All that is left for the Chicago Cubs to do is make history.
The Cubs returned home to Wrigley Field with a 3-2 lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series and were yesterday ready for their opportunity to end a more than seven-decade wait to return to the World Series.
“We’re not going to run away from anything,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “It’s within our reach right now. But I do want us to go after it as though it’s, again, hate to say it, but Saturday. Let’s just go play our Saturday game and see how it falls.”
Photo: EPA
For a franchise defined more by heartbreak and losing, yesterday was to be no ordinary Saturday. Then again, this has been no ordinary baseball season.
The Cubs led the majors with 103 wins and ran away with the NL Central title. They won more games than any Cubs team since 1910, and if they beat Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers, they will face Cleveland in their first World Series since 1945.
That, of course, will put them on the verge of their first championship since 1908.
However, before they can think about that, they have to get to the World Series, and their first opportunity comes against one of the game’s most dominant pitchers in Kershaw. The Cubs will go with major league ERA leader Kyle Hendricks in Game 6.
If necessary, Game 7 will be today.
“We’ve won two games in a row before,” Los Angeles’ Adrian Gonzalez said. “Nothing says we can’t do it Saturday and Sunday.”
The Cubs put themselves in this position by shaking off back-to-back shutout losses and combining to score 18 runs in the past two games.
Jon Lester threw seven solid innings and Addison Russell continued his resurgence at the plate with a tiebreaking home run as the Cubs beat the Dodgers 8-4 on Thursday.
Russell has gone deep in back-to-back games and is 5-for-10 after going 1-for-24 to start the post-season. Anthony Rizzo is also connecting, with five hits and a homer over the past two games after going 2-for-26. Javier Baez continues to come through with big hits and making sensational plays at second base.
Now, it is up to Kershaw to cool off the Cubs.
The three-time NL Cy Young Award winner is 2-0 with a 3.72 ERA in three starts and one relief appearance this post-season and has been erasing a reputation for struggling in the playoffs. He came through with two decent starts against Washington in the NLDS and closed out the series-clinching win.
He was nothing short of spectacular against Chicago in Game 2, pitching two-hit ball over seven innings before Kenley Jansen closed out a 1-0 victory.
Kershaw was ready to pitch Thursday on three days’ rest. He will get five between starts instead, though he will be pitching for the fourth time in 12 days.
“We’re down a game, but we’ve won on the road before,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We’ve won two games before. And I think that for us it’s an isolated focus on Game 6. We get a rested Kersh. So with that, we feel good.”
However, it is the Cubs who are in position to move on.
World War II had just ended the last time they won the pennant, and the World Series that year is remembered as much for a goat and a curse as it is for the Detroit Tigers winning in seven games.
The Cubs angered Billy Goat Tavern owner Billy Sianis when they asked him to leave Game 4 because the odor of his pet goat Murphy was bothering fans. Sianis supposedly placed a curse on the franchise, and since then, it has been mostly pain for the long-suffering Cubs fans.
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