A pivotal moment last night came in the seventh when the Cubs somehow got the bases loaded against Andrew Miller. Down 3-0, they had Contreras, Russell and Ross coming up to bring them in. The Indians formula is quite simple. They want their starting pitcher to go six or seven innings, Miller for one or two, and Allen to shut it down. If they follow this formula for the next couple of days, they will win the World Series. Nevertheless, last night, Miller seemed to be slightly off his game as he was missing with his slider by a few inches.
However, after getting Contreras to hit on a weak fly ball (not deep enough to score), Russell to strike out, he was left to face David Ross. Now, here is where Maddon makes his mistake. David Ross, for all the nice work he does as a catcher, can simply not hit. The much better option would have been Jorge Soler.
The fact of the matter is that Maddon stuck with Ross in a high leverage situation (3.29) and all he did was strikeout. It hurt their WPA by -.083.
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