“It Is Happening” had become the fans’ motto, replacing the less definite “It’s Gonna Happen.”

But with one more loss, the Cubs, who last won the World Series in 1908, will again be cast in the role of lovable losers — and retain their ownership of baseball’s longest championship drought. Their motto might soon have to be changed once more, to “It Is Happening Again.”

“If they are frustrated,” catcher David Ross, the Cubs’ elder statesman, said of the fans, “well, we want to win just as bad as they do, if not more. This is our job. This is a goal we set out two years ago. But we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. There’s no way you thought winning the World Series would be easy.”

There are Cubs fans who have waited a lot longer than two years, but for now, their wait will continue, and their anxiety will grow.

This World Series was supposed to be different. The Cubs were no longer scrappy underdogs but a dominant team of talented young stars that won 103 games in the regular season. Some saw the World Series as a coronation, and seemingly all of Chicago’s North Side was along for the ride.

They came to Game 4 with hopes to even the series. But Corey Kluber, the Indians’ ace, pitched well on three days’ rest, and Jason Kipnis, who was a Cubs fan while growing up in the Chicago suburbs, blasted a three-run homer in the seventh inning to put the game — and perhaps the series — out of reach.