CLEVELAND -- Corey Kluber stood atop a small wood box, allowing the pack of reporters to circle around him inside the funereal interview room across the hall from the Indians' quiet clubhouse. Questions broke through the awkward silence, which was then replaced by Kluber's mumbled, monotone replies.
The sting of an abrupt October exit had yet to fully sink in for Kluber, whose struggles in the American League Division Series defeat to the Yankees last year were under the media microscope. If there was something ailing Kluber, the leader of Cleveland's rotation was not about to fire it into the microphones as an excuse.