Defending champ Cubs set to face inexperienced Nats

WASHINGTON — As Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and the rest of the Chicago Cubs begin their bid for the franchise’s first World Series championship in, um, one year — not quite the same panache to it as “more than a century,” eh? — they’ll take on Bryce Harper’s Washington Nationals, a club with a brief history of postseason failures.

The “been there, done that,” as Cubs manager Joe Maddon put it before his team’s workout at Nationals Park on Thursday, can matter.

“Coming into this postseason, we have a ‘knowing’ that we didn’t have last year,” Maddon said. “I would want to believe that coming into this year, we have an eagerness about us without an anxiety about us. When you approach an ‘unknowing’ situation, you tend to be more anxious, as opposed to eager or excited about being in that moment, because: ‘Hey, I kinda like this. We’ve done this before. I know that we can.’”

What the Cubs got done last season by coming back to edge the Cleveland Indians in the Fall Classic is, of course, the sort of thing the Nationals would love to accomplish. Yet when their best-of-five NL Division Series opens tonight, with Stephen Strasburg starting for host Washington against Kyle Hendricks, the Nationals will be seeking to advance past a round for the first time since moving from Montreal in 2005.

Does that difference in recent postseason success play a role?

“A little bit. Having been through it before, having played all the way through a Game 7 in the World Series, I think that does count for something,” acknowledged Nationals closer Sean Doolittle, acquired in July as part of a bullpen makeover.

But, he added, “There’s a lot of guys in here with a lot of playoff experience, a lot of guys that have won some World Series and won some rings. We do have enough experience that neither one of those teams is going to get caught off-guard by the emotions or by the energy of the situation.”

Actually, only one position player who will be on Washington’s NLDS roster has a ring: outfielder Jayson Werth, who won a championship with the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies and whose $126 million, seven-season Nationals contract is about to expire.