SCHWARBER SWAGGER
Slugger’s legend growing
CHICAGO You won’t hear many arguments if you say Kyle Schwarber was already a post-season star prior to this week.
After all, he did somehow come into the year as the Chicago Cubs’ all-time leader in playoff home runs, delivering five of them in just nine games as a rookie last fall. But this is different. This is next-level October stardom, like so many careers before him that have been altered and redirected upwards by one eyecatching coming-out party played amid non-baseball temperatures.
Schwarber’s 2016 season — and his exploits that are already bordering on legendary after helping the Cubs win their first World Series game in 71 years Wednesday in Ohio — essentially started five days ago, two games ago.
Heading into Game 3 of the drought vs. drought Fall Classic matchup with the Cleveland Indians that’s knotted at one win apiece, the question, with the scene shifting to National League rules at Wrigley Field on Friday, was whether Schwarber would have a chance to continue to pound Tribe pitching without the benefit of the DH spot to ease the burden on his reconstructed knee.
After consulting with team doctors and playing it out as long as they could during Thursday’s offday, Cubs team president and preeminent baseball curse-breaker Theo Epstein sat at the podium and put an end to the speculation.
“Unfortunately, Kyle has not been medically cleared to play the field, so he will not be in the lineup the next three games,” Epstein said. “But we do look forward to him impacting the game as a pinchhitter for us and, certainly, should the series return to Cleveland, he’d be eligible to continue as the designated hitter.”
It’s simply another twist in a crazy week filled with surprises.
On Monday, the ‘round mound of white sphere pound’ was suiting up in his second Arizona Fall League contest, desperately hoping to be able to play a role, any role, in his team’s quest to bring a championship back to the north side of Chicago for the first time since the year Henry Ford introduced the Model T.
Later that night, Epstein put Schwarber on a private jet bound for Cleveland, included him on the 25-man World Series roster the next morning, and then watched him go 1-for-3 with a walk and a double off the wall a few hours later in a Game 1 loss.
“I can see why Theo sent a plane for him,” Indians manager Terry Francona muttered. “I would, too.”
On Wednesday in Game 2, more Schwarber, more production, and more reasons to talk about the 235-pounder’s unnatural, natural feel for hitting, something, as the cliché goes, no one can teach.
The numbers — 2-for-4 with another walk and a pair of RBI singles — don’t even begin to tell the whole story.
We’ll let his manager, Joe Maddon, try to sum up that part.
“He’s seeing the ball well, and that’s the part that’s probably the most amazing part,” Maddon said. “Hitting the ball is one thing, but you can see he’s not jumpy. He’s seeing borderline pitches, staying off a ball, he’s not check-swinging and offering. That’s the part that’s really impressive to me.”
The World Series microscope is when traits that often go unnoticed begin to tell the real story of what these players are about, especially ones that are delivering under circumstances as unique as Schwarber’s.
In April, Schwarber was writhing in pain on the Chase Field grass in Arizona, his ACL and LCL shredded in his left knee following an ugly outfield collision with teammate Dexter Fowler.
The trait that Schwarber has shown in getting back to being able to deliver again so quickly is one of hard work.
Disgustingly hard, sweat-dripping, physical work, alongside the mental side of the game that included seeing, Schwarber estimates, 1,300 pitches spun his way by a machine in order to make sure he was ready for post-season pitching.
Day in, day out, for hours on end, they’ve seen him working, his teammates say.
“We’ve all watched him continue to progress throughout his rehab, and you can’t say enough about him,” said the other key contributor to the Cubs’ first win on the Broadway stage of baseball in 71 years, right-hander Jake Arrieta.
“I said this a few days ago, but he’s in the training room and the weight room for four, five hours a day. He’s in a constant sweat. He’s working extremely hard. To even be able to put himself in this position to be on the World Series roster, and to contribute the way he has is remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Arrieta.
Likely because Schwarber is setting the precedent, recovering faster than anyone expected, and now producing more than anyone expected.
“I mean, I’ve seen guys come back from injuries during the season, but they’ve gone through rehab and they didn’t have that severe of an injury to come back and play,” Maddon said. “I don’t think there’s any real comp for it. I don’t. Nothing that I’ve seen. I’m just going through the mental Rolodex right now. I don’t think I’ve seen that.”
Schwarber is shrugging it all off like he’s barrelling baseballs during a mid-May series, not a seven gamer with the world watching.
“No, it’s not that easy, first off,” Schwarber said. “Baseball’s a crazy game. It will do crazy things to you, but this is the moment that we all look for when we were little kids, to play in the World Series and win it.”
When Schwarber speaks, it’s soft, and the one-time Middletown, Ohio, high-schooler doesn’t sound like anyone who was a Hoosier at the University of Indiana and the fourth-overall pick in the draft a little more than two years ago.
“I’m just trying to put in team at-bats right now,” said Schwarber, who, at the age of 23, is already being lauded for his leadership qualities. “I want to help this team get to the ultimate goal. That’s why I did all of this, for these guys in the clubhouse and for our organization. It wasn’t for me.”
In the 20 hours or so following the Game 2 win, the Cubs weighed World Series success against putting Schwarber and his rebuilt knee in left field for the next three games, eventually deciding to err on the side of caution and not throwing medical wisdom out the window as they chase a championship.
Despite Maddon indicating he had “total faith” that Schwarber could capably play the outfield, the calculated Cubs did what they thought was right with the future in mind.