The Long Wait

No, not THAT one.  I’m talking about the long wait until 7:08pm tomorrow.  These waits with the offday in between are just so, so long.  I already spend so much overthinking things, now I have another 24 or so hours to question and re-question everything I think I’ve convinced myself to think to feel. 

Anyhow, the Cubs are in position to clinch the pennant at home.  It’s a big moment, and as much as I try, it’s impossible to ignore history.  Luckily, history doesn’t really matter; or it doesn’t matter in how the game will play out.  There’s going to be so much talk about what happened last time, and any little play that might be similar is going to be compared to then.  It’s going to be hard to ignore all of that sort of nonsense.  But like I’ve been saying all year, this team isn’t those teams; these players, aren’t those players.  Now isn’t then.

I don’t like speculating or trying to project what the players are thinking or feeling.  So this next bit is out of character, but thinking about it does make me feel a little better.  If there’s any evidence - a big *if* - of either team feeling the pressure here, or letting the pressure affect them, it sure doesn’t appear to be the Cubs.  It was a silly, pointless moment, but last night there was a pop-up Rizzo caught, and Baez got a little too close, jokingly.  Rizzo laughed and threw the ball of Baez.  It likely means absolutely nothing, but it was a neat little exchange (that still made everyone a little nervous), but showed at least how those two were feeling.  At the same time, I feel like pressure is getting to the Dodgers.  They’re making a lot of little mistakes, things that seem out of character; Roberts appears to be overthinking -the IBBs in game 1, pulling Maeda before Lester’s AB, all the empty talk about bunting and running on Lester that led nowhere.  Those aren’t the moves of a guy who feels like he’s in control as much as a guy who wants you to think he’s in control.

Obviously, most of that paragraph is probably just useless bullshit.  It would also be completely irrelevant if Kershaw comes out and is as dominant tomorrow as he was in game 2.  On the other hand, I think the Cubs were starting to get to him.  He only threw 84 pitches, but at the end he looked like he’d thrown more.  Last night Smoltz talked about the mental stress on Lester, and how he probably felt like he’d thrown a lot more pitches.  The Cubs couldn’t touch Kershaw early, but the end of the game they’d hit a bunch of rockets off him; Baez’s last flyout was the hardest hit ball of that entire game.  I’m not going to predict the Cubs are going to knock Kershaw around, but I feel like they’ll look less helpless against him.  I have faith in Hendricks, and the defense, and there really hasn’t been a lot from the Dodgers’ offense this series to scare me.  Sure, I’m a little worried about Chapman, and maybe Rondon and Strop, but for the most part Maddon has put people in the best situations to succeed possible.  It’s probably going to be another cool, wind blowing in sort of night.  The Cubs offense can, and will, scratch enough out baserunners that they won’t need to count on the big home run, but they still could hit one.

Here’s to a mostly stressless 34 hours or so until gametime…