Misery vanquished!
Cubs survive to win 1st title since 1908
,CLEVELAND — In a night of madness and the surreal, in a finale to a World Series that will be remembered as one of the greatest ever, the Cubs, at last, answered generations of longing and sent Chicago into euphoria, the same kind Red Sox fans knew a dozen years ago.
Veteran Ben Zobrist’s slashed double to left field broke a tie with one out in the top of the 10th and final inning of the Cubs’ 8-7 victory over the Cleveland Indians last night, reviving Theo Epstein’s Cubs from what, two innings earlier, was a disaster befitting an organization that went 107 years between titles.
One more crucial Cubs run came in during a top of the 10th that began tied at 6, a frame that also began, incredibly, with a 17-minute rain delay as Game 7 headed to extra innings.
Terry Francona’s Indians didn’t go quietly, bringing home one run in the bottom of the 10th against righty Carl Edwards Jr., with Aroldis Chapman already burnt and in position to take the brunt of the wrath from Cubs fans had they lost.
Rajai Davis’ two-out single to center scored Brandon Guyer, who walked with two down and took second on defensive indifference.
On came left-hander Mike Montgomery, who got a slow ground ball from former Red Sox infielder Michael Martinez. Kris Bryant charged, threw to first, and there it was, bedlam and the unimaginable.
Just as agony was always part of the deal, stomachturning anxiety was, too, a requirement for the Cubs.
With four outs left and a 6-3 lead, the Cubs started to walk down the path of misery their history ordained. With two out and a runner on, former Sox ace Jon Lester was pulled for Chapman. A Guyer double cut the Cubs’ lead to 6-4.
Davis, who made a couple of fielding mistakes early that helped the Cubs pull ahead early, then yanked a 2-2 Chapman fastball to left that barely cleared the metal fencing near the corner above the high green wall.
The two-run home run was stunning even for this stage and matchup, as wild and powerful a momentum shift as could be found in a seven-game saga that was already in the discussion for the greatest World Series ever.
On a night where two Cubs players, David Ross and Javier Baez, both made errors and later homered, Davis’ redemption had the Cubs on their way to more misery. Instead, Epstein’s Hall of Fame resume has been burnished, bringing not one but two desperate, major franchises out of title droughts after piloting the 2004 Red Sox after 86 years of misery.
Ross, catching his final major league game on his way to retirement, is a World Series champion again, as are Jon Lester and John Lackey.
Forget the title droughts. They’ll wait generations just to see another baseball like Game 7, another World Series of angst and history that could compare. The night began with the dramatic, a lead-off homer from Dexter Fowler off Indian ace Corey Kluber. What now? What was a given, that the Cubs could not win, is no longer true. What was believed, that suffering and heartache were intrinsic to anyone in a Cubs hat, has been disproved.
And the Cubs’ gain might also prove the sport’s loss. There’s no storyline so compelling in baseball, and probably none in American sport. No frontier to conquer that stood so out of reach as the plateau the Cubs reached last night. The closest you’ll find, now, might be the Indians, who last won in 1948.
The Indians technically had homefield advantage, but four games in an American League park meant that the Cubs’ Kyle Schwarber, who could not play the field because of his recovery from a knee injury that went just fast enough to allow him to return from the World Series, had four starts. He may have been the difference.
Schwarber’s single off Bryan Shaw started the 10th. He was pulled for pinch runner Albert Almora Jr., who tagged up and went to second base on Kris Bryant’s fly out to Davis in center.
Francona elected to put Anthony Rizzo on first base, setting up a potential double play with Series MVP Zobrist coming up. Francona and the Indians were burnt when Zobrist, a key free agent signing last winter, went the other way.
After another intentional walk to load the bases, Miguel Montero singled home an insurance run.