Cubs keep hope alive
2 Baez HRs stave off elimination
CHICAGO — The Cubs like to make up imaginary detractors to keep them motivated during the long course of the season.
They like to pretend they’re disrespected, whether they really are or not. But on Wednesday the Cubs didn’t have to imagine anything. Most everyone counted them out in the National League Championship Series after Tuesday’s loss put the Dodgers one win away from their first pennant since 1988, and it was only a matter of when the final heartbeat would be recorded and the death certificate made official.
“I think we could even play more loose,” Kris Bryant said after the Game 3 loss, “because what do we have to lose? No one is expecting us to come back but the guys in this room. I don’t know if it’s a comforting feeling, but it takes more pressure off us.”
Playing loose and pressure-free, the Cubs avoided a sweep on Wednesday with a 3-2 win over the Dodgers, staying alive for at least one more day.
The malaise of the Game 3 loss at Wrigley dissipated on a wild night when the crowd was energized early and often.
Jake Arrieta came up big in what could be his final start as a Cub, Javier Baez snapped out of his October funk with a pair of home runs, Willson Contreras kick-started the party with a 491-foot blast off the video board in left to get the crowd geeked up, and manager Joe Maddon was ejected for righteously raging on a terrible call in the eighth.
Game 4 was a welcome return to normalcy for the Cubs, whose abnormal postseason performances left everyone scratching their heads.
A pregame players meeting in the grounds crew locker room down the leftfield line may have done the trick, just like Jason Heyward’s famous rain-delay speech in the visitors’ weight room at Progressive Field during Game 7 of the World Series.
Two Cubs employees who happened to be in the locker room when the players filed in unannounced described it as a “pep talk.” Neither would reveal what was said or who was in charge of delivering the pep, saying it was “confidential.”
The 2004 Red Sox, the only team to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a postseason series, had a similar bonding episode during their American League Championship Series win over the Yankees.
Whether the meeting was the impetus for Wednesday’s energetic start is debatable, but the Cubs did get the crowd of 42,145 into the game early on.
Contreras’ shot off the video board in the second gave the Cubs the lead for the fourth straight game, and Baez followed one out later with a solo homer, snapping his 0-for-20 postseason streak.
Baez made it 3-1 with another solo home run in the fifth, becoming the second player to hit two homers in a potential elimination game, following Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, who did it in Game 7 of the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
All was quiet until the eighth, when Justin Turner homered off Davis leading off, and Curtis Granderson’s two-strike swing-andmiss with a man on was ruled a foul tip, despite video replays showing otherwise.
Maddon was enraged again and riled up the crowd with an antic argument before he was ejected for the second time this series. Even Cubs board member Laura Ricketts was animated and shouting at the umps from her front-row seat.
Granderson wound up striking out on the next pitch, and Davis eventually got out of the inning striking out Chase Utley. In the ninth, he walked Chris Taylor but induced a game-ending double play from Cody Bellinger with Turner on deck.
Wrigley was Wrigley again, and the series goes on.