Cubs near pennant as NLCS shifts to Chicago
CHICAGO — It took 13 years, and of course it would be an unlucky number. These are the Chicago Cubs, after all, and no omen is too trivial. Not with that triple-digit streak of seasons without a World Series title, anyway.
Thirteen years ago, the Cubs returned to Wrigley Field for Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, leading three games to two. The pennant slipped away, the misery continued. The Cubs have mostly been bad since, and when they were good, they flopped in October.
Now they are back at the precipice, poised for a celebration decades in the making. The Cubs have not reached the World Series since 1945, with Phil Cavarretta, Stan Hack and Harry “Peanuts” Lowrey. One more win and they will be there again.
Cubs fans, rightly, might be conditioned to expect the worst. David Ross, the 39year-old catcher, said the players must feed off the crowd’s energy Saturday without absorbing its anxiety. He said a Cubs championship would be the holy grail of sports.
“You win a World Series in Chicago and, I mean, that’s the tops right now,” said Ross, who has done it in Boston. “I think as a competitor, you want to be on the biggest stage unless you’re scared. If you’re scared, you don’t want to be. But we don’t have any dudes in here scared.”
The Cubs will face Clayton Kershaw, who shut them out for seven innings in Game 2. If the Cubs lose, they would face Rich Hill on Sunday. Hill blanked the Cubs for six innings in Game 3.
The Cubs have appealing options, too. Kyle Hendricks, who had the majors’ lowest ERA (2.13) in the regular season, starts Game 6, followed by Jake Arrieta in a possible Game 7. Then again, the Cubs lined up Mark Prior and Kerry Wood for Games 6 and 7 against the Marlins in 2003, and could not win.
The ghoulish events of those nights just might flash in the minds of Cubs fans before Saturday night. There is no need to dwell on it here, except to say, for the sake of accuracy, that history picked the wrong villain. Nobody would remember the name Steve Bartman if Alex Gonzalez, the Cubs’ shortstop, had turned a double play to end the fateful eighth inning in Game 6 with a 3-1 lead.
The Cubs beat the Giants in the Division Series, coming back on the road to eliminate a team with three straight even-year championships. Now they are leading the Dodgers, a deep and gritty team with a matchup advantage for every occasion.
But these Cubs still have not scored off Kershaw or Hill in the series. And their ancestors saddled them with a rotten legacy in games like this: six losses in a row (in 1984 and 2003) with a chance to clinch the pennant, leading to that streak of 71 years without one.
That will surely matter to the fans, but much less so to the players. It is not their job to bear the weight of the past.
“I don’t think any of us are 71 years old,” center fielder Dexter Fowler said, smiling. “We weren’t alive then. We’ve heard the history, but at the same time, we’re trying to make history.”
The Cubs proved their mettle in the last two games at Dodger Stadium. They entered Game 4 trailing in the series and lugging an 18-inning scoreless streak, the longest in their tortured postseason history. For a team that spent all but one day of the regular season in first place — and earned eight more victories than any other team in the majors — it was a pivotal moment.
The Cubs responded like the team that had outscored its opponents by 252 runs in the regular season. They rolled to two emphatic victories by a combined score of 18-6.
“Any time you get shut out in back-to-back games, it’s not fun,” third baseman Kris Bryant said. “But we all knew that wasn’t the offense we know we’ve had, and what got us here. There wasn’t any panic. It was just a matter of time for guys to get it going and feel good about themselves.” Now, at last, Anthony Rizzo is hitting. So is Addison Russell, who homered in Games 4 and 5. The Cubs have three five-run innings in the NLCS, sustaining rallies with deep at-bats and all kinds of hits — bunts and infield squibbers, ringing doubles and majestic home runs.
“You start getting the bunt down, just trying to move runners, and one thing turns into another,” Fowler said. “That’s good team baseball.”
The Cubs played it all season, and for three games of this series. The problem now is Kershaw — and, after him, overpowering closer Kenley Jansen. Pitchers that skilled can suffocate any lineup and handle any crowd.
“D.C. was one of the louder environments that I’ve pitched in,” said Kershaw, who saved the division series clincher in Washington last week. “So I’ve gotten to do that now a few times. I guess I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be for that.”
When Kershaw is on, there is really no answer to his devastating mix of fastballs, sliders and curves. The Cubs must hope he pitches poorly, as he did in St. Louis three years ago in the same situation: Facing elimination in Game 6, Kershaw fell hard to the Cardinals.
Whichever Kershaw shows up Saturday, the Cubs relish the challenge.
“Like Ric Flair: ‘To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best,’ ” Rizzo said, loosely quoting the pro wrestler. “And it’s no different. Who we’ve had to go through to get to this point is huge.”