CLEVELAND — Terry Francona played the game the same way he’s been playing it. When Cleveland faced its highest-leverage moment in Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday night, the manager called to the bullpen for his relief ace, Andrew Miller.
There was a runner on first in the seventh inning, and lefty-swinging Kyle Schwarber was due up. The Leverage Index, according to Fangraphs, was 1.66. Then it went up to 2.64 when Kluber walked Schwarber, and a game-high 3.82 after Javier Baez singled to load the bases and bring the go-ahead run to the plate.
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Maybe Miller just needed to up his degree of difficulty, because he got pinch hitter Willson Contreras to fly to shallow center field, then struck out Addison Russell and David Ross to end the threat.