Baseball: Indians Edge Cubs To Seize World Series Lead

CHICAGO, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Oct, 2016 ) - Coco Crisp singled in Michael Martinez with the winning run in the seventh inning and the Cleveland Indians seized the World Series lead Friday with a 1-0 victory at Chicago.

By winning the first World Series game since 1945 at 102-year-old Wrigley Field, the Indians took a 2-1 lead over the Cubs in Major League Baseball's best-of-seven championship showdown, which continues Saturday and Sunday in Chicago.

The Cubs are trying to win their first crown since 1908 and snap America's longest sports title drought while the Indians seek their first World Series championship since 1948. Indians relief pitcher Cody Allen escaped a last gasp by the Cubs in the ninth by striking out Javier Baez to end the game with the potential tying run stranded on third base.

That gave the Indians a major league one-season record fifth shutout of this year's playoffs and their second blanking of the Cubs in the World Series. In all, four Cleveland pitchers struck out eight batters and scattered five hits.

The loss means that if the Cubs do end more than a century of futility this year, they will have to win the crown in Cleveland, where games six and seven would be played.

The Cubs still have won only two World Series games at Wrigley Field, game six in 1945 and game five in 1935, both over Detroit.

Scoreless into the seventh inning, the game was decided when Roberto Perez singled and was replaced by Indians pinch-runner Martinez, who proceeded to take second on Tyler Naquin's sacrifice and third on a wild pitch by Cubs relief pitcher Carl Edwards.

After a pickoff try failed following a video review, Martinez scored on pinch-hitter Crisp's single to right field for the game's only run. The Indians did not manage another hit but had the only scoring they needed.

Chicago's Jorge Soler tripled to rightfield in the seventh but Baez grounded out to shortstop to end the threat. Anthony Rizzo led off the ninth for the Cubs with a single to left field, bringing the crowd to its feet to stay.

Rizzo advanced to second on a Wilson Contreras ground out and took third after Jason Heyward reached base on a fielding error by Cleveland first baseman Mike Napoli. But with no more margin for error, Allen struck out Baez to send most of the crowd of 41,703 home disappointed.