Brrrutal Loss for Indians

It all began with a mad dash by Bobby Bonilla, Florida’s gimpy third baseman. By the time it was over, by the time seven Marlins had crossed the plate during a stunning ninth-inning rally Tuesday night, thousands of Cleveland Indian fans, supposedly among the most loyal in sports, had made a mad dash to the Jacobs Field exits.

And who could blame them? The Marlins were on their way to a 14-11 victory in Game 3 of the World Series, the wind-chill factor had dipped to 23 degrees, an unsightly game that included 17 walks and six errors had dragged on past midnight and there was no need to prolong the misery.

“Both teams out-uglied each other,” Cleveland Manager Mike Hargrove said. “This was about as ugly a game as you’ll see.”

It didn’t get really ugly for the Indians until the top of the ninth, when they suffered their greatest collapse since their furry fuchsia mascot, Slider, fell off the outfield wall during the 1995 World Series and tore his anterior cruciate ligament.

The Marlins took advantage of four hits, three Indian errors and a wild pitch to score seven runs, turning a tense tie game into a 14-7 lead, a cushion large enough for Marlin closer Robb Nen to absorb a four-run clubbing in the bottom of the ninth, when the Indians almost made it interesting.

The teams combined for 25 runs, second-most in World Series history behind Toronto’s 15-14 victory over Philadelphia in Game 4 of the 1993 series, a marathon that Marlin first baseman Darren Daulton, who homered in the fourth inning Tuesday night, was also a part of.

“This one reminded me of that 1993 game against Toronto,” said Daulton, the former Phillie. “It’s ugly to some other people, we didn’t play that well, but we were able to win the game, and that feels good.”

A Jacobs Field crowd of 44,880 watched the Marlins storm back from a 7-3 deficit to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series, and for that, they can thank the supposedly wobbly legs of Bonilla, who suffered a hamstring injury in the National League championship series.

Bonilla opened the ninth with a walk off reliever Eric Plunk and seemed to catch the Indians flat-footed when he took off for third on Daulton’s single to center.

Center fielder Marquis Grissom made a strong throw that arrived just as Bonilla slid, but the ball hit Bonilla in the back and caromed into a camera well, and Bonilla was allowed to limp home with the go-ahead run.

“Bobby is not real fast, but he’s a good baserunner,” Marlin Manager Jim Leyland said. “He wasn’t sure if he was going to go, and then it looked like he had a flash, like he said, ‘Hey, this is the World Series,’ and he took off. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Moises Alou struck out and Cliff Floyd was intentionally walked, but first baseman Jim Thome dropped Plunk’s pickoff attempt, allowing Daulton to score. Charles Johnson singled, and second baseman Tony Fernandez booted Craig Counsell’s potential double-play grounder, allowing another run to score.

Edgar Renteria walked, and Gary Sheffield and Bonilla followed with two-run singles off closer Jose Mesa, as the Marlins became the first team since the 1936 New York Yankees to score seven runs in the ninth inning of a World Series game.

RBI singles by Thome and Grissom and a two-run double by Bip Roberts in the bottom of the ninth pulled the Indians within 14-11, but Nen got Omar Vizquel to ground to second, ending the 4-hour, 12-minute game.

“I’ve been in some slugfests, but I’ve never been involved in a game like this,” said Sheffield, who went three for five with a home run and five RBIs and made a sparkling catch of Thome’s seventh-inning drive at the top of the right-field wall.

“The biggest thing was for us to win on the road, because this is the loudest crowd I’ve ever played before. I couldn’t hear myself think.”

He could by the ninth inning, when the Indians tied a World Series record with three errors. It was the first time since 1966, when the Dodgers fell apart in the fifth inning of Game 2 against the Baltimore Orioles, that a team committed three errors in an inning.

The Cleveland bullpen’s impressive string of 10 2/3 scoreless innings came to a crashing end, and now the Indians will look to 21-year-old rookie Jaret Wright to even the series in Game 4 tonight.

Resiliency has been a postseason trademark of the Indians, who have bounced back from numerous crushing defeats, and Hargrove has no doubts they’ll rebound from their Game 3 debacle.

“It was so ugly,” he said, “that it won’t be hard to let this one go.”

Though starting pitcher Charles Nagy struggled, Cleveland was sitting pretty after five innings. The Indians build a 7-3 lead with a three-run fourth, forged largely on Marlin miscues, and a two-run fifth that featured Thome’s two-run homer, a bullet to right off Florida starter Al Leiter.

But Florida roared back with two runs in the sixth and seventh innings to tie the score, 7-7.

Jim Eisenreich, the 38-year-old who was only playing because the designated hitter is used in the American League city, blasted a two-run homer off Nagy in the sixth.

No. 9 batter Counsell led off the seventh with a single off reliever Brian Anderson, took second on a groundout and scored on Renteria’s single off reliever Mike Jackson. Sheffield then smashed a liner that short-hopped the center-field wall for a tying RBI double.

“I thought Eisenreich had the biggest hit of the game,” Sheffield said. “That’s the one that gave us hope.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

CLEVELAND vs. FLORIDA

TV: Channel 4

Florida leads, 2-1

Game 1: Florida 7, Cleveland 4

Game 2: Cleveland 6, Florida 1

Game 3: Florida 14, Cleveland 11

Tonight: at Cleveland, 5:15 p.m.

Thursday: at Cleveland, 5:15 p.m.

Saturday: at Florida, 5 p.m.*

Sunday: at Florida, 4:30 p.m.*

* If necessary

TONIGHT’S PITCHERS

JARET RIGHT, 8-3, 4.38 ERA

TONY SAUNDERS, 4-6, 4.61 ERA