Cody Allen.

Roberto Perez added some additional breathing room in the fourth inning with a solo homer that clanged off the railing just above the 19-foot wall in left field, the catcher’s second round-tripper of the postseason.

One down, three to go as the Cleveland Indians attempt to end a 68-year World Series title drought.

The Cubs will start Cy Young victor Jake Arrieta against Cleveland’s Trevor Bauer, who left his last start after blood began gushing from his pinky finger that was injured while he was handling his drone. With rain in the forecast, the start time has been moved up an hour to 7:08 p.m.

Miller walked Kyle Schwarber and Javier Baez singled to load the bases.

“The first inning, what hurt us was the walks, not even the dribbler or the hit batter”. At that point, fanning eight batters already was an Indians World Series single-game record.

While Schwarber is healthy enough to swing the bat, it’s unlikely he’ll have much of a role outside of pinch hitting when the series shifts to Chicago for Games 3-5.

After Game 1, it is the Cubs fans who are feeling the familiar sting of defeat as they witnessed their team go down to a 6-0 loss.

Lester then hit Brandon Guyer with a pitch to bring in a second run. “We just didn’t come up with a knock when we needed to”.

Ross also had an early highlight at the plate for the Cubs.

Miller wasn’t almost as sharp as he’s been in the postseason, but worked around a pair of hits and walks to keep the Cubs off the board, throwing 46 pitches in the process.

An auction house says memorabilia of Yankees great Yogi Berra sold for $493,855 during an online auction, including $159,720 for his 1953 World Series championship ring.

Miller quickly found his stride, though, as he got Willson Contreras on a weak fly to center and struck out Addison Russell and David Ross. The Cubs seemed to either have an early game plan of running up Kluber’s pitch count or expect more of that unhittable breaking ball that held batters to a sub-.100 batting average. We got it done.

Perez put a stamp on the game with his second home run of the game, a three-run shot off Hector Rondon in the bottom of the eighth inning to give the Tribe a 6-0 lead. This postseason, his ERA is 0.74, and he has struck out 29 in 24 1/3 innings pitched.

The Sox opened the season with two wins, put together two eight-game winning streaks in the first month and a half and finished April 17-7.

Chicago benched right fielder Jason Heyward, in a 2-for-28 postseason slump, and started Chris Coghlan.