DESPITE PREMATURE BERTH, CUBS HAVE SHOWN TIME HAS ARRIVED
Now that the Cubs have gotten this far, they shouldn’t squander their opportunity
It’s time to win. Not in 2016. Now. For the next several days or — gasp!— weeks, let’s bury the stale narrative that the Cubs are a year ahead of schedule. This team is talented enough and resilient enough that anything is possible. ‘‘Anything’’ includes a World Series title for the first time since you-know-when.
There’s something patronizing about saying the Cubs are a year ahead of their plan, as though we’re patting the players on their heads and saying, ‘‘Nothing is expected of you, you’re probably going to fail, so just do your best.’’ It feels like a built-in excuse before a pitch has been thrown. It’s a second cousin of ‘‘Wait till next year.’’
All the old sayings apply here. The future is now. Tomorrow is promised to no one. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
History tells us that wild-card teams can go far in the postseason. History tells us that the best regular-season teams don’t necessarily win the World Series. History tells us that the Cardinals often don’t win championships in seasons in which they have the most regular-season victories in the majors, as they will this season. My, history is chatty.
If the Cubs can get past the Pirates in their one-game cage match Wednesday, a whole new world opens up to them. Once in, everybody has the same chance.
Just try telling Cubs players that the team is in this position a year early and thus not quite all there yet. Try telling that to veterans such as Jon Lester, David Ross and Dexter Fowler, who want to win now. Try telling that to young players such as Kris Bryant, Addison Russell and Kyle Schwarber, who have ignored what convention has told them about what they’re supposed to be doing as rookies.
When manager Joe Maddon lashed out at the Cardinals last month for allegedly hitting Anthony Rizzo with a pitch on purpose, it was with the playoffs in mind. The message was as much to his team as to the Cardinals: We belong, and we’re not going to let anybody push us around. He didn’t send that message because he was happy to be going to the playoffs. He did it to let his players know that he’s in it to win it all and that they should be, too.
Can they do it? Better question: Why can’t they do it? Through Friday, they had won 95 games, a record for a third-place team since the divisional era began.
Who says the Cubs are ahead of schedule? Maybe president of baseball operations Theo Epstein has said it in the past, but the architect can’t possibly believe it now. Not after the way his team has fought back to win games this season. Not after watching so many players have a hand in the team’s success. Not after watching Jake Arrieta have the season of a lifetime. The young players indeed have developed faster than Epstein or anybody else thought possible. But after helping to carry this team, they’re not kids anymore.
It’s time to start thinking that the Cubs are right on schedule.
The exciting part of baseball— that anything can happen— works both ways. You can win the whole thing, or you can never get the chance again. Who knows?
Better for management, players and fans to approach this as though it might be the Cubs’ best opportunity to win the World Series. So for the purposes of our discussion, next year doesn’t exist. It’s a foreign concept. The Braves won their division every season from 1991 to 2005, thanks in large part to the work of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz. During that span, the Braves won one World Series. That’s a long way of saying, ‘‘Grab it while you can.’’
Yes, the Cubs’ future does look promising. Yes, the Cubs might back up the money truck for David Price after the season, giving them an Arrieta-Price-Lester declarative sentence of, ‘‘Go back to the dugout and take your bat with you.’’ But baseball is so weird, fluky and temperamental, you just never know.
The game Wednesday is as dramatic as it gets. After a 162-game trudge, you either win or go home. It stinks that the Cubs and Pirates, with two of the best records in baseball, are reduced to a one-game playoff. They deserve better. But that’s how this works.
Might as well do what the Cubs have been doing all season. Might as well win. Their time is now.