By Yours Truly
http://throneberryfields.com/2017/10/18/can-the-cubs-channel-their-inner-2004-red-sox/Well, it’s not like it’s unprecedented. But coming back from a 3-0 League Championship Series deficit isn’t
necessarily a day at the beach, or even along Lake Michigan. And the Cubs—who now have to channel their
inner 2004 Red Sox to do it—know it only too well.
The good news is that the Cubs don’t come into Game Four having to shake off anything even close to the
19-8 blowout the Yankees dropped on those Red Sox in Game Three of their ALCS.
The Dodgers beat the Cubs by a measly 6-1 in Game Three Tuesday. Is that the only good news the Cubs
bring to Wrigley Field today? Well, if they’re looking for talismans of any kind, Cubs president Theo Epstein
was the general manager of those Red Sox.
Maybe Epstein has a Dave Roberts bobblehead the Cubs can rub for good luck before each trip to the plate.
Just be sure it’s wearing a Red Sox uniform. Roberts has since grown up to manage the Dodgers. And he’s
not exactly inclined to be thinking of anything today other than putting one more boot on the Cubs’ necks.
“A message I do bring up is the sense of just being prepared for a particular moment, and I was in 2004,”
says Roberts about his theft of second against Hall of Famer in waiting Mariano Rivera in the bottom of the
ninth, leading to the tie score, the extra innings, and David Ortiz’s monster mash off lesser Yankee reliever
(and one-time Dodger setup lancer) Paul Quantrill.
The winning pitcher was practically an obscurity out of the Red Sox bullpen, Curt Leskanic. So that’s another
piece of good news for the Cubs—the least expected man can end up helping them live to play another day.
And just as The Mariano was considered the impenetrable force at the end of Yankee games, so is the Dodgers’
Kenley Jansen today. Further good news: even the mighty must fall once in awhile. Admit it, Cub Country.
You’ll take all the good news you can get.
More good news: The Cubs and the Dodgers don’t have even half the weight of history between them that the
Red Sox have always had with the Yankees. More bad news: That could change for the Cubs after Game Four.
Could.
As powerful as Ortiz was for the 2004 Red Sox, a lot of the key hitting was done by lesser lights. Roberts scored
the tying Game Four run when Bill Mueller—not exactly a lesser light, but not exactly in Ortiz’s class for raw
intimidation, either—drove him home.
Take heart, Cubs. Survive Game Four and then look back to those Red Sox for Game Five. The hero was Tim
Wakefield, usually a starter, but pitching innings 12-14 in relief. Look to your non-laurel from Game Two, John
Lackey. You just might yet come out of the bullpen and go from goat to Gargantua. You did pitch an inning
and two thirds scoreless in Game One, after all.
Ask those Yankees not for whom the Bellhorn tolled, he tolled for them, when Mark Bellhorn hit a three-run
homer that clanged off the metal screen on the foul poll to aid and abet Curt Schilling’s Old Blood and Sock
Game Six.
Pay attention, Cubs: if you can bring this off and somehow push it to a seventh game, you’ll be playing with
house money even in Dodger Stadium. Especially since it’s liable to be Yu Darvish’s game for the Dodgers.
Remember those ’04 Red Sox in their Game Seven. They made mincemeat out of starter Kevin Brown when
Big Papi hit a two-run homer in the first and Johnny Damon—the spiritual leader of those Idiots—went
salami in the second.
Darvish can look like Juan Marichal one game and Jack Fisher the next. Remember that, Cubs, and live. Come
to think of it, make sure the next time you see Darvish that you don’t give Roberts another opportunity to send
him up to hit for himself with the bases loaded and two out.
The guy’s a master of psychological warfare. Darvish kept showing bunt with no intention of dropping one down
when he batted with the pads padded against Carl Edwards, Jr. in Game Three’s top of the sixth, rattling Edwards
into a four-pitch unintentional RBI walk with antics that would have made Crazy Jimmy Piersall proud and the
Pee Wee League jealous.
That is what
Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Rosenbloom calls getting pantsed on national television. One can
think of far worse descriptions, and we’re willing to bet two thirds of Cub Country already has—regardless of
whether they can be repeated for family reading. Did we mention Darvish’s RBI would have made him second
on the Cubs for steaks in this NLCS?
Darvish flipped his bat to one side as if he’d hit a grand slam as he began strolling to first base.
Neener-neener.
And he earned every last
neener he might have purred on his way up the line.
All you need for Game Four, Cubs, is Jake Arrieta to pitch the game of his life against Alex Wood. All you need is
Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant and just about every Cub whose employment depends mostly on hitting to remember
their bats aren’t just for looking good in the on-deck circle. Remind the Schwarbinator it isn’t a brilliant idea to
follow up a solo bomb in the first with three straight ground outs to first base his next three times up.
Don’t forget to stop throwing Chris Taylor hittable fastballs. When Kyle Hendricks threw him one almost right
down the pipe in Game Three, in the top of the third, Taylor drove it over the center field wall. When Hendricks
threw one a little in but still up in the middle to start Taylor off in the top of the fifth, Taylor tripled home Joc
Pederson.
Make sure whoever you put behind the plate for Game Four, he has a snow shovel for a mitt. It’ll prevent such
passed balls as the one Willson Contreras let go Tuesday night to let Charlie Culberson beat out a strikeout to
first base, which also let Logan Forsythe score and Austin Barnes take third. Giving pinch hitter Kyle Farmer
room for a sacrifice fly and the sixth Dodger run.
You might also want to try playing outfielders in the outfield in Game Four. Playing a Game Three outfield with
an infielder playing center field didn’t do you any favours. And sending up a pinch hitter who’s 0-for-the-
postseason (Javier Baez, who’s going to be on the bench again for Game Four) instead of a pinch hitter who
actually has a hit in the LCS (Albert Almora, Jr., and his hit was a bomb) isn’t the way to channel your inner
2004 Red Sox.
And
stop handing out the free passes. This isn’t opening night in Madison Square Garden, and you’re not Pearl
Jam even if you do get Eddie Vedder to sing the seventh inning stretch every so often. It’s helping you look
like you deserve to be anywhere but defending a World Series title when your pitching staff hands out 43 walks
in eight postseason games.
Forget the 2004 Red Sox, Cubs. You’re beginning to look even luckier to have gotten past the poor Nationals
than you looked surviving that Bizarro World division series Game Five. You actually have less chance of
surviving your Game Four than those Red Sox did, and they got so badly blown out in their Game Three they
could have filed human rights violations charges at the Hague.
So take that as motivation, Cubs. With no historical weight to weigh you down. At least you won it all in 2016.
The Dodgers haven’t won it all since the end of the Reagan Administration, and not for lack of trying. The
historical weight is actually on them today, but they’ve been playing like it’s nothing more than a paperweight.
Do you really want to be the guys who remove that weight?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
@Polly Ticks @Machiavelli @DCPatriot @Cyber Liberty @Slip18 @Bigun @TomSea @catfish1957 @flowers @Mom MD @musiclady @GrouchoTex 
