When the Cleveland Indians jog out of the dugout Wednesday at Progressive Field for Game 5 of their American League Division Series, they won't simply be facing the New York Yankees. They'll be staring down historyboth recent and far-reaching.First, there's last season's October collapse, when the Indians blew a 3-1 World Series lead against the Chicago Cubs and lost the Fall Classic in seven gut-wrenching games.Then there's the fact that, dating back to Game 7 of the 1997 World Series against the then-Florida Marlins, the Indians are 4-17 in potential postseason clinchers.On top of the mounting angst pile, shovel baseball's longest active championship drought. The last time Cleveland won it all was 1948. If you're doing the math at home, that was a long time ago.After winning the first two games of the ALDS against the Yankees, the Tribe dropped Game 3 on Sunday and Game 4 on Monday in the Bronx.A stirring comeback in Game 2aided by some head-scratching missteps by Yankees manager Joe Girardiput them in the driver's seat. Now, the Indians are trying not to careen off the road.OK, some good news for the northeastern Ohio faithful: Corey Kluber, the pitcher who will take the ball for Cleveland in Game 5, is the right man for the job.The presumptive American League Cy Young Award winner, Kluber went 18-4 with an MLB-leading 2.25 ERA and 11.7 strikeouts per nine innings in the regular season.More than that, there's Kluber's even-keel, cyborg-esque demeanor. They call him the Klubot for a reason."I'm sure he's cracked a smile, but he comes in that dugout and you can't tell if he's given up five or none," Indians manager Terry Francona said in late September, per Zack Meisel of Cleveland.com. "Fortunately it's more [often] that it's none, but he just ... there's times where you can't tell by his body language that maybe he got squeezed a little bit or something happened behind him. He won't let you know, which I think is a big advantage."It's an especially large advantage in a do-or-die contestwhen every pitch, every hit, every call is magnified. Showing emotion isn't necessarily a bad thing, but being able to tune out the din and rise above the pressure is paramount.In the 2016 postseason, Kluber was mostly brilliant, striking out 35 in 34.1 innings and posting a 1.83 ERA. Cleveland wouldn't have gotten to the brink of a champagne celebration without him.That said, Kluber took the hill in Game 7his third start of the Seriesand coughed up six hits, two home runs and four earned runs in four innings.He also wobbled in Game 2 of this year's ALDS against the Yankees, surrendering six earned runs in 2.2 innings before Girardi and the Indians' bats bailed him out.That's two straight poor playoff starts for Cleveland's best pitcher. Toss another shovelful on the angst pile.On the other hand, there's no reason to believe Kluber is suddenly broken. He's almost surely going to win his second Cy Young Award. He posted a 0.84 ERA with 50 strikeouts and three walks in September. In his career, he's held current Yankees hitters to a meager .155/.204/.250 slash line.On Wednesday, he'll pitch in front of a raucous home crowd desperate to see the Indians advance. His counterpart, veteran lefty CC Sabathia, showed life in Game 2 but is a shell of his former self. Yeah, the young Yankees have momentum. The scales tip toward Kluber and the Indians, however."I can't imagine giving the ball to somebody better," Francona said, per Cleveland.com's Paul Hoynes. "We tried to set up a five-game series with plans, contingency plans ... a lot of things have happened. So we go to Game 5, we're at home, and we have Kluber."That brings us back to historylast year's pain, the decades-spanning struggles in must-win scenarios. It's there, staring Cleveland in the face, weighing down the team and the whole dang city.This is the moment for the Klubot to stoically shoulder the load. It says here he can. All statistics current as of Tuesday and courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted.
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