Rivals’ hurting only helps
As if Cubs’ situation isn’t promising enough, NL foes are banged up
PITTSBURGH — The Los Angeles Dodgers have used 15 different starting pitchers because of injuries this year.
After the New York Mets announced Tuesday that Steven Matz will have elbow surgery, they’re officially down to one power arm from the four who swept the Cubs out of the playoffs last year.
And the heart of the Washington Nationals’ batting order has taken game- changing broadsides in the last twoweeks, the latest coming this week when All- Star catcher Wilson Ramos tore his anterior cruciate ligament — with MVP candidate Daniel Murphy already sidelined indefinitely with a strained gluteus.
Could a league the Cubs bullrushed for nearly six months on their way to the playoffs suddenly be a less congested lane to the World Series?
“It’s kind of weird how this season hasworked out,” third baseman Kris Bryant said. “Right place at the right time. Maybe the baseball gods are on our side.
“But you never know,” he quickly added. “You never want to see anybody get hurt or anything like that. And even with the [ Nationals’ injuries], you look at their pitching staff, and I could say it’s comparable to the Mets from last year. They have a lot of guys who have stepped up this year.”
Maybe. But the Cubs, who were favored to win the World Series before they played their first spring training game, seem to only reach new heights and milestones as they close out the regular season. They now have 101 wins with five games to play, while the rest of the NL playoff field struggles to keep lineups and rotations intact.
And buy another rabbit’s foot or knock on some wood, but the guy on the mound Tuesday night earning that 101st win tells you all you need to know about the different directions the Cubs and some of the other NL contenders are headed.
Veteran right- hander John Lackey ( 11- 8) — the only pitcher from a Cubs opening rotation in two seasons to spend time on the disabled list — pitched five strong- enough innings in his fifth start back from a sore shoulder to beat the Pirates 6- 4.
“I don’t think our injuries have been as magnified because we’ve covered them pretty well, but we still had our moments like everybody else,” manager Joe Maddon said, mentioning Kyle Schwarber’s season- ending knee injury, center fielder Dexter Fowler’s midseason hamstring injury and recent issues with relievers Pedro Strop and Hector Rondon. “But when you get to right now, we’re getting well, which is hopefully a trend that continues.”
Fowler? He walked and scored in the second Tuesday and added a run- scoring double. Strop and Rondon are both back in the Cubs’ lateinning crew.
And the Cubs await an Oct. 7 home playoff opener against the beat- up survivor of a three- way wild- card race and the subsequent elimination game. If they advance, then it’s a home opener in the NL Championship Series against the Nationals or Dodgers.
Addressing the rash of injuries afflicting the Cubs’ potential playoff foes, playoff veteran Jason Heyward said, “None of that matters. None of that matters at all. We’ve been able to overcome our injuries and make the best of what we have, and that’s why you see us win 100 games right now. And that’s what I saw last year with that [ 2015 Cardinals] team.”
But Heyward’s 100- win Cardinals team was eliminated by the wild- card Cubs in the NLDS.
“Once the playoffs start, it’s a different animal,” said Heyward, who played for a 2010 wild- card team in Atlanta that he believed was good enough and hot enough at the right time to make a World Series run. “We thought we had that momentum you’ve seen wild- card teams have. But then [ Martin] Prado went down, and then [ closer] Billy Wagner went down. Chipper [ Jones] went down. Huge blows.
“Every game we played in that division series with San Francisco was a one- run game. And they went on to win the World Series.”