By Yours Truly
http://throneberryfields.com/2016/10/15/the-cubs-screw-with-and-slam-the-dodgers-gutsy-thinking/You understood what Dave Roberts was thinking. Now, try to understand the net result. Wrigleyville may not quite understand it
even if it worked out in their favour—and they were there.
I say again—this is the sort of thing that used to be done
to the Cubs, not
by them. Every Cub in creation must have thought,
“Boy, that guy has no fear!” Something Roberts proved to get his Dodgers to the National League Championship Series in the
first place.
Never mind that the Dodgers tied it up at three in the eighth against Aroldis Chapman, who came in on Cub manager Joe
Maddon’s own bold move. Not every manager asks his closer for a six out save, never mind telling him, “Oh, by the way,
you’ve got ducks on the pond and a noose around your neck to open.”
Not every club picks up that closer when he gets pried for two tying runs with a five-run tiebreaking reply in the next moment,
either. It was the least they could do for sending him out there with the noose just waiting to be tightened before he threw his
first pitch.
And when Roberts decided to walk the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth in Game One, with Chapman’s lineup spot
due to follow, the better to get Chapman out of the Dodgers’ hair despite tying it up on him, even the Cubs had to concede
Roberts was making the guts move of the postseason.
Which didn’t mean they were going to let him get away with it.
Now, Dodger reliever Joe Blanton had ducks on the pond and two out, and pinch hitter Miguel Montero checking in at the
plate. Then, he had two strikes on him. Then, Montero turned on a hanging slider and hung it into the right field bleachers.
And Wrigley Field went from sitting
shiva to bedlam.
Then Dexter Fowler followed Montero and hit the first pitch Blanton fed him into the same region. It took Grant Dayton
relieving the chastened Blanton after Kris Bryant’s followup double to end the Dodger nightmare.
But whatever you think after the Cubs smothered the Dodgers late for the 8-4 Game One triumph, Roberts showed stones
to spare letting the ducks on the pond on the house to get Chapman out of the game post haste.
Was it his fault the Cubs had another round of eleventh-hour mojo working?
“I told them I’m good to go,” said Montero, whose back trouble actually made him an NLCS question mark going in. Now,
he’s an exclamation point. “I said it before, you’re going to have to hit me in a wheelchair . . . As a hitter, you visualise
times like these.” It was only the third pinch salami in postseason history.
As Dodgers, nobody in the opposing dugout visualised a time like that. .
Once upon a time, Cub Country would have visualised only that the Cubs would have shrunk after what the Dodgers did
to them in the eighth. Cub history is loaded with moments in which the other guys upended them and they crumpled.
Never mind Jon Lester’s sterling start, blemished only by Andre Ethier’s pinch hit bomb in the fifth. Or Kris Bryant ripping
an RBI double before the first Cub out of the game, Javier Baez ripping an RBI double in the second before the first Cub
out of the inning, or Baez, one out later—after taking third on a wild pitch by Dodger starter Kenta Maeda—stealing home
after he decoyed catcher Carlos Ruiz inadvertently (Baez was leaning a little too far off third) to throwing a little wild to third as he took off.
Or Fowler stealing a couple of Dodger hits with catches reminiscent of trapeze artists. Or Ben Zobrist throwing Adrian
Gonzalez out at home.
Hands up to those who saw the ghosts of Cubs postseason teams past, those hapless fellows who had few to no answers
when upended near the finish, when Andrew Toles, pinch hitting for Dodger reliever Ross Stripling, singled to left to lead
off the top of the eighth.
When Chase Utley followed by wringing out a five-pitch walk. When Justin Turner followed with a nub single to third
loading them up and bringing in Chapman. When Chapman struck out Corey Seager and Yasiel Puig, before Gonzalez
almost sawed Chapman in half with a line single up the pipe to tie it at three.
But in case you hadn’t heard it yet (
ad nauseam?), these are not your father’s, your grandfather’s your great-grandfather’s,
or your great-great-grandfather’s Cubs.
Those Cubs wouldn’t have retaliated in the bottom of the same inning with a leadoff double (Zobrist) before accepting a
pair of intentional walks around two outs, before—forced to pinch hit for their pitcher—sending up a pinch hitter who
thought nothing of going salami. And those Cubs wouldn’t have seen the next man up hit one out solo for good
measure.
Neither would those Cubs have shaken off an almost excuse-
us! RBI double with one out in the top of the ninth by luring
an Utley to line into a game-ending double play.
What
these Cubs come up with? The words may not be invented just yet. Not even in . . . the Twilight Zone.
