Workload may
LOS ANGELES — For three innings Wednesday night, the Cubs appeared to be a jittery team headed for another unceremonious ending to a once-promising season.
By the time the fourth was over, they looked like the team that won 103 games and had visions of parades dancing through the heads of Chicagoans desperate for a championship.
A four-run inning snapped a club-record 21-inning scoreless streak, while a fiverun sixth vaulted the Cubs to a 10-2 rout of the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLCS, knotting the best-of-seven series at two games apiece.
“We responded in a big way today,” said Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who went 3-for-5 with a home run and three RBI.
The winner of the series will advance to the World Series against the Indians, who host the opener Tuesday after disposing of the Blue Jays in five games.
Joe Maddon’s decision to stick with struggling AllStars Rizzo and Addison Russell (a combined 3-for-50 WITHIN half an hour of the loss in the wild-card game earlier this month, Jeurys Familia was cleaning out his locker in the Mets’ quiet clubhouse. The closer rummaged through papers accumulated over the season and tossed them into a green garbage bag. As he turned and saw reporters waiting to talk to him about the three-run home run he gave up to little-know Giants third baseman Conor Gillaspie, Familia smiled and crushed what would have been a celebratory in the first seven postseason games) paid off. The pair went 6-for-10 with two homers, five RBI and four runs scored as the Cubs had their most prolific offensive night of the playoffs, allowing their anxious fan base to exhale for the moment.
“We’ve had 103 wins; this is our lineup that got us to that particular juncture,” Maddon said. “We had two tough nights. So what? I can’t overreact for two tough nights.”
Neither John Lackey nor Julio Urias factored into the decision as the Cubs chased Urias during their four-run cigar in his right hand. He threw it away and seemingly just as easily shrugged off another disappointing end to his and the Mets season.
Familia needs that ability to quickly move on mentally as a closer, but three blown saves in the 2015 World Series and losing a scoreless tie in the wild-card game earlier this month have the Mets and others revisiting his struggles in these big spots.
“I think that’s something we certainly need to be careful of and address,” Terry Collins said after the wild-card game when asked about Familia’s struggles in the playoffs