By Yours Truly
http://throneberryfields.com/2017/10/19/the-cubs-pumpkin-is-still-a-coach-for-now/Cinderella bought one extra day, at minimum, before the coach turns back to a pumpkin. Joe Hardy had
Applegate blocked at all gates. A guy who began Wednesday evening having gone 0-for-the-postseason
at the plate hit two out.
And nobody had to steal a base with two out in the bottom of the ninth, either. It didn’t get that far in
Wrigley Field. If it had, instead of singing “Go, Cubs, Go!” when it ended in the arduous 3-2 Cubs win,
Cub Country would have been singing the Rolling Stones’s chestnut, “19th Nervous Breakdown.”
Maybe these Cubs were mindful of the fact that the man who instigated the 2004 Red Sox’s surrealistic
American League Championship Series overthrow with a two-out, bottom of the ninth stolen base was
in the Dodgers’ dugout managing that crew.
Maybe they couldn’t have cared less, any more than the ’04 Red Sox cared about the legends of Red
Sox calamities past.
But it didn’t exactly hurt that the only thing happening in the ninth inning was Cubs closer Wade Davis,
possibly a little gassed from throwing a 33-pitch eighth, and having to put in his own slightly insane
nine-pitch plate appearance in the bottom of the inning, which looked a little bit like getting a pitching
save from Ernie Banks.
Davis may have been on fumes or rust or both by then—that was him you haven’t seen on the mound
since that seven-out save to end the division series last week, though you should have in Game Two—
shaking off a one-out walk to lure Cody Bellinger into dialing Area Code 5-6-3 to end the game.
Before any Cub had to worry about performing any tricks, magic, miracles, or sleight of foot, likely
against Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen if the Dodgers managed to tie it up or take a lead.
Maybe the only magic needed on the evening was that which they got from Jake Arrieta—whose barking
hamstring kept him to one start since 29 September—starting and keeping the Dodgers to nothing but
a Bellinger bomb in the third.
Arrieta gradually lost his stuff as the game went on but—possibly knowing manager Joe Maddon trusted
most of his bullpen about as far as he could throw a rapid transit train car—he hung in, hung on, hung
tight, until his tank ran too far past E in the top of the seventh. That’s when he walked two and got a
second out barely, on a squibber in front of the plate for a force out.
Maddon had no more choice. There had to be someone he could count on with Bellinger, the likely National
League Rookie of the Year, coming up before getting the game to a six-out Davis save. There was:
lefthander Brian (You Make Me Feel Like) Duensing, whose reverse split favoured him pitching to the
righthanded Bellinger—Duensing on the season kept righthanded hitters to a .237 batting average
against him.
Bellinger popped up into no-man’s land in shallow left, shortstop Addison Russell and left field transplant
Jon Jay converging before Jay called Russell off and slide for the side-retiring catch. Bingo.
“It was fun. Big situation,” Duensing said after the game. “I tried to stay calm and execute pitches. I
was able to do it. I guess it was the biggest out I’ve ever had.”
Javier Baez hitting a pair of home runs early in the game off Dodger starter Alex Wood helped big. The
deft second baseman with the well respected glove who’d been an invisible bat until the bottom of the
second hit one down the left field line and over the wall, one out after Cubs catcher Willson Contreras
blasted a one-out bomb about 491 feet from home.
For the fourth time in the NLCS the Cubs scored first. Until Game Five, it never fazed the Dodgers. As
if to make that point one more time, Bellinger with one out in the top of the third caught hold of a 1-0
Arrieta slider and drove it down the right field line and into the low bleachers.
Been there, done that, we can come back to win with our ankles bound together, he must have thought
rounding the bases.
Baez waited patiently until the bottom of the fifth to answer. Then, with one out this time, he reached
for Wood’s low changeup and sent it more squarely into the left field bleachers.
“Not trying too hard, man,” Baez said after the game, when asked where he suddenly found his power plant
after being one of the Cubs’ foremost offensive flops in the series. “I’ve been trying my best to get ahead.
Today I was like, I’m just not going to try too much. And there you have it.”
Maybe Baez should just stay away from the cage or pre-game practise for Game Five? Even with Clayton
Kershaw looming for the Dodgers? Baez might have a couple of grand slams in him based on that thinking.
After three NLCS games the Dodgers’ off-the-chart pitching finally faltered. At the same time, the Cubs quit
playing like whipped puppies and started playing like something resembling the defending world champions
they’re supposed to be. Not that Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant suddenly shook off their postseason futility,
but this time there were lesser men ready, willing, and able to step up and step high.
A free agent after the Cubs’ season ends, whenever that might be, Arrieta entered the game determined not
to let even his time off for his hamstring’s bad behaviour steal a final moment of Cub glory from him. “I’ve
been in this situation several times before and I enjoy it,” he said. “If it comes down to someone pitching us
into another game, I like my chances.”
If it gets that far, the Cubs just might think about pulling him in from the bullpen in a seventh game. All he
needs is to take that kind of thinking out to the mound with him. It’ll do just what it did for him in Game
Four, let him keep the Dodgers at bay even when his best pitches go AWOL.
Davis probably scared the living daylights out of Cub Country when his assignment began the wrong way,
with Justin Turner driving a shaky 3-1 service into the left field bleachers. He also inadvertently reminded
everyone of what was blown in Game Two, when Maddon failed to bring him in for the bottom of the ninth
in Los Angeles and Turner ended up walking it off with a three-run homer.
Remembering the seven-out save he secured in that insane division series finish, Davis said, “I was definitely
tired after that for a day or two.” For a day or two. Meaning he would have been just fine working in Game
Two.
Right now, the only thing plaguing Davis is the walk. “The walks have been killing me,” said the righthander,
who just fought raw when what was left of his stuff took a hike Wednesday night. “Definitely have to get
better at that.”
There was nothing he could do about Game Two’s single most surreal moment, though. With one on and one
out after Bryant made a striking catch of Andre Ethier’s foul pop, Bryant bumping against the dugout as he
snared the ball, Davis wrung Curtis Granderson, the Dodgers’ heretofore futile late-stretch acquisition from
the Mets, to 2-2 before throwing him a cutter breaking to the dirt.
Granderson swung. Strike three. Granderson pointed, claiming he’d fouled the pitch off and Contreras had
only smothered the ball off the foul. Roberts asked for an umpires’ conference, not a review, which you can’t
ask for on strike three, and the umpires conferred.
The swing was replayed on the Wrigley Field Jumbotron as if it was the I Love Lucy “Vitametavegamin” episode
rerun. Except that the umpires never looked at it, no matter how hard Maddon tried to persuade them to look
and see there was no foul, no matter how hard he tried pleading he heard two sounds on the swing, and
reversed the strikeout call.
Maddon got himself purged and Granderson stepped back into the batter’s box. And struck out anyway, no
questions asked. Granderson probably saved Wrigley Field a slightly embarrassing event, if Maddon’s post
mortem can be believed.
“To have that changed—if Granderson hits the next pitch out,” the skipper said, “I might come running out
of the clubhouse in my jockstrap.”
Everything about Game Four was surreal enough that the sight of Maddon in that state of undress might
not have shocked anyone. Chicago was shocked enough that their Cubs survived. The entire United States
probably was, too.
The Cubs have only to keep bargaining with the fairy godmother and make sure Applegate can’t get even
one toe through the turnstiles tonight. But was Game Four enough to convince people to refrain from
betting against them?
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