http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/sports/baseball/cleveland-indians-boston-red-sox-division-series.html 2016-10-08 03:50:18 Channeling Some Cavaliers Karma, Indians Push the Red Sox to the Brink A four-run second inning, highlighted by Lonnie Chisenhall’s three-run blast, put Cleveland on the verge of its first American League Championship Series since 2007. === The most popular man in all of northeast Ohio strode onto the grass at Progressive Field on Friday wearing a red “We’re here for these guys over here,” said LeBron James, flanked by some of his Cleveland Cavaliers teammates and pointing toward the Cleveland Indians’ dugout. This is the first postseason since the Cavaliers extinguished the city’s 52-year major championship drought, a title that funneled optimism — or, at least, not pessimism — to a fan base pummeled by despair. Even four months later, the celebration still rages on in some precincts, including the corner of Ontario Street and Carnegie Avenue, where, on Friday, the Indians shoved the Lonnie Chisenhall launched a three-run homer to pace Cleveland, which took a 2-0 lead in the series and can advance to its first A.L. championship series since 2007 as soon as Sunday at Fenway Park in what will be the back end of a two-sport doubleheader that day that will be waged by these two cities. And the buildup to Sunday is going just fine, if you live in Cleveland. Yes, the good people here, haunted by The Drive and The Fumble and The Shot, know better than to assume anything. But during the first two games of this series, they have watched the Indians assert their superiority in all facets as Boston’s starting pitching disintegrated, with 10 runs allowed in just seven and two-thirds innings. The culprit Friday was David Price, who, at his introductory news conference in Boston last December, quipped that he was saving all of his playoff victories for the Red Sox. But after allowing five runs in three and a third innings Friday, Price is 0-8 in nine postseason starts with a 5.74 E.R.A. A record that awful usually belongs to the downtrodden Browns, whose quest for their first victory this season will be challenged Sunday by another beloved team of New England, the Patriots, who arrive just as the Red Sox depart. On the same day that Indians Manager Terry Francona, an old Red Sox hero, returns to Boston for the first time in a playoff format, Bill Belichick visits the town that launched his head-coaching career and — sorry to say, Browns loyalists — he is also bringing along the fresh-out-of-exile Tom Brady. It is just the downtrodden Browns’ luck that they drew New England in Week 5 for Brady’s return from the four-game suspension he received for his role in a scheme to deflate footballs. His tour of vengeance swings through FirstEnergy Stadium at 1 p.m. Sunday, three hours before the Red Sox and the Indians get back at it in Boston. “As much as I don’t want to, I’ll watch, and I’ll be upset,” said Donny Maddron, 32, of Brooklyn, Ohio, who wore a red T-shirt that read “I love CLE,” with a baseball replacing the usual heart symbol. “Who knows? Tom Brady can be really rusty.” Then he paused. “But let’s be honest. I’m just trying to convince myself.” In the backdrop of all this is the fact that the Red Sox and the Patriots, combined, have won seven titles since 2002 and that the Indians and the Browns have, of course, won none. But the Indians spent the entire summer persuading a city inured to disappointment that they could excel in the postseason. Their series-opening victory Thursday was their first in the playoffs since 2007, when they blew a three-games-to-one lead in the A.L.C.S. to Boston, whose teams have a knack for inflicting misery here. In James’s first tour as a Cavalier, the Celtics twice ousted him from the playoffs in the conference semifinals. And even if the Indians did beat a team from Boston to win their last World Series — the Braves, in 1948 — their fans tend to remember the more recent, and cumulative, anguish. There were the six no-hit relief innings thrown by Boston’s ailing Pedro Martinez in 1999 that knocked the Indians out of the postseason, and Joel Skinner’s seventh-inning holdup of Kenny Lofton at third base in Game 7 of the 2007 A.L.C.S., when Boston prevailed again. All of it still torments fans like Steve Weakland, 49, of Brunswick, Ohio. Speaking of his city’s various failures against Boston, Weakland lamented: “We never seem to come out on top. We might have at some point, but I couldn’t tell you when.” The negativity that pervaded Cleveland — “catastrophic thinking,” Weakland called it — started to wane in June, when the Cavaliers won the first championship in franchise history. A plaza separates Progressive Field from Quicken Loans Arena, where, on June 16, the Cavaliers stayed alive in the finals by trampling Golden State in Game 6. The next night, the Indians defeated the White Sox on a Carlos Santana homer in the bottom of the ninth, kindling a 14-game winning streak. “There was all this excitement and energy, and it just transferred over here,” said Cody Allen, the Indians’ closer. Still, the Indians have not won a title of their own in 68 years, the longest drought in the A.L. It resonates for Francona, whose father, Tito, played for Cleveland from 1959 to 1964. Francona’s deft manipulation of the bullpen helped the Indians prevail in Game 1, and his faith in Chisenhall helped them build an insurmountable lead in Game 2. Before stepping to the plate in the second inning with Cleveland leading, 1-0, Chisenhall had batted 47 times this season against a left-handed pitcher without hitting a home run. On a 2-1 fastball from Price, Chisenhall unloaded. The ball rocketed over the right-field fence on a line, caroming onto the playing surface so quickly — on the TBS telecast, Ernie Johnson speculated the ball deflected off a camera’s Plexiglas cover — that Boston right fielder Mookie Betts did not even realize it was a home run. That four-run advantage buoyed Kluber, who muffled the highest-scoring team in baseball. The Red Sox went through assorted pitchers after Price departed, and during a sixth-inning pitching change, the giant video screen flashed James and some of his Cavaliers teammates in a luxury suite. They were decked out in Indians gear and reveling in the Indians’ good fortune. One championship down, one more maybe starting to take shape. These days, Cleveland is entitled to dream.