We know what happened next. The Red Sox won the next three games, 7-1, 12-2 and 11-2, the biggest rebound thumping since the Braves turned around a 3-1 deficit against the Cardinals in the '96 NLCS with wins of 14-0, 3-1, and 15-0. And it was the Red Sox who went on to the Series, which they won in four straight.
It got worse from there for Cleveland. The next year there were big expectations. But Travis Hafner vanished, Fausto Carmona forgot how to pitch, and while Cliff Lee won the Cy Young with a ridiculous 22-3 season, it wasn't enough. The Indians finished 81-81 and that's only with a strong August in which they reeled off ten straight wins at one point; in early July they were as many as 16 games under .500 and almost as many games out of first in a Central division that was eventually won by a thoroughly mediocre White Sox team. And on July 7, they traded star pitcher (and reigning AL Cy Young) but free agent-to-be C.C. Sabathia to the Brewers for minor-league pieces.
Expectations weren't crazily high for 2009, but they did exist - more than one expert picked Cleveland to rebound and win a wide-open AL Central. They didn't. Instead, they one-upped their mediocre 2008 campaign. Fausto Carmona pitched even worse, somehow. Expensive free agent signing Kerry Wood only saved 20 games. Cleveland finished 65-97, tied with the Royals for last (though the Indians could be said to have stayed ahead on run differential). The team was further dismantled. Offseason trade acquisition Mark DeRosa was shipped to St. Louis in late June, and Victor Martinez went to Boston at the trade deadline. On the same day, reigning Cy Young winner Cliff Lee was dealt to Philadelphia for yet more pieces to be used for a theoretical rebuild.
Now, you're an Indians fan. Your team just traded the reigning AL Cy Young in consecutive seasons. Your new manager was recently fired by the worst franchise in baseball. And on Wednesday night, the two Cy Young pitchers who were together on your team as recently as July 6, 2008 will both take the mound for Game One of the World Series, another World Series that your team won't win, just like every other one since 1948. Don't get me wrong, as a Cubs fan I can only have so much sympathy, but... damn, it must suck to be an Indians fan today.
