NO SIZZLE IN COLD
Pop goes out of Cubs’ bats as temperature in New York plummets; Jake factors into equation Sunday
NEW YORK— Joe Maddon wore a snow hat under his hood. Jorge Soler chose a balaclava, with only his nose and eyes visible. It was so cold that the Cubs’ bats opted for golf-club head covers.
It was 48 degrees at the start of Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. With the wind whipping around at 15 mph, it felt like a high school game in March in Chicago.
The Cubs showed up Saturday night, but their bats did not. After the hitting display they put on in the NL Division Series, it was a strange, desolate sight that greeted them at Citi Field, a baseball ice field.
This can’t be overstated: The Mets played in the same cold conditions. They found a way to hit the ball and hit it hard. The Cubs didn’t hit it hard enough often enough, which is why they find themselves down a game in this series. A 4-2 loss here doesn’t mean anything more than that. Tomorrow is another day.
Then again, the forecast for Sunday night calls for a game-time temperature of 48.
“We’re fine,’’ catcher David Ross said. “A seven-game series— there’s a lot of baseball left to be played.’’
Kyle Schwarber blasted a homer in the eighth inning to cut the Mets’ lead to 4-2, and it was one of those massive clouts that the Cubs rookie has come to be known for in his short career. Will there be a carryover effect? A log on the fire for Game 2? The Cubs had better hope so. It was Schwarber’s third straight
playoff game with a home run.
It’s not a good thing when you think to yourself, “The Cubs could really use more rookie leadership.’’
They needed Jon Lester’s veteran best on a night when Matt Harvey was very good for the Mets. He was just OK. But the story of the game for the Cubs was frozen bats, petrified wood ... whatever you want to call it. Not to take anything away from Harvey, but that wasn’t the Cubs we have come to know this season.
They managed ameasly five hits.
Was it all the cold? Was it nerves?
“Our guys were fine,’’ Maddon said. “Our guys were really good. ... [Harvey] was really that good.’’
Maddon brought a message of coolness with him to New York, the same one he has been spreading since spring training. This night was going to be like any other night, he had said before the game. The Cubs might have treated the game like any other, but the results looked a whole lot different.
Through the first four innings, the combination of the cold and Harvey’s pitching meant zero hits for the Cubs, or, in keeping with the meteorological theme, below-zero hits.
So what do you do? You put a warm body near the plate. Very, very near the plate. Anthony Rizzo, who led the majors by being hit a franchise-record 30 times by pitches, got plunked to start the fifth inning. Whatever it takes, right? Out went Harvey’s perfect game.
And out went his nohitter when Starlin Castro came to the plate next and ripped a double to center, scoring Rizzo and tying the game at 1. OK, so the Cubs, opportunistic all season, were going to go a different route than the six-homer game they had dropped on the Cardinals in the last series. They were going to go into the manufacturing business.
But then Castro got nailed at the plate on an ill-advised attempt to score from second on a single by Javy Baez. It ended up with Castro out by about three steps.
That’s how the game went.
“You can’t live and die in one game,’’ Rizzo said. “... We have to breathe a little bit.’’
On a night like this, it didn’t help having Ross in the lineup, even though he just missed a homer by a few feet in the third inning. He is Lester’s personal catcher, but it comes with a cost: a .176 regular-season batting average.
The Cubs walked away saying that the box score didn’t tell the whole story.
“We hit a lot of balls hard, right on it,’’ Castro said. “We can’t control that kind of stuff. They pitched very good, too.’’
With Jake Arrieta on the mound Sunday, there’s a chance five hits will be enough. He has been that dominant this season. But the Cubs would do themselves a big favor by preheating their bats.
Follow me on Twitter @MorrisseyCST.