Playoff pressure is turning
LOS ANGELES — Is it the pitching or the pressure? Right now it feels as if the mighty Cubs are feeling the pressure, as they carry the expectations of a 103-win season and the hopes of a city starving for a championship. With that ever-elusive World Series within reach, they look paralyzed at the plate.
Joe Maddon practically admitted as much after his team’s 6-0 loss to the Dodgers in Game 3 of the NLCS on Tuesday night.
“It’s more of a mental trend than physical,” he said. “We have to push back mentally. There is really no excuse. We just have to pick it up quickly.” Are they tough-minded enough? The ’98 Yankees found themselves down 2-1 in Cleveland in the ALCS and fought back to win it all, validating their 114-win season.
The 2001 Mariners lost the first two ALCS games at home to the Yankees, and despite Lou Piniella’s angry guarantee that the series return to Seattle, they lost in five, diminishing their record-tying 116 wins.
In an era of parity the Cubs’ 103 wins this season separated them from the pack by eight more than any other team in baseball, so to some degree the comparison is valid. And for a team that went wire-to-wire in a joyride of a season, this makes for an urgent moment of truth: How do the Cubs respond? It is all the more fascinating because of the history, the 108 years without a championship, the curses attached to the drought, etc. And you have to think America will be captivated by the drama, now that the Cubs have a deficit to overcome.
They only trail 2-1, but they looked so helpless at the plate again that you know there is complete panic in Chicago among their fatalistic fans.
As for the Cubs themselves, they stood in their clubhouse afterward and tried their best to sound confident.
“We’re a team that hits,” Javy Baez said. “We haven’t done it, but it’s coming.”
Is it? They’ve been shut out for two straight games, and talk about history: the 18 innings without a run is the longest in their post-season history.
So what’s up with the Cubbies, anyway? This is an offense that outscored everyone in the National League except the high-altitude Rockies, and now it can’t put together a few good at-bats, never mind a rally. It was easy enough to chalk up the Game 2 shutout to Clayton Kershaw’s brilliance, though the Dodger lefty said himself that he got away with mistake-pitches in a