Cubs live to play another day

CHICAGO — The Chicago Cubs’ season could end Thursday night, right here at Wrigley Field, or over the weekend in Los Angeles. The odds say that’s what will happen. History says that’s what will happen. They entered the fourth game of the National League Championship Series having lost the previous three. They had as much wiggle room as a worm squished between the “M” and “N” sections in an unabridged dictionary.

The easy version of how they handled that situation — sanitized, to make Chicago fans feel all is well — would be to say that second baseman Javier Baez broke out of a postseason-long slump with two massive homers, that free-agent-to-be right-hander Jake Arrieta responded to what could be his final start as a Cub with 62/3 innings of one-run ball, and that the Cubs lived another day by forging a 3-2 victory over the Dodgers on Wednesday night at Wrigley.

That, however, is the clean version. The reality of the final seven outs at Wrigley is that they were harrowing — enough to cause palpitations for each of the 41,195 who filled the old stands. The unedited cut included closer Wade Davis, asked to get the final six outs while protecting a two-run lead, allowing a solo homer to the first hitter he faced, the indefatigable Justin Turner. And in the midst of an inning in which Cubs manager Joe Maddon was ejected for arguing an absurd overturn of a strikeout of Curtis Granderson, Davis walked two more men and needed 30 pitches.

And yet, the Cubs survived. Only one team in history has come back from a 3-0 deficit in these series — the 2004 Boston Red Sox. There are connections here, because Theo Epstein, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations, was the GM of those Red Sox, and he employed on his roster a veteran reserve named Dave Roberts, who stole the base that swung the series.

Roberts now manages the Dodgers, and he was asked before the game what the feeling was in that clubhouse all those years ago.

“I think that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Roberts said, and he smiled.

The Cubs have a say in that — but barely. Chicago, somehow, had to score Wednesday night to win. This is, after all, an accomplished and versatile offensive team. So they weren’t going to be nervous. Their season might end, but they wouldn’t be flustered.